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

Yes, Azara, it was a big step doing that! Shows how grown-up some of us can be.


So, Infinity, I'm your Muse, eh?

Ok people... I've just spend a whole bunch of hours reading through all this mess. I wish to add my *personal* two cents now (mainly to show that I care).

1. LeKZ is a intelligent fascinating person, with a lot of knowledge and insight. She has her (usually) well-based opinion and she voices it. Some people do have difficulties when presented with a strongly held different view of affairs. Or as Friedrich Nietzsche did put it: "To objections of an opponent our heart answers by suspecting their motives, when our head feels to weak to deal with them.". I feel that's why she ran into strive at PR, for example.

2. TPTB are doing a great job here. They are putting their heart and soul into this page. There's a reason why the 42 commandments of H2G2 say that we should honour them.

3. Moderation ss, and should be abolished. It's a point which has been mentioned in this thread, but does not have anything to do with the ban.

4. Too many people on this site are too touchy and take just about everything personally.

5. Colonel Sellers said in post 68: "There isn't a doubt in my mind that the X'd posting was interpreted correctly.”
- I believe
a) There's a meaning in that post of LeKZ.
b) It was something she did not want to post non-encrypted, but still wanted people to read and therefore decrypt. Else she would not have posted it.
c) The meaning was not nice, else she would not have self-censored.
d) The meaning was aimed at TPTB, seeing the recent turn of the conversation in that thread.
e) The 'translation' sounds rather like LeKZ, not the foul language, but choice of words and sentence construction.
f) Though it may not be a 100% accurate 'translation' I believe the gist to be correct.

6. The decrypting of that must have taken a lot of time...

7. Inanna in post 57: "I, like several others, felt that banning LeKZ for a week was, perhaps, not the wisest of moves, given that both participants in the actual thread had resolved their differences.”
There's a point in that, as well.

8. Consequences are due for such a posting. TPTB have decided upon these. I have to accept their decision.



The best solution would be to make everything undone. But as that isn't about to happen I offer , and around.

Tube

That you are Prof.

Which means I can claim double s from you.

for my muse

I took a copy of the original posting, and worked through a translation as best I could. Then, I looked over Azara's copy, to see where his translation fit with mine, where it didn't, etc. I have to admit that Azara did an exemplary job on it. I managed to flesh out the other areas, and the result is a copy that leaves only one word X'd out:

------------------------------------------------------
The biggest problems at the moment are the fact that both Mark and Peta are complete morons, one because he's a none-too-bright sleazy politician, and the other because she's simply suffering from some sort of personality disorder, which renders her unfit for this or any other job (God help her offspring). If they would take their rules, insert them in their rectums, (they're such big a******s, there won't be any trouble getting the rulebooks in past their a****s) and go away, this would be a fully enjoyable and interesting website. As it is, they and their flunkeys are just manufacturing a dysfunctional and demented family away from home, and we'd almost rather eat a bullet. The people, however, are mostly very decent, though there are those who really should never have wasted their parents' germ cells and if that f*****g Jewish(unwise?) American Princess does not shut her overworked face and soon, someone is going to have to disembowel her. She and that insect from Hell, Playboy Reporter, and WtS that pervert who posted on our page, are overwhelmingly obnoxious. Basically, this just f******g sucks and we hope the b*******s have a lot of fun implementing rules against XXXXXs (can't find anything that fits, though "writers" and "kiddies", come to mind, in the context... not enough letter clues to determine), because that seems to be their only accomplishment.
----------------------------------------------------------

The defense is that the message means something else entirely, or that it is completely random, and we are finding meaning where there is none. However, I find it improbable in the extreme that the words translated "flunkeys are manufacturing a dysfunctional and demented family away from home" could be translated in any meaningful way other than that I have offered, nor could they have been a coincidental juxtaposition of letters that just happened to form such complex words and carry such a coherent message. That theme carries through the rest of the post... that sentence is simply the most complex, with the most polysyllabic words, and so stands out as the clearest example. I challenge anyone to find other words that even fit, much less have any meaning in context. Just one sentence... the whole sentence. If not, please, let the issue lie, because there is no adequate defense.

