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

Lucinda, although I want the debate to move on from the specifics as soon as possible, I am very grateful that someone who is not 'anti' LeKZ is taking a look at the translation problem.

XXXB

Just out of curiosity I've asked a friend IRL to look at the translation/decoding problem. In an attempt to get as "accurate" a result as possible, I've supplied no context whatever, just the X message exactly as posted, minus the "Now you know, Kurtis, for LeKZ" coda. (I omitted the coda in case my friend attempted any background research, something I've specifically asked them to avoid).

I've not attempted it myself because given the large amount of reading I've done here and elsewhere I would consider my view to be in some way biased - see the "magic eye" post above. Some may characterise me "anti-LeKZ". I'd dispute that, but in any case it's beside the point.

I don't anticipate a quick answer, simply because this friend is, as I say, completely unaware of any context and is thus devoid of any sense of urgency. They have simply been presented with a short text message. The only additional information they have been given is that it is written in English by a resident of the US (relevant because of differences in spellings, see posts above), and certain letters have been replaced by the letter X. I have made no mention at all of any names (e.g. Mark or Peta) - obviously this is going to make specific parts of the message difficult or impossible for an unknowing observer to translate/decode, but the point here is to get as neutral a translation as possible - the debate over whether it targets Mark and/or Peta specifically is, I think, a quite separate one. No information has been given nor implication been made about the tone, content, author, intended recipients, or consequences of the message. As far as possible I have presented it as a completely neutral crossword-type problem - just a bunch of text, obscured by Xs, asking for decoding. The person to whom it has been given is not a reader of H2G2, and is completely unaware of anything going on here. They do have access to automatic deciphering tools, and I have made the suggestion that such tools may speed the initial stages of a translation, since this cannot affect the neutrality of the result. I will post a result, if I get one, here as soon as possible.

Kurtis is the person within LeKZ who censors and obscures other people within LeKZ, based on what I've seen of him - I've not seen him in any other context, though I've not seen a huge amount of him, so I may be missing something there - I'd have to ask, but I don't see that it's necessary...

In the whole of my contact with LeKZ on h2g2 and email, I've not seen them use 'ass' - but I have seen them use 'arse'. Similarly, I've never seen them drop 'g's as in 'freakin'.

To my mind, people have been making a assumptions about this post based on what they know of LeKZ in general - To then start explaining things away by saying that Kurtis is an alter and seperate from the rest of LeKZ... we're getting into 'just so' territory here, and that's a bad place to be...

From my experience, typo/grammo rates across all of LeKZ are very low - rough explanations of this in terms of alters have made sense, saying where that consistency comes from, and I'm fairly happy to take them on face value - they were made well before h2g2 became the least bit hostile to her. There are exceptions who write in their own 'accents', but they write consistently in such an accent, across an entire post. So if one 'g' was dropped, they all would be dropped.

Looking at typo rates within the postulated translation, compared to the rest of LeKZ' posts, I'd have to conclude that there is some effect which has increased typo rates, or that the translation theory is flawed. I can think of four possibilities here, but I'm sure there are more:
A) The typos were deliberately introduced, pending just this discussion.
B) The typos are because the 'translation' was placed subconsciously in a message which consciously LeKZ felt was meaningless, and the subconscious wasn't as effective as the conscious would be in correct spelling.
C) A shortage of time or temper had temporarily increased typo rates.
D) pure chance variation

(A) makes no sense to me - it would require LeKZ to be able to predict this turn in the conversation, some week after the offending post, which has occured essentially because of my actions alone. Since I am not a believer in precognition or predestination, I have to discard this option.

(C) is inconsistent with other postings made on the same day, which are still typo-free. To go from zero typos/post to three typos/post seems highly unlikely. Typos in email during the appropriate period have been similarly nonexistant.

(D) is incredibly unlikely - I could throw stats at the problem to show how incredibly improbable this would be, but I don't think this is needed.

(B) is possible... maybe. The level of obscurity would be set by the conscious deciding how many Xs to use, so there is no problem with the subconscious requiring advanced cryptography skills. It does clash with LeKZ' beliefs about her subconscious, expressed well before this incident. Unlikely, but it is just about plausable, and I could understand if others feel it is the most likely option.

Alternatively, it could be that the translation theory is inaccurate, or that it is accurate, but the wrong translation has been suggested. I'm going to continue working through the post, once I get a parts of speech tagger and/or a probabilistic thingumajig, and see what I can see.

