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

Oooh la la! Does moi detect un possible resurrection of "la grande debate pour la Lets parlez Franglais debate?" (hi loup, ça va?)

how drôle (:droll: ancient european language of some sort, may be related to troll, which are Scandinavian thingys which live under ponts; as in "Sur le Pont D'Avignon")

pardon; (English) can't get too worked up about this having been involved in the original nonsense & currently trying to improve my frogsqueak by whatever means possible, including a BBC course: REGARDE:

<<<>>

aw, mignon, n'est pas?


Terri

Merci, Noggin.

Ne mention it pas, zoomer.

Noggin

je recherche la (le? ) "lets parlez franglais " thread. Any homme ave un idée la whereabouts de la Bastille pour un petit peu stormin?

zdt (just doing a little bit of merde moving)

Voila! Peut �tre nous sommes allez la? (trans: lets all sod off over there?) (sod: Olde English? Oirish? Pubslang?) http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/F19585?thread=190857 zdt *awaiting moderation, my parents couldn't manage to, my school couldn't manage to, now it's tthe turn of the BBC)*

Watt a boot Anguish? http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/F19585?thread=394921

Sorry, no French... Bas inti titkelmi Arabi, Terri, mish keda?

mais oui!
je tatakallum arabi!!!

"tise helwa" je always find is useful, mais peut être c'est n'est pas dans un gay nightclub...ou maybe ich bin un peu müde that night?

In greece, "eanayat po dromo" works well.

Zikomo kwambiri to all

zdt

c'est confusing jidan, querida!

mafi mushkul, habibi!

Christ, Allah, Jah, Jehovah, Buddha.. et Al, (let's not forget him/her) i bet they are regretting this posting.

*awaits crucifixion* Never mind, the 2nd coming is often better.

(sorry, foriegn handle)(oops, pagan, or even satanist) Terri (corruption of irish name)

I'm certainly regretting it...

Two points need further clarifucation.

In the original announcement:

>> Unfortunately, a severe technical glitch on Friday pushed thousands of old foreign language postings into our moderation queue. <<

How could such a thing happen? On what technical basis could a glitch recognise 'foreign language postings' and send them to a moderation queue? Surely, only some human mind could make such a determination and set such a destination.

Increase Mathers also asked a very valid and quite pertinent question:

>> What does this new assertion that it "is constantly subject to review" mean exactly - just that somebody else might come along and Yikes the post again? <<

The yikes button is available on every posting, so no matter how long ago it was posted, every word here is apparently subject to constant review.

This raises the ugly spectre of 'revisionism' and I don't see how anyone could live like that, knowing that it's all so fragile, so flimsy, so vulnerable to future changes in opinion and public taste.

Perhaps a time limit could be established. After a post has survived the prescribed length of time it really would become part of the 'permanent record' which most of thought we were contributing to.

And surely any post that has cleared moderation and been re-established should have the yikes function removed to avoid repeat performances. This would save the moderators repeating work that is already done. It would also save Browning from having to explain more than once what he meant by Sartor Sartoris and spare someone like 2legs from being reminded of what he was like more than a week ago.


~jwf~

"How could such a thing happen? On what technical basis could a glitch recognise 'foreign language postings' and send them to a moderation queue?"

They were *already* in the moderation queue, but attached to a queue which held all the foreign postings as 'referred'. Somebody pressed the wrong button, somehow, and reinserted all of these moderation items back into the main queue, so the moderators had to re-refer them to put them back.

"On what technical basis could a glitch recognise 'foreign language postings'"

Imagine that a post which has been passed as OK *does* have a flag attached to it. Imagine further that that flag could even be sophisticated enough to contain the reason for it being yikesed and/or passed. Then it would be possible for someone internally running a search for such flags to accidentally set them to be yikesed again. Without some discrimination on the flag it could be even worse, in that everything got re-yikesed but it was easier for human moderators overloaded with the posts to fail everything they couldn't immediately read - possibly before they could be alerted to an error.

Note that it need not be a glitch at all in that it could be the suspected deliberate change of policy (ie as mentioned by people here) to remove all "this was OK" flags and make everything yikesable again, eg under the EdPol regime change which hit even Edited Guide articles last year.

That was a good simulpost.

"sacra blur"

Will the moderation be about stopping whole converations, or will even 'one liners' have to go, since moderation works "post by post" or so it has been said?

*"mon jur." ponders what would "Only Fools and Horses" be like without Del's 'tourist speak'*

Oocchh, yer doin' a foin, foin job.

I think the system is remarkable. Glitches are to be expected and it's not like it's a catastrophe.

So, SEF said:

>> ..someone internally running a search for such flags accidentally set them to be yikesed again. <<

And Jim said:

>> Somebody pressed the wrong button, somehow... <<

So I guess it's like I said:

>> Surely, only some human mind could make such a determination and set such a destination. <<

My point is not that I told ya so. Being seen as being 'right' matters little to me. Rather, I believe it is important that we all now clearly realise that the situation was not as Natalie would have us believe:

>> ..a severe technical glitch.. <<

Because here I was worried about the potential dangers of Revisionism and we haven't even got past Disinformation yet. Why is the Truth so hard for some people to handle. Don't answer that.


~jwf~

Right i'm back from work! and i may say it was a bloody hard night's work!

2 cluches and a set of rear shoes on a couple of DAF 85's

"Perhaps a time limit could be established. After a post has survived the prescribed length of time it really would become part of the 'permanent record' which most of thought we were contributing to.

And surely any post that has cleared moderation and been re-established should have the yikes function removed to avoid repeat performances. This would save the moderators repeating work that is already done. It would also save Browning from having to explain more than once what he meant by Sartor Sartoris and spare someone like 2legs from being reminded of what he was like more than a week ago."

Hi jwf!!

The Moderators are there to pick up complaints - it's their job. So if something is complained about once, or 100 times, they carry on cheerfully.

There's the possibility that something could be complained about for different reasons each time, and it's passed because it doesn't appear to breach any rules. Then someone could point out three years later that it's actually a copy of a book or something. It has happened that Edited Entries have been removed for copyright years after they were published.

Sometimes people use the complaint button to contact the staff, or thinking it's a reply button. Messages could be passed because it wasn't pointed out that, say, it as defamatory about a member of the public. Something we wouldn't know unless that person told us.

It's unfortunate, but you see why we wouldn't be able to remove a complaint button?

This doesn't just go for h2g2, but all the DNA sites, and the messageboards. Which is why I stuck my oar in.