Well, hmmmm, what can I say after all of this wisdom ... whatever LeKZ did or intended to do with that xxxed out posting was a direct result of what happened over here leading up to that point. I want to say this: it is not necessarily true that LeKZ, or even any of the personalities in LeKZ, intended the message to be interpreted as it was. They might have written the message in such a way that it was interpretable like that, but in no other way. This might have been entirely subconscious. It can happen, I know. Why it happened I don't know. It can be any of a number of different mechanisms at work - a self-destruction impulse or a self-preservation one, or a test. I don't know, but I do know LeKZ. They're not bad. I do know this: they have formed very, very rash opinions about Peta and Mark. The fact of the matter is that in my view they have been justified in forming those opinions. If you really want to know how that is possible, then please ask me and I will explain. I have no personal animosity or disrespect towards Mark and Peta at all, but there are bigger issues involved here. You simply cannot just leave out LeKZ's history and their past experiences with people who abused positions of authority towards themselves and towards others.

And another fact is that the 'offensive' posting did not in fact say anything offensive. It might have lent itself to an offensive reconstruction, but it was *not* a code. It needed to be interpreted, reconstructed, before it said anything offensive. I'm sorry people, I am not naïve, I am not stupid, and I can talk to you all for days about that particular posting ... there are so many different mechanisms involved that it boggles the mind. LeKZ are intelligent beyond belief. There does indeed seem to be something very ominous going on around here. I myself have suddenly turned quite amazingly paranoid.

About LeKZ being a high-maintenance friend - that is true. Those are often the best kind. I desperately hope that I can retain their friendship. Personally I am willing to go to the ends of the earth, and even sacrifice my own life, for the sake of a single special person. And LeKZ are very, very, very special indeed.

This incident has poisoned the entire atmosphere here and it will take more than pleasant chat to work it out of the h2g2 system.

Ah, cheers Tube! I could do with some after this ordeal.

* Infinity.*

I never thought I'd actually meet my chosen Muse subject in person!
Now I just need a theorist called Dimension and all will be complete!

Pillowcase, this incident has /not/ poisened the entire atmosphere here at all. Put into context, hardly anyone had ever heard of LeKZ before this incident, and only then because it was featured in a weekly Post article.

And the fact of the matter is, the rules have been breached. It /does not matter/ if the message came out subconsciously or not, the fact was it /did come out/. And anyone who is capable, in whatever way, of making such postings should be banned. Simple.

And when I said 'hardly anyone' in the above post I meant in relation to over 70,000 researchers contributing to this Guide. As if they're all going to be affected by this incident! Pah!

Here, have some and get over it...

i'd have to agree with the prof. in post 87 there...

i was a participant in the thread where that message was posted... and i had been conversing with arpeggio in several forums prior to both suspensions... i don't doubt that she is an intelligent and wonderful person, but she needs to understand that by personally (and cruelly) insulting the italics, she has forfeited her right to interact with this community.

we all agreed to the house rules.

mark, peta, anna, chris, abi, and all the others who comprise the Towers are REAL PEOPLE. they have feelings. they deserve respect. they have one heck of a job, keeping 70,000 researchers happy!

yes, moderation stinks, but that's the way the beeb wants h2g2 run. if we want to be able to stay here, we're going to have to live with it. besides, it's gotten INFINITELY better since it was first started.

look, guys, it comes down to this:

if that X'ed out post had been directed at me, i would have been really, really hurt. my sympathies go out to mark and peta, who do so much for us every day and get insulted in return.

LONG POST because I've not said anything on this subject as yet and have been gathering thoughts.

