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

to all.

Let's get back to concentrating on why we are here. To have fun and to contribute to the guide. Let those who wish to leave, go and let's put all the rest behind us.

*leaves to go to the fun places*

Hmm!I'm still confused as to what is allowed here and what is not.I was upset about the not mentioning a certain event that took place last month but I did sort of understand it(the BBC has to be careful)but I just went elsewhere where these restrictions were defintely not enforced.However I'm reluctant to post anywhere much at this site as I'm still not clear why people's posts get removed(sorry moderated).Now apparantly standing up for someone who you regard as being abused is wrong but not when that person is abusive in return.Have I got this right?It's no wonder I hardly come here any more.I come for some entertainment,information and to see if I can contribute but I find H2G2 wars have broken out all over.Siiggghhh!
I also STILL haven't learned how to do all the smileys.
I'm off to TRY and find out what the RULES are but I suspect that the problem is that the rules are being written as you go along.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/HouseRules

"Now apparantly standing up for someone who you regard as being abused is wrong but not when that person is abusive in return.Have I got this right?"

No. What's against the rules is *posting a message on behalf of a suspended researcher*. Standing up for them, defending them, claiming that the PTB were wrong to suspend them is all fine. But actually posting a message *from them* *on their behalf* is now against the rules. Although effectively it always was, since when suspended, researchers aren't allowed to log in under aliases and post, so in posting on their behalf you're assisting them in breaking the rules.

We've never hidden our rules from the public eye, so why not find out for yourself? They can be found at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/copyright
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/HouseRules

and moderation is explained further here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/Moderation-Guidelines

Everyone who opens an h2g2 account has to agree to the first two pages above, so if people don't understand them, they really shouldn't be clicking on 'Register'.

Take the time to read them and digest them. If you're confused about anything, ask. And do make sure you understand them - you have agreed to abide by them, after all!

Mark. You guys should be resting today. Easier said than done perhaps...

Tricky situation, dealt with better than it might have been elsewhere, my support and sympathy.

I have only been a resaercher for just over a week, but already have made a couple of friends,and thought of a couple of ideas for guide entries. This happened just at a time when my life as a whole needed purpose and direction.
I was not aware until today of this rumbling undercurrent but Mark nad Peta - nobody should have to endure such a hurtful message and not do anything about it. Rules ( whether privately you think they are silly) are made to be kept or total anarchy takes over. As you say, everybody who registers is deemed to have read the rules and conditions before doing so.
I am not going to get into the politics of the right or wrongness of the decision,but felt as a new researcher I needed to hwave my say.
I would send you some appropriate smileys but I havnt come to grips with them yet
Judi, night nurse - keeper of themedical records

You can find the smileys page here. http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/smiley

Basically to do a smiley face you type : - ) without the gaps, so .
Some of the smileys can be typed in words, so without the gaps gives you .

If you hover your mouse over any smiley the word for that smiley appears in the grey margin at the bottom of the browser window.

Hope this helps!

I'm going to shock and amaze people now, I suspect. As one of the more vocal supporters of LeKZ during her previous suspension, I think most would assume that I would maintain that support in light of this incident.

I cannot. I fully support the Towers in this latest action. There isn't a doubt in my mind that the X'd posting was interpreted correctly. First, I got the chance to examine the X'd post briefly *before* I was presented with the translation, and I interpreted the spirit of that posting, if not necessarily the exact wording, the same. Secondly, I received a series of personal messages from LeKZ, during the suspension period, that echoed the statements in the X'd translation. Based on those personal messages, I have no doubt that Mark and Peta are *exactly* who she was talking about. Sorry, Lucinda, but your Jack and Rita theory just doesn't hold. At the time, I dismissed them as vented frustration over the suspension, and they were private messages, so no harm was done. When she posted that sort of thing here, albeit encrypted, harm was done.

I've long supported LeKZ, because nobody should have to endure such treatment. I apply that same principle to everyone. I cannot, in good conscience, support her decision to mistreat others.

For what that'll buy you, that's my 2 cents.

dear Peta,
thanks very much for the help
As you can see it did.
When you get home have a largeand a large on me
Judinight nurse keeper of medical records

Brilliant, well done night nurse!

Have fun!

Italics,
I just wanted to say you're all on probation. In my very limited authority and questionable value as a reseacher, I inform you that I am very upset at the recent events that have led to the expulsion of one of the greatest minds ever to grace these pages. The witch hunt that has taken place here has deeply offended my moral and intellecual sensiblilites. Should actions of the like continue, I shall be left with no choice but to join the other sympathizers leaving this community.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go see if I can salvage my now, gutted Univeristy Project.

IV

I think that the powers that be are slightly missing the point.
There are a number of people who broadly agreed with lekz's position in the intelligence thread. these people appear to have been targeted by a small but vocal minority of those who opposed this viewpoint.