Anyway, I'm sure you're all bored to tears by now, so bye for now
Martin - playing at politics

One concern with automatic translators - and one I will raise with Mycroft at some point - is that some of them do websearches to see if they can find any instances of short phrases and such. Obviously such things will be skewed if the search engine in questions happens to have spidered this conversation. I dunno whether this will have an effect in practice, but it is a concern of course...

Myself, I wouldn't have mentioned the US thing to your friend - LeKZ is fairly international in a number of ways, so I'm not sure that is particularly relevant. I'd also have passed it on as 'an obscured text', without saying how it might be obscured. But I don't think that either will have a serious effect on anything, so I will be interested to see the result.

Of course, it is possible for any message that your unbiased friend uncovers to have arisen by chance as a result of the process 'Not Banned Yet' describes. Note: this is not a completely random process by any means, so the odds are not the astronomical ones they would be if the process was completely random. I'm not sure what the odds would be - that's something I will certainly have to investigate.

I thank you for your time, Hoovooloo - I'm sure it will be very helpful, and it is good to have a semi-independant eye - there is a natural concern that I am biased in favour of LeKZ as others may be biased in the opposite direction, and I wish to be as impartial as possible in this delicate matter.

I think I have the word that you are looking for. the term acehXXXX has been used on h2g2 to refer to the practice of sending an ace to tell of a researcher that has annoyed a particular someone. There was a thread dealing with this, and it resulted in at least one ace resigning their acehood over what they were being asked to do.

xyroth -- would you know where that thread would be??

mikey

Xyroth - I wouldn't like to put any reasons over as to why Androyd resigned - certainly it had partly to do with this situation but as to ACEs getting 'sent' to anyone at all, ever... well I don't know where you get your information from but I'm afraid that's what is known in the trade as a load of bXXllXcks.

Further to that previous post. We never get sent to do anything by Peta, Abi or anyone else. Where anyone got that idea I don't know.
Sometimes new researchers are pointed out to us if they're having onsite problems such as 'how do I create my homepage?' or how do I do smileys. If Peta is away for a while then she may request that we hover around the moderation help-desk to answer questions we can answer (as you may do yourself if you wish) or just let them know that Peta is away and the situation will be dealt with when she gets back.
We are volunteers and are not subject to any *orders*.
Certainly there was a lot of discussion about a certain researcher on the ACEforum - this will have attracted the attention of other ACEs to her. If there wasn't she may never have met Androyd - as I remember him posting saying he was going to go over and say hello.

Well, I don't know where Xyroth got his information from, but I have heard the same thing, and I amost certainly got it from n2g2. If you can be bothered to wade through the interface from hell you could probably find it there yourself.

n2g2 is not the word of god handed down on tablets of stone, but neither is h2g2.

Look: any community is going to factionalise. That is part of what communities are. Factions. Lets just acknowledge the possibility or even the probability of it, and move on.

Hoovooloo - you are a gent and a genius - keep us posted.

On the suject of inaccurate numbers of xxxxs. Have you tried getting the right number of ****s in a swear word? It is a right b****r if you are a touch typist, because you have to spell the word out letter by letter, instead of letting your fingers do the walking. If you touch type, then 'bugger' is a sequence of movements with the index and middle fingers of both hands. If you are asterisking or xxxxing it out then you have to spell it out letter by letter

B - b
u - *
g - *
g - *
e - *
r - r

Much slower and more accident prone. Beleive me. This has been an issue for me for a while, since there are times when I like to swear online. (A for the Moderators!)

***B

Look: any community is going to factionalise. That is part of what communities are. Factions. Lets just acknowledge the possibility or even the probability of it, and move on.

Well said

Sorry but I don't like the implication that us Aces, scouts, gurus or whatever go around h2g2 doing the PTB's dirty work for them. Its simply not true.

I've been lurking on n2g2 recently so I will have read whatever you mean but I've forgotten it. I'll go back and have a look.

Let me know if you find it, and conversely if you don't.

***B

Who said it? Not Androyd anyway - he's only posted once there and mentions nothing on this particular little subject at all.

True, communities are factions and friendship. But factions without any common ground or complete distrust make for rather divisive communities. I know it's absurd to expect us all to be the same or even to all get along all the time, but what can we do? This is not a simple question, since it's basically the same problem that confronts any country down to local organizations.

I have to echo Orcus. I have seen the suggestion (albeit indirectly not pointedly) bandied about that I'm a suck up or some sort of adherent to an Italic cult of personality, because I'm a Scout who happens to be in the middle of the road on this one. I know people get upset and things slip out and I'm sorry if I seem a bit pedantic, but I don't want to see this then held up as fact, just because they've been said in enough places (and yes, this is a problem on both sides; there have been some wrong "truths" about Arpeggio). I'm not following any orders here (none have been issued), and I'm not really interested in making any friends or enemies for some sort of gain or duty.