'Poisoned the entire atmosphere'- I'd have to agree. For those of you not involved, perhaps it does not matter. In which case, it's nowt to do with you and you should be exercising that indifference by not criticising the actions of others who find the best way to deal with it is to get some fresh air. The 'childish' Researchers are not all leaving because they think it'll reinstate LeKZ, but mostly as they're concerned about the way moderation is going. Or simply don't want to have the grief of coming here and finding unpleasantness. This seems like a very adult way of dealing with it.
The reason there is a bad atmosphere around is not because of the LeKZ business. It began before there was any trouble involving them, and it will continue afterwards because it's due to many unrelated reasons, mainly attitudes to moderation.
In this community, there are sets of people whom we communicate with most- we each have our circles. I did not know LeKZ, but I'd read several of their forum postings- which were by no means all inflammatory. And no, I didn't hear about LeKZ from either the Post or discussions of any trouble. Arpeggio's space was recommended to me, I went there to find she'd been suspended.
LeKZ was known to a very wide group. Some recommended them to others, and some complained. Either way, they got around. Yes, there may be 70,000 Researchers contributing, but mostly when I read Peer Review or Ask H2G2 I see the same names, whom I know and recognise. As to whether they'll all be affected: well, this will certainly highlight that there's displeasure, and will probably incite many to examine the situation and perhaps come to the same conclusions. But the fact remains that some of the most active Researchers, and some of those whose opinions I trust most, are very upset over this- for several reasons- and it's spreading.
Besides, how come if you're not affected by the situation you're moved to comment on it to such a degree?

Colonel Sellars -
I am very impressed with your extra translation of 'manufacturing a dysfunctional and demented family away from home', not just because the words fit exactly, but because they make sense in the context of the later 'rather eat a bullet', and also in terms of LeKZ's preoccupations. I am inclined to think that the last word is just XXXXs - sometimes a letter actually is a letter and not a symbol for something else! Anyone who thinks that that kind of match can be made with random assortments of letters should try doing a crossword on the wrong grid.

Pillowcase -
I admire your commitment to your friends. But with regard to whether the post could be said to be offensive, let me remind you that posting in other languages is not allowed at the moment. I could post a message in Irish that only 3 or 4 others here would understand, and it would be blocked by the moderators in case it was offensive. Anyone who puts a Bubblish message on their homepage has to wait for it to be translated before the page is put up. I think there are probably far more crossword and word-puzzle addicts here than there are Irish speakers, and the post would be offensive to any of them who tried to solve the puzzle. I looked at it out of genuine curiosity - if it had been a 'Yo, lurkers! Have you nothing better to do with your time?' kind of message I would have laughed and posted a joke of my own. I found it offensive, and I stand by my choice to yikes it.

Azara


Azara

Mandragora Scrymidden: Hi!
There seems to be a connection missing here, at least for my limited knowledge...
You, as well as others, mention Moderation in relation to this thing with LeKZ. Her/their postings have not been censored more than any others (AFAIK), due to the fact that they refrained from abusive postings. What's by Moderation's got to do with it? And what got worse with Moderation over the last couple of weeks? I, personally haven't had a link to say the UN censored in weeks...

Tube

I've resisted jumping on the bandwagon for quite some time, but I'm going to have to put my foot in it.

I had encountered LeKZ on many occasions around h2g2, often in the context of Peer Review, and I would certainly agree that she was extremely astute and knowledgeable in many areas, and that she could certainly have done a lot for the site. The problem I had was that she seemed almost incapable of being in the wrong. There was an incident in which I was subbing an article about curry - inoccuous, yes - and having noted LeKZ's often valuable opinions in the Peer Review thread, I credited her as a researcher. However, the trouble came with the fennel... never mind the detail, but there was no way in which she would acknowledge that any opinion other than her own could possibly be correct. I'm quite opinionated myself, but one of the things about h2g2 is that you have to be willing to compromise - there are lots of possibilities which me may have to entertain, no matter how much we may hate it.

