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

You have to trust the mods, moderation will never work if you can't trust the mods.

It wouldn't be that hard to do, just start all moderation reports with "ABOUT IRAQ", and then do some sort of SQL query to find all those reports and reverse them. I don't know if that's possible, but if it is, then it wouldn't need any coding changes at all.

Tango

Some of us already know we can't trust the mods. They make mistakes just like everyone else. The italics have stated on multiple occasions that they check moderation decisions. There wouldn't be a need if mistakes couldn't be made. Statistically that still leaves some unknown probability of a mistake being made at both stages.

Of course the "ABOUT IRAQ" string could have been put in if you were planning to do a reversal all along but I don't get the imression that anyone was (or even is). Merely searching for "IRAQ" in the text of posts with the hidden flag set rather than in moderation comments would do half the job now. The cryptic ones would be harder to locate.

You underestimate the complexity of a large-scale relational database like dna. Such an SQL query would be simple enough to write, but the ODBC (or whatever) C++ code needed to reverse the moderation based on that would be pretty damn complicated. And on top of that, every post has to be "de-moderated" (like the big clean-up) in case they contravene the house rules in another way.

It's not an easy job, as I'm fast discovering with my small-scale dna-like CMS I'm writing in my spare time.

~

Has there been a regime change at h2g2?

I figured they were gone.
Seems like it could be a technical nightmare to bring them back

Hi

I just want to respond to Peet, who picked me up on the House Rules v the Iraq Guidelines point.

While I can see your point, the Iraq Guidelines formed part of the House Rules while they were in place. That is why they were listed on that page. Either way it clearly stated that postings about Iraq would be failed and most Researchers were fully aware of the policy, but posted anyway.

> "most Researchers were fully aware of the policy, but posted anyway"

That sounds like you didn't want any of us to post anything at all!

Oh it's so great to be in an environment with other pedants!

Or, more precisely,...

My postings about the ... were deleted, but I don't see and feel the need to get them still posted at H2G2. They are a regrettable mark at the site (although invisible) and "it's history".

Let's move on(although I was very, véry upset about the policy here)
and now there is the opportunity to share opinions about the after-war.

What gives me a feeling of satisfaction (what even Mick Jagger couldn't always find) are the emotions behind the postings in this topic.

They show - to me - a great involvement, anxiety and concern for aswell great events in the harsh world outside, aswell the digital world at h2g2.

A very fruitful combination, in my opinion.

Keep writing
and greatings from Amsterdam.

Abi to be fair most of those researchers who posted and were deleted were not doing it on purpose. They were talking about things related to the unmentionable whic hthe mods and the researcher saw in different lights.

Is it still an unsuitable link if I mention

www.votetoimpeach.org

(the website for a campaign to impeach members of the Bush Administration)?

Probably...

I see subcom has a toe in ,testing the waters!

Well, a few days back, I noticed that in several places researchers were allowed to give links to BBC news articles that discussed the war. If these people could make comments on the war through the articles they gave links to, couldn't I make a comment by posting a link that is political but not overtly about the war? Apparently not. They put "unsuitable link removed by moderators," which naturally would make other readers think that I had posted an obscene link. It should have said, "politically incorrect link removed by moderators".

if everyone still has the emails listing their removed posts, we could email them all back to the italics, who could put them all back on site!

I don't think they'd like their email intrays flooded with all those posts returned individually. Even if people carefully selected out the post numbers and collected them together in one email that might still be quite a lot of people. Though perhaps it really was only a few people who were persistently _or_ accidentally posting about the unmentionable.

I'd venture to say that they'd like it almost as much as the people liked having their posts removed in the first place...

Why don't one of you get everyone to email *you* with the post numbers, and then you can put them in one big email and send them to the italics.

Tango