What's ironic about this is that I followed Lucinda's lead a few months back and removed the "(scout)" from my name just so people wouldn't think I'm acting in some sort of official capacity most of the time. The only time I do anything official is when I turn in my picks, otherwise I'm as unprofessional as they get.

There is a difference between saying "all black dogs are labradors" and "some black dogs are labradors" or even "some labradors are black".

a doglover called Ben

PS - do you have ANY idea how many black labs are called 'Ben'?

Well yeah, but when there are accusations of lynch mobs, inquisitions, insanity, nepotism, etc. being lobbed about, nobody thinks about the subtle stuff. Maybe now we can start.

My black lab growing up was named Jessica, but I'll shout it at the nearby dog run to see how many of them turn their heads.

But subtlety lacks all the excitement of a good factional drama!

*hark, is that the bell I can hear ringing in the market square? Look out of the castle windows; can you see the towns-people gathering with pitchforks and with scythes?*

I've seen too many vampire movies, I think.



an innocent maiden called Ben

True, nothing's more exciting than a good angry mob of townspeople with pitchforks and bloodlust in their hearts. Beats the television any day of the week.

Orcus,

It may have been said in an email which had both myself and Xyroth on the circulation list. In which case I am not sure of the ethics of republishing it here.

If you really really want me to I will track back through my in-box and ask the original sender whether they wish to post something on this thread. But more than that is not really on.

Enough to say, that the gist was that *some* ACEs *tend* to hero-worship *some* italics. This was tied in with DNA fandom in general. And it was by someone who was disenchanted with the whole thing at the moment anyway. (I cannot remember who, though).

And from some perspectives it is probably true. The *hugs for Peta* *hugs for Mark* threads veer from the supportive to the sycophantic, and back again.

Hell, we all have different perceptions. Your supportive is my sycophancy, and so on.

No-one thinks you are a mindless sooker-ooper. And to be honest, I cannot be bothered to distinguish between ACEs, SCOUTS, GURUS, ARCHANGELS, MUSES, KEEPERS, and all the other ways we distinguish ourselves here.

*getting bored of the subject and needing some tea*

an undistinguished researcher called Ben

Cheers agcB

Bored is the word (ie. I'm not really interested in that post as it happens) - actually I got bored of all this before the suspension in question happened. Dunno how I got sucked back into it really. I guess being called a sucker upper got my goat a bit this time. My view here: I have met Mark, Peta, Abi, Jim and Ashley at an h2g2 meet up. To listen to some posts about them around the place you would think they were evil dictators wanting to stamp out all forms of free speech here. This really isn't the case - they're just trying to run the place - full stop. h2g2 went bust and got taken over by the BBC and they simply had to instigate some new rules (which they aren't terribly happy with either) for the site to survive. Put yourselves in their position. If you had been bombarded for several months (as it is since the interregnum now) by neverending posts saying- well you've seen them. How would you react? I think most people would get terribly bored by it and stop listening. They are completely personable, nice people as far as I could see. How often do they ever really intervene around here? Not often at all as far as I can see.

If you want to call that sucking up then fair enough - actually its just my point of view. I don't agree with everything around here either - I'm just not militantly opposed to anything.


You wrote

Enough to say, that the gist was that *some* ACEs *tend* to hero-worship *some* italics. This was tied in with DNA fandom in general. And it was by someone who was disenchanted with the whole thing at the moment anyway. (I cannot remember who, though).

And from some perspectives it is probably true. The *hugs for Peta* *hugs for Mark* threads veer from the supportive to the sycophantic, and back again.

Hell, we all have different perceptions. Your supportive is my sycophancy, and so on.


Couldn't agree more with that in fact People who are disenchanted have been prone to writing pretty harsh criticisms around. This is absolutely fair enough and very few - if any - of these posts have been removed. However, if your tone is not pleasant then you're going to raise the ire of people who don't agree and with exactly the same freedom of speech then they are perfectly entitled to say so. Calling people names is hardly going to be condusive to a reasoned discussion is it?

Anyway, bye for now

I agree with you about the awkward position the italics have been put in by the beeb. (Have you seen my home page recently? A u-turn if ever there was one... oh well *sighs*)

Off to drink drinks and eat eats and do the evening thing.

*yawns*
*streatches*
*remembers that there is a thing called Real Life*
*wonders what it is*

Ben