The first suspension I came to disagree with. Whilst I felt that LeKZ's behaviour towards Niwt was uncalled for when the latter clearly had no idea of what was going on, I came to feel in the end that she could have been given another chance. However, I'm probably about to shoot myself in the foot now when I say that we should stick by the house rules and have no leniencies towards any group of any age, race, religious tendency or mental condition. Yes, LeKZ has had to cope with some terrible things, but so have a lot of the rest of us. I personally prefer to keep my problems to myself, but I have some quite serious mental health issues which have landed me (very recently) in hospital. However, there is no reason why I, or anyone else, should get any special treatment for that. There are things that will flare up my depression that I may encounter on h2g2, but it is within my power to try to ignore these things and not post in these threads. I have control over my own self restraint, as has any other researcher/s - if a personality of LeKZ felt so vehemently towards someone else, she *did not have to post* - she could have kept these opinions to herself, or if she felt that these feelings were insurmountable, she could have left.

However, like Colonel Sellers I too agree that the translation of the X'd post is representative of LeKZ's style. This personal tirade seemed to me to justify the actions of the Powers at the Towers. However, I do regret the fact that some of the most active members of h2g2, such as Barton and Lucinda in particular, have left in protest. Before this whole furore, h2g2 was a most harmonious place - we were able to compromise with one another, and I think this lack of compromise is the issue at the heart of the problem. Maybe there could be a new median suspension period introduced - a month, three months - at the end of which this (or any future) dispute could be resolved as a result of offsite interaction between the party in question and the italics/some appointed arbitrators from both sides. I don't know, but I think a specific 'lifetime' ban, in any case, is too much - everyone has capacity for change, if they really want to.

I'm going to post this before I chicken out, as I have so many times before...

well done azara, that took courage.

This is exactly the sort of openness that I was asking for.
(by the way, can you pop over to my researcher page, and email me a copy of your working out, as I can not see how you decoded it)

I do not acuse you of being part of the persecution of lekz and others, but the problem is that there has been a long and sustained campaign against her and others on the same side of the intelligence debate.

While I am sure that the figure for open acounts on the info page is probably correct, I seriously doubt that it genuinely reflects the number of used accounts, for a number of reasons.

firstly, after the disappearence, of h2g2, most of the people that I know in this community had duplicate accounts created by the farcical way that the restart was done.

Then there are the people who register, make one post, and never come back. A much more usefull statistic is the number of active accounts, but knowing the way the software has been developed (ie in an understaffed manner), I doubt that this piece of info is actually collected.

This community (like all communities) depends not on the people who drop by occasionally and post if they feel like it, but on the active members who write articles, who contribute to peer review, who scout and who sub-ed those entries. also it depends on the university researchers.

The problem is not the number of people who are dropping out, but the quality, and the reasons. When I joined h2g2 prior to the disappearence of h2g2, this place was as open as every other place that had forums and chat rooms, but had a disproportionate number of people who were willing to talk reasonably about anything.

some were put off by the innept way that the people making the choices handled the shutdown and restarting of h2g2. (note: I am not blaming the people at the towers, as I know that at least some of this was caused by the lawyers).

Others came back, to find that suddenly, they had to talk only in english, and that was subject to somewhat arbitrary moderation (in the beggining, the bbc staff doing it had not got a clue). This caused some others to leave.

Then you find that there are things that you are not really allowed to talk about (ie intelligence, evolution, etc) where it is perfectly reasonable for people who have stated that they don't know the subject to call people who do (ie people who had to learn it as part of their jobs) all sorts of very nasty names, and to indulge in character assasination, but it was not reasonable to point out the inacuracies, especially where those inacuracies have a long history of being used to support bigotry.

This got rid of some more.

This wouldn't necessarily be so bad, but as someone earlier said, it is these people who are leaving who you see as scouts, in peer review (as contributers of articles and feedback), in university projects (I know of more than one that suddenly has no input from co-researcher because of this). In short, the people who are leaving are the lifeblood of the community, and it takes a long time to move someone from occasional poster, to someone who has an article appearing in the edited guide every week.

QUESTION: how many fewer scouts are posting recommendations, how many fewer articles are going into peer review, how many fewer sub-ed's are working on recommended articles.

ANSWER: too many.

This site is gradually becoming much more restrictive, not only in what you can talk about, but in how you can say it. As it does so, the people it drives out are the ones we can least afford to lose.

how many people with edited guide credits are still contributing as much as they were? if we don't stop these creeping restrictions, then this community will die. and I don't think that douglas would like that.

It is for this reason that I will not (as some have stated rather bluntly) "go away and shut up". It affects us all.

here here I agree

with who/what?

Good evening Tube,
It's not directly to do with moderation of LeKZ, but rather the idea that moderation is getting heavy-handed and could be worse. This has been going on for ages, and is generally unconnected with Arpeggio. There have been complaints about a lack of explanations from the overlings, and that's frustrating when you're not sure which rule you've broken. As Azara mentioned, you can't use other languages. I appreciate the reason, but that doesn't stop me being fadged that I can't have conversations in Welsh with someone who's no longer here, as I could before, which was the only practice I got. I liked the idea that we were a special community.
Things like this destroy that feeling. My personal gripe with moderation is based on the idea that, whatever it is you've said, there's someone who will find it offensive. In RL it's not important, because you probably won't meet them. Here, there's a chance that someone could be extremely sensitive to what you've said, for an irrational reason- they complain, and away it goes. Magic cloak of invisibility. I was moderated t'other day on grounds of taste, it seems, and although I won't deny my posting was slightly unsavoury, I don't think 'taste' can be considered grounds for moderation. It's such an abstract thing. Since h2g2 is meant to accommodate all, you get every permutation of tastefull and tacky that exist. Personally, I'd want an entry about stone animals on top of porches, garden gnomes and 'clever' house name plates moderated on grounds of taste. There are several things I've seen that have made me cringe, but because they're meant to be light-hearted I don't see a problem. We laugh at what we're afraid of, what's unnatural.
(Sorry, rambling a bit- I'll try and finish.)
Inanna in post 57 here made a good point, that of the first suspension of LeKZ perhaps not being a good idea since the original argument had been settled somewhat. I can't imagine it did any of the participants much good. Colonel Sellers also has the right idea on this one- the final suspension was warranted, I think. What he says isn't disloyalty, either. This business has resulted in a concentration of fears about what someone's getting the wrong impression can do, and how it escalates- and how moderation of possibly offensive material does not seem to prevent disharmony.
Xyroth- I agree that there's going to be a decrease in quality with the absence of certain researchers. There are some in particular who were very skilled at presenting balanced, well-reasoned arguments. Sigh...

I was agreeing with Xyroth

Just a few facts for your delectation:

* Statistically, Peer Review is as busy now as it has ever been. Ask Fragilis in The Post - she's been counting the sizes every week, and her conclusion is that it's totally healthy.

* Statistically, the number of postings on h2g2 is higher than it has ever been in its history.

* Statistically, the number of page hits on h2g2 is higher than it has ever been in its history.

* Statistically, the length of 'sessions' for users and the number of active Researchers is higher than ever.

* Statistically, the number of complaints about moderation decisions is lower than it's been since we added it to the site.

* Statistically, the length of Edited Entries has doubled in the last year. I can't be statistical about quality, but people would surely agree that they are much, much better than they were a year ago, too.

* Statistically, we have more volunteers now than ever before, and they do more good work than ever before (more greetings by Aces, more entries recommended by Scouts etc).

* Emotionally, some people want to believe that things are going horribly wrong, but they have absolutely no empirical evidence to support this.

It's OK to be disillusioned, and it's OK to be disappointed when your friend gets it horribly wrong and gets expelled. But surely it's not OK to come out with sweeping generalisations that fly in the face of the facts? Assumptions always come back to bite you on the behind. That's why postings like this really irritate those who are motivated by emotion, rather than reality. They know we're speaking with empirical evidence to hand.

h2g2 is stronger than it's ever been, and tbis is a storm in a teacup. But if you like speaking for an entire community of people when you only know a handful of them, feel free.

Thank you, