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

If you believe the ban on foreign languages to be illegal, then you are welcome to bring an appropriate court case to try and demonstrate this. There has been some success in the USA by lawyers arguing that message boards are "public meeting places", and hence people using them have the constitutional right to free expression. Similar arguments may yet be successful in Europe under the Convention.

IANAL, TINLA

-Martin

Thanks Linda

thats all I wuz after I quick note to let us know were not being ignored.

BUT...
wasn’t it slightly irresponsible of the Editors to implement this ban which the Editors must of known would cause upset and controversy at a time when the Editors would be unable to respond

Thanks Linda!

I yikesed the House Rules themselves because I felt (and Titania feels) that including Foreign Language postings in the same sentence as racism, pornography and other objectionable practises is itself objectionable. The decision was that the h2g2 moderation team do not agree with me and are not going to change the wording of the rule.

Hi Gnomon,

We're both looking at http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/HouseRules ?

Which sentence are you referring to? As far as I can see, the rule referring to languages, 'Postings or entries containing languages other than English may be removed' is the sixth bullet point in the House Rules, and it stands as a sentence all on it's own.

It follows items such as, 'Please be patient' and 'No advertising'.

Are you looking at a different page, or am I just not seeing the sentence you are refering to?

remember your freedom!

there people lot less off and some are even impreeisoned for speakin out!

http://www.amnesty.org/
http://www.unesco.org/human_rights/index.htm

soon the BBC will change policy!

Hi Peta! The sentence in the House Rules I was referring to was:

"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, sites which are in languages other than English, or sites which may offend our users."

This is like talking about criminals, pornographers and speakers of foreign languages.

I think sie means:

> "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, sites which are in languages other than English, or sites which may offend our users."

Which contains "sites in languages other than English" and "pornographic or sexually explicit material". I don't find the wording offensive, myself, but there you are.

-Martin

I presume Gnomon means this bit:

"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, sites which are in languages other than English, or sites which may offend our users."

Though extrapolating this to infer that we class non-English languages as equivalent to porn is an interesting way of reading it.

Anyway, a moderation decision has been made, so I'll stand by that.

Triple simul-post? Is there some kind of prize for that?

-MRD

Yeah. We all disappear in a puff of sm...

How come you (Gnomon) didn't complain that it talks about commercial sites in the same breath as pornographic sites? Or are we all agreed that certain companies are morally repugnant filth?

-MRD (naming no names)

*waits for official comment on Non-English British languages*

And where can I find an online currency convertor so I can talk pounds shillings and pence? I wouldn't want to get banned for talking real money.
~j~

Perhaps a the motto under the BBC crest needs a revision...


"Nation shall speak peace unto Nation"... but only in english.

And what about the metric system? *possibly being sarchastic*

Mark, I'm the one that brought up the House Rule wording in this conversation - I don't know, maybe it's because English isn't my first language that I find it offensive, but I'm sure I'm not the only one!

Or maybe it's because I tend to take all postings limiting my possibilities to express myself in my own language as a personal insult (although I know it's not intended that way, and that I'm a bit touchy on that subject, but that's probably because I miss the pre-Rupert time) feeling that I'm not to be trusted...

...and I'd also like to draw the attention to the other thing I mentioned in my posting no.170

So if I want to tell my h2g2 friends about Sweden (or Finland) and want to illustrate it by referring to a Swedish or Finnish site, maybe because of the beautiful pictures - then I can't, unless the site contains a translation into English?

Do you have any idea how many Swedish sites that are in Swedish only? And thank God for that - there's still hope for the Swedish language despite the primarily American influx of expressions!

Maybe you should remove the URL to the official site of 'Astrid Lindgren' in my edited entry on the author Astrid Lindgren <./>A692840<./> - because it's only in Swedish!!!

And there are actually researchers who are interested in learning more about *my* country, seeing beyond the borders of their own country, just as I have put a lot of effort into learning English! And how are my efforts awarded? Pah! Bah! Mistrust, censorship, moderation!

*drifting off tossing her head, narrowly escaping stumbling over her own feet, to do some more sulking, still refusing to change the Swedish parts of her user name that got said user name moderated*

Is American english realy english?

Alji

Going back a bit (and slightly off topic - sorry!):

Gnomon - 'Britain' is a word of Celtic derivation and therefore should be rather less offensive to the Irish than to the Anglo-Saxon or Norman English!

*Also waiting for Italic response on the subject of non-English British languages*