These people then appear to have stalked not only lekz, but a number of other people who supported her, looking for anything that could be deliberately miss-interpreted.

The imaginative translation of the XXXX post seems to be the final act in a sustained and vigarous campaign to oust lekz, and irrelivent of content of that translation, if the translation came from one of these stalkers, then anyone could be next.

NOTE to mark: (The word you are looking for is NOT anti-authoritarian, as most of us agree that some rules are necessary, the word you are looking for is "LIBERTARIAN" which means that if we have to have a specific rule, it should be clearly spelt out, it should be applied transparently and consistantly, requests for clarification should be handled reasonably, rather than just ignored, and both the rule andthe interpretation of the rule should be open to debate. if in that debate, problems become obvious, then the formulation of the replacement rule should be done with the help of the community.)

Almost all of these things have been ignored repeatedly by the italics at multiple points during the last few weeks, and it is this that we are complaining about.

and all of this is before you get tothe point of disputing the current practice of moderation, which has considerable room for improvement without a single change to the rules.

I have seen posts that take a previous post, and split it to comment on the stuff that the prior poster got wrong, that have been moderated away, while the original post remains.

I have seen summations of the current state of play in a thread be moderated away, when a similar sumation a few posts later which is much more inflamitory remains.

I have seen one side of a dispute moderated repeatedly for using almost identical language to the other side, and when clarification of what the breach was is requested this request is ignored.

I have also seen people warned not for what they said, but for thing that people on the same side of the debate said in a much more inflamitory way.

None of this is conducive to an open and healthy community.

There is also the point repeatedly made by the italics that "we don't need intellectuals", but this is usually the wrong answer to the post that it relies to, as those posts generally say in one way or another that we need well educated people who can contribute to the creation of entries by spotting bias and factual incuracies.

If you are saying that we don't need people like that, then you are basically asking for this site to become a place where people who think and could make it better will not come, leaving you with a site that appeals only to the lowest common denominator.

Personally, I don't think that that is what DNA had in mind when he set this place up. do you?

Xyroth: Put aside all of your prejudices for a moment. Forget about everything that has occured with LeKZ prior to that posting. Then look hard at the X'd posting. Ask yourself if the decrypted version is really false. Then ask yourself if the rules against that sort of posting have ever been other than clearly spelled out.

Colonel Sellers, libertarian

*takes a deep breath*

Boy, have I tried to stay out of this one. It's distressing to see such an event shaking the community to its core - but it does show what a great community this really is, and how ANYONE can find their place in it.

What I find most dissappointing about this - debate? - is that people constantly point the finger. LekZ was out of line. The italics overreacted. Some idiot misinterpreted a posting...

I don't see it nearly as clear cut as that. It's a real shame that Arpeggio had to go - but I do feel her exclusion was justified. This does NOT mean I think that Arpeggio was a "bad person"! She claimed to have multiple personalities and, for what it's worth, I believe her. And I have also read about multiple personalities that often one personality cannot control or has no knowledge of what another does. So, Arpeggio might not have meant what was posted in the "X" posting - I don't know. It's not for me to speculate. But the fact is, abusive postings are not acceptable in this community - whatever the personal issues of the person who posts them.

Maybe a life time ban was taking it too far, maybe it was neccessary. All I can say is, if Arpeggio is reading this, my deepest sympathies, and I'm sorry it turned out this way - I for one am very greatful for the contributions that you made to this site, which will remain. But similarly, I'm also (yes, sitting on the fence ) in support of the Italics. They don't deserve this animosity, their interests are in the community after all. Without it, this site would die.

So that's it for my input into this latest Big Event. It's a very sad situation - but let's not keep relentlessly blaming people.

*sniff* Well put Mr T.

Well, let me make one final entry before unsubscribing to this thing

If anyone here associated with the Lekz entity was put off by my postings about "how this is not worth getting upset about" then I offer a to sooth any bruised egos. THat was not my intent. . .I only seek to bring to light that we can, as a community, get past this issue and return to normal researching and happiness in the nether world of the H2G2 forum. . .so with respect to some off thread advice from an entity with good intentions I will leave this thread and allow this to fizzle out on its own as I hope it will.

*** returning to my own Insightfully Meaningless Writings fo Random Specificity and some good ***

I have thought long and hard about making this post, but reading what Colonel Sellars said has really encouraged me, and I feel that I should say this in fairness to everyone who has been involved in any way.

I was the person who yikes-ed the XX post by Kurtis for Lekz. I may never live down Mark's description of me as a 'respectable researcher', but what I assume he meant is that I have been contributing to the Guide in a quiet kind of way and have mostly been involved in conversations on Peer Review rather than more light-hearted places. For the record, the only private communication I have ever had with any of the Towers staff is the email which yikes-ed the post I objected to.

Also for the record, I joined h2g2 just a week before Arpeggio did. She was one of the first people whose work I commented on in Peer Review, in the same thread (I think) in which Barton and Lucinda also got to know her. I did not try to make real friends the way they did: I looked carefully at her website, and I felt she would be what I call a 'High Maintenance' friend - someone who requires a level of agreement, reassurance, sympathy and support which is very hard to maintain over the long haul. I am wary of such people since I saw such a friendship turn very sour in real life. Nevertheless, I was always polite when we happened to meet in any discussion.

My action was not part of any kind of witch-hunt - I simply objected to a post I found offensive, which I am perfectly entitled to do. What the staff did after that is their responsiblity, one which I do not envy in the least. Since xyroth is so interested in chronology, let me say that I yikes-ed the post sometime late on Thursday night. I only got a reply late on Friday afternoon, and I am quite sure that Mark and the others spent a large part of Friday considering their response very seriously.

Xyroth seems to feel that there is anti-intellectual antagonism at the Towers, but I consider myself a reasonably intellectual and very well-educated person, and I have always found everyone very friendly. I feel that the edited entries I have contributed are as good in their own way as Arpeggio's or Barton's are in theirs, and I have seen plenty of other people's entries in Peer Review which are of a very high standard. Certainly Arpeggio could have contributed a lot, but in the long run it's her loss rather than ours that she could not fit in here, despite all the efforts of her various friends, and a large amount of time and trouble on the part of the italics.

I just wanted to make it clear that no-one involved in any of the earlier entanglements with LeKZ was the person responsible here. I did it; I have no regrets about it; I would do the same tomorrow if a similar occasion arose. Anyone who is interested is welcome to visit my space, read my entries, and see how I have spent most of my time here - it certainly has not been in conspiracies or witch-hunts.

Wishing my quiet semi-anonymity goodbye forever,
Azara

Whew, what a read! I will now make a few points, just to try and round it all up. Please note that these points were not taken deliberately from any particular researcher's contribution to this thread, nor are they included here to point at any researcher in particular.

* The X-ed out posting was interpreted correctly. Unless the most improbable occured, and the letters and X's /did/ mean nothing and were typed randomly, the message was a direct attack on Mark, Peta and h2g2 as a whole. Pray, someone give me another interpretation of the message, sans poor grammer and spelling mistakes, and some sense of flow of text.

* As the aforementioned posting was decrypted correctly, it /was/ the most horrible chain of insults I have ever known anybody to throw at anyone. This alone breaks the House Rules and deserves a life-long ban, especially since this LeKZ person (who I had never heard of before all this started, and I can therefore firmly say that this researcher was not as much of a contributor as some people might say) had earned a ban and warning beforehand.

* Someone said that this incident proved we could all be banned for nothing. Heheh, yeah, like, how? /That posting was horrific/ and a deliberate breach of the House Rules. It's not like they're going to ban us if we do nothing. *Can't resist muttering 'duh'.*

* Indeed, h2g2 is moderated quite unevenly. Do you know why, hmm? Well, it just happens to be because the poor people sitting behind those desks are human, and in that way are not all the same, /do/ have different views on what's offensive, and the site is therefore under uneven control. Sure, stricter rules should be applied to moderation, but it's early days yet, come on!

* Someone else mentioned multiple personalities, and I assume they meant in real life? And now you go on to say that this person was unfairly banned because one half of them didn't know what the other half was doing? I'm terribly sorry if this sounds awful, but h2g2 cannot be held responsible for, with all due respect, such anomalies. The PTB can't go round checking everyone's real life behaviours to deem whether it's worth banning them or not.

Now, I would like this to stop. If anyone has anything to say against what I've said, say it, and keep this thing going. I warn you though: if you do say something against my views, I'll contest it vigorously. I can have perfectly normal and harmonious conversations at the same time elsewhere.

Hell's bells! I /knew/ I'd forget a point!

* People are leaving h2g2 because of the banning of LeKZ. Oh dear, disaster! Bring on the melodrama, I say! Let's see, about - and do correct me if I'm wrong, because you like doing that sort of thing - no more than ten people are leaving. Sounds terribly childish to me. If you think that A) you're getting through to the PTB and B) you're going to really ruin the state of the Guide, you're wrong. Your leaving just seems like a poor sad little attempt to avoid argument. Another option of course would be to leave this thread, and stay on the rest of h2g2. We're grown-up here, and won't participate in *laughs* witch-hunts!

Well done Azara.

To step forward as you have done shows a strength and honesty not often seen. I have no more words, I am overwhelmed with good and warm feelings about you.