h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ok people.

BBC/h2g2 failed the whole of me entry A535321 (published Apr 13, 2001... over a year ago) because one of the links (officially edited version at A588170) mentioned the www-site of a Dutch city
i.e. "www. [Dutch city] .nl"
Reason for this is:
"It has been removed on the grounds that it contains a broken link, or a link to an unsuitable external website."

Explained by Linda later as:
"We still can't allow links to external websites that are entirely in non-English Languages though, so if you take the link below out, you can reinstate your entry."

I feel that if I link to an official page of a non-English city that link should be allowed.
The moderation is an act of BBC colonialism (http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/media/story.jsp?story=291712
and F19585?thread=182130)

It is *obviously* a link to a *city* I referred to in my entry. If the *official* site of a city is only available to the Dutch-speaking minority on Earth so be it. The BBC might not like it, but that is RL. This is not a link to a pub, to a club, to an association. This is a link to the official www-page of a Dutch city.

However, the BBC should get their idea wrapped around the fact that not everybody on Earth speaks English and that not everybody thinks that they should provide an English translation of their page.

Am I mad? Or ? Or right?

Tube, are you trying to link to Pornville, Netherlands again?

I'm trying to think of something witty to say about the Dutch and their dikes and ideas that h2g2 would find unacceptable, but I can't quite put my finger on it, so to speak.

Tube, you are both mad and right...

As denizens of h2g2 we have to ask ourselves whether we prefer the Italics to have rules, or to use their judegement. We can't have it both ways...

Ben

And it still bugs me that a broken link or an "unacceptable" link causes the whole page to be spanked. Ostensibly the reason for doing it that way is that researchers might forget or lose the link if moderators deleted it outright.

Still seems odd that a swear word gets ast*risks through that one word, but a broken link pulls down the whole page.

....esp. if the link in question works perfectly...

Tube
not so anymore

"Unsuitable sites would include those with racist material, pornographic or sexually explicit material, potentially defamatory material, anything which encourages illegal activities, material which infringes copyright, sites which purely plug or promote commercial products or services without containing material which enhances the subject matter, or sites which may offend our users."

The House Rules do not say a word about external non-English sites to be unsuitable.
I wish to add that it was the first time that I had such a link taken off the air, and I do post a number of purely German URLs

"Unsuitable sites would include those with racist material, pornographic or sexually explicit material, potentially defamatory material, anything which encourages illegal activities, material which infringes copyright, sites which purely plug or promote commercial products or services without containing material which enhances the subject matter, or sites which may offend our users."

The House Rules do not say a word about external non-English sites to be unsuitable.
I wish to add that it was the first time that I had such a link taken off the air, and I do post a number of purely German URLs

Good point about the rules, Tube; and good point about the l**ks, Subcom.

B

*sigh*
There is a certain logic to this madness, if you look hard enough for it. The BBC doesn't allow non-English on its site because it has a pathalogical need to judge everything for offensive content. And it also has a pathological need to judge external websites - I was once told I could *never* link to a certain external website because it had once lost a libel case. How can it sit as lord high executioner over the places we link to if they're written in a foreign language?

I would hope that some common sense could be exercised here - the website for a dutch town is unlikely to be peddling in the sort of stuff that might make the BBC break into a sweat. It can be observed from the pictures that the quantity of hard-core filth and nazi memorabilia is low. A sense of perspective would be a fine thing - "reasonable care" does not extend to paying someone to translate every external website into BBC English...

It all makes me glad I signed the Freedom Petition: A544943

-Xanthia

Good lord, and I thought this was on the soapbox page. Teach me to check locations before posting...

Why is a perfectly reasonable need for a major ,publicly funded broadcasting agency to ensure that they are not displaying offensive material 'pathological'?
Does that type of reaction carry the debate any further? I think not.

Tuibe-as to the page disappearing because of a link, yeah, that sucks. Have you tried asking for the page to put back with only the link taken out? That would seem to be the obvious first step here.

The desire to not display offensive material isn't pathologicial. A desire to carry NO offensive material, nor any material that my be potentially offensive, nor linking to any offensive material, considering all material offensive until proven inoffensive, and letting that desire override all other considerations - that's not reasonable and it is pathological.

I'm sure that my opinions don't carry the debate any distance - no further than do your opinions of my opinions, in fact. On the other hand, I suggested one reason why the BBC may have imposed this restriction, and that might carry the debate a few metres, at least.

Not everything that is unconstructive is invalid
-Xanthia

It's not pathological of the BBC to understand that rags like the Mail watch their every move like hawks.
It will only take one link to slip through that is unsuitable and the tabloids will have a field day with it.

Hi Tube,

I’ve been trying to make a start on getting some of the non-English postings and entries back on site, which is why your entry came up in the queue.

As I can’t read Dutch, I failed the link. Now that I’ve been assured that the link is to the official website of a Dutch city, I could let it pass. However – this would then make me ‘inconsistent’. As I could pass this, then fail the next one that I see as it’s to a ‘pub, to a club, to an association’.

Would you, as a Researcher, prefer me to stick 100% to the rules, all of the time, or to be inconsistent? Think very carefully before you answer.

‘However, the BBC should get their idea wrapped around the fact that not everybody on Earth speaks English and that not everybody thinks that they should provide an English translation of their page.’
As the BBC is a British company, paid for by the British licence paying public, and based in England, it’s totally reasonable that they want their website to be available to British-speaking people.

Can I just say out that if putting the non-English languages back on site starts causing a lot of problems, I’m not going to be able to carry on.

And paying too much attention to the views of tabloids is also pathological, or at the least shows a lack of perspective. Back when the BBC linked to the BMP website, it generated several newspaper articles. For about a day. The following day, the sun still rose, and the sun still set, and life went on as usual.

If I recall, Blues Shark, you have a particularly low opinion of the tabloids - do you honestly believe the BBC should allow its links policy to be dictated by people like Richard "Dirty" Desmond or Rupert Murdoch? I'm having a lot of difficulty thinking of people less suited to the task...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk_politics/newsid_1984000/1984083.stm

> "Would you, as a Researcher, prefer me to stick 100% to the rules..."

The rules don't say that links to foreign language sites are unacceptable - as already said, there's a long list of what constitutes an unsuitable site, and being in dutch isn't on there. If the rules are correct, then you should pass the link, so as not to be inconsistent with those rules.

If the rules are incorrect, then you should fix them, and then you might re-ask the question. But it'd seem a little perverse to censor a link in order to be consistent with rules that don't actually exist yet, no?

-Martin

:
1) I actually think what Linda has said here sums this up pretty well, to be honest. Picking holes in the house rules is a pedants trick. Everybody on this site pretty much knows what the rules about foreign language posting and links are, so lets not play that game.
2) It matters not one jot whether or not the tabloids, in their self-appointed role as the keepers of the nations morals are the best people to judge what is acceptable or not on the BBC. Like everybody else who inhabits the real world, they have to choose where and when to fight their battles. Do they expend a great deal of effort fighting the tabloids because of foreign language links on what is, after all, a pretty minor part of their overall startegy, or do they save their energy for fighting the battle over their next piece of drama or comedy that offends the Mail?
I know which I'd rather have.

Blues Shark -

I didn't mean to be causing deep breaths to be taken. Let's start off by agreeing to disagree on point #2: You think the BBC policy makers are being sensible, I think they're not - both are sincerely held views, and it's been discussed before to no avail. Deal?



I've always known about the rules about posting foreign languages on the BBC. That's been absolutely clear, however regretful the policy. However, this is the first time I've seen any mention that we cannot link to foreign sites. And Tube says he has posted links to foreign sites, and they have been passed in the past.

I'm sorry if you see this point as a pedants trick, or a game - but this ruling did genuinely surprise me, and it isn't clear to me from the house rules. I don't know how to prove that to you - except to say that my alternative house rules didn't mention this as an issue, and I've tried to put all potential issues there. I can't speak for everyone else on this site, but Tube and Deidzoeb appear to have been taken equally by surprise, judging from this conversation.

The rules are specifically *different* for content on the BBC and content linked from the BBC - Linda said "We can't allow links to external websites that are entirely in non-English Languages" - but presumably they allow links to external websites that are only partially in non-English Languages - certainly I've seen plenty of such links. But I don't know.

Linda says that to leave this link unmoderated would be inconsistent. Maybe, but the converse is also true - removing this link would be inconsistent with previous moderation decisions, and inconsistent with the house rules. It is probably consistent with BBC policy. I don't know.



Now, in order to have a vaguely productive discussion, we need to know what the rules actually are. Is it BBC policy never to link to a foreign language site? Or only to link to it if they can be reasonably sure that it is free of dodgy content? Or something else?

I've consistently asked for clear rules, and I hope my alternative house rules demonstrate that this is a genuine desire rather than some nasty debating point. If BBC policy has changed, and it effects us, then it's entirely reasonable that we be told about it, and in due course I'm sure we will. It would be an additional but unnecessary bonus to know what the reason for this policy is.

-Martin

If challenged to prove the point, I'd guess they'll hang their hat on the 'unsuitable links' part of the rules.
By a logical extension of that which you cannot do -ie *post* in a foreign language, it seems reasonable that you cannot link to a foreign language *site*, which per se would be deemed 'unsuitable'. I can see the point, though I can also see why it upsets.
But-if the Rules are changed now to *specifically* include foreign language sites, will the editors then be criticised for changing the rules retro-actively to suit there own (inconsistent?) needs?

I'm happy enough for rules to be changed retro-actively - For example, I'd be delighted if the BBC reinstated all those external links in forums they previously spent so much time and money moderating away. On the other hand, I'm not happy for any kind of punishments to be made retro-active, as I've said before. Since there's no indication that Tube is to be given a warning for his red hot dutch links, I've no problem.