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

Be fair, HVL - Deidzoeb wasn't "poking" anyone who has left h2g2 - he's scarcely been poking anyone at all. Better a moment of levity than for people to leave clutching their heads at the unrelentingness of it all...

Lucinda - *needs an olive branch smiley*

Sorry, it's late and I'm a bit grumpy - there's a lot of fun to be had all over H2G2, but I thought this was about something serious. I should probably get off. Night all.

H.

I have a question. The editors on h2g2 can make up rules, as they've admitted. They're just making it up as they go along. And they are in no way accountable to their population... right? Mark was quoted saying that the members of h2g2 were dispensible as long as the editors were around.
So wait. What do you call someone with the ability to make up rules and enforce these made up rules with absolutely no fear of reprisal?

That's right. When's the last time a dictator relented and rescinded a punishment?

That's right.

Clarke, you're not a parent, are you?

Holy s**t, don't get me started on peoples, *parenting skills.* They seem to be based entirely;
a) Ruining their childs freedom to think and act for his/herself.
b) Enforcing identity roles on their children.
c) Teaching their child how to best live in a corrupt, disgusting, paper-driven society.

and sometimes...

d) *disciplining* their child through either mental or physical violence.

Yeah, parents these days are great. INfallible.

Heh. Well, you have a point there (but your hat hides it nicely!)

I feel very lucky that I had two well-adjusted parents (by no means normal, however!) to raise me - I'm definitely in the minority.

The reason I mentioned it was because in many ways, the Editors are performing the role of parents to the community - making up the rules as they go along, sometimes after the fact. ("While you live in this house, you'll go by *my* rules!)

While you live in this house, you'll go by *my* rules!

A reasonable attitude, as long as you bear in mind that it you are too pedantic or officious with the rules, you might find yourself living in an empty house!

OH

MY

!

The dreaded Parent Analogy!

In #661, I used it. I said that I hated using it because I didn't believe that researchers wanted to be considered "children" and because I hoped and believed that the Editors didn't want to see themselves as "parents."

In #671, The Editors put a scare into me by saying that they "buy into" the analogies and musing of myself and MoG in 661 and 663.

Daddy Editor and Mommy Editor? PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE say it ain't so!

If you don't, I'm going to hold my breath until I turn blue and then have a temper tantrum next time we're in the department store!

hee hee...

I'm sure that the Editors don't want to perform the role of parents (I visualize them running around the office with their hands covering their ears, screaming "Oh God, No!) I certainly don't want to be their child - but the role is very similar.

The role is similar to parenting only when the researchers in question are children (and there are plenty of those.) There's a reason very few adults live with their parents - adults have the unnerving habit of thinking for themselves and forming their own opinions, and parenting simply cannot cope with too much of that. (Come to that, so do children, but up to a certain age you can say "You may be right but I'm the daddy, so it's going to happen my way." - sound familiar?)

That phrase brings into mind another analogy. "I'm the daddy in this nick."(Ray Winstone in "Scum".) Now *that's* more like it. We're all in prison, and the italics are the prison officers. Of course that analogy falls down when you realise that a serious violation of the rules gets you thrown OUT!

H2G2 as a prison... discuss.

H.

In reply to post 729...

Tube, so sorry you appear to have the wrong forum. This is abuse...

Alright, does this mean that the PTB will now be going around saying "Who's your daddy?"

<smiley_for_that_thing_where_you're_laughing_so_hard_at_your_own_joke_that_you_can't_see_that_no_one_else_is_smiling>

Seriously (?), though, I'm not sure I have much to contribute along this line of thought. My parents were (note past tense) severe alcoholics. From them I learned that love, support and respect are conditional and meager; and that rules and punishments are arbitrary, opaque and inconsistent. My own 'parenting skills' are terribly lop-sided, and, in fact, I knew when I was 9 or 10 or so that I would never have children of my own. This has been the single most wide decision I have made in the almost 40 years since then.

Apart, of course, from signing up here.

-7rob7

wide = wise.

77 for rob

B

(Thanks, Ben )

I wanted to add that, since my parents never taught me to type, it's their fault I screwed up.

But I did think of something else while I was just over busily and wordily selling the Arbiter proposal to the Aces, and popped back in for a short one. (ha! snort, snort...)

The analogy with parents fits, I think, when you remember that children learn how to respond to authority from their parents. If, as in my not-so-unique case, someone grows up expecting authority figures in any situation to be capricious and arbitrary, that person will react to all authority as capricious and arbitrary -- no matter how willingly and optimistically that person accepts that authority at the outset.

This is a clumsy way of bringing up 'triggers' and/or 'buttons'. The most well-adjusted of us can revert to childhood given the right stimulus, and particularly a stimulus relating to our learned responses to discipline/authority. (Civilization is only a veneer, after all.) It is, oh, so easy to assign the conditions of our childhood responses to similar -- but not necessarily identical -- situations in adult (?) life.

If your father was a control freak, chances are you assume you boss defaults to a control freak.

I'm sure there's more to this line of thought, but I'm suddenly getting less pithy. Talk to you all soon.

-7tired7, who is something of a control freak about typos when they get so Freudian

(This is not to imply that youR boss isn't an out-and-out control freak all on hir own...)

If you could find one of my posts out of the last 200 on this thread that could be interpreted as "poking in the gut" of Arpeggio, I would apologize. I've been trying to make jokes out of things you and TowelMaster and the Editors have said, because there is no other value to this thread at this point. Jokes about "dictum" are the best that will come of it. Some nice work is being done elsewhere at the Magna Carta and Telephone Sanitizers and other discussions around h2g2 about how to fight against perceived injustices by the BBC or the Editors. Dare I say it's been "constructive" there. But it's still mostly low level flames and insults here, and people who can't stand commenting even when there are no new points to be made.

I really should have unsubscribed.

If the family analogy fits, I want to discuss my allowance.

Of course, in most families, expulsion from the family isn't a consequence of breaking the rules. (There are exceptions to that, but I did say "most," not "all."

The prison analogy does fall a bit flat because the consequence for breaking the rules isn't expulsion from the prison. We COULD stretch the analogy and say that solitary confinement is a removal of contact from the rest of the population, as is banning at h2g2, but I'm not up to that much stretching just now.

Here's an alternative analogy. In the church of h2g2, if you break the rules, you are excommunicated.

Watcha think of that one?

Lentilla,

Parents are (*debatably*) justified to act as tyrants because children are too small to handle adult responsibilities, to make mature decisions, or at some ages, even survive on their own. Parents are needed to "make the trains run on time."

By contrast, adult h2g2 researchers can handle adult responsibilities (like facing prosecution for violations of copyright or libel) and should be allowed to. Adult h2g2 researchers can make mature decisions. The writings of adult h2g2 researchers can survive on a thousand other online communities if this one fails to function as a place where we can express ourselves.

The sometimes authoritarian actions of h2g2 Editors are not needed to make sure we act responsibly. There are laws to force that. h2g2 Editors and moderators are needed to satisfy the BBC's marketing fears, ensuring that even their most prudish "constituents" won't complain about the content here.

I can't imagine why an adult h2g2 researcher should accept treatment as a child from anyone other than the people who contributed the egg, the , or actually raised the researcher in real life.

After reading this thread, I am not understanding the adult child nurturing versus tyranny comparison. Anyone care to explain?


Cobra 2-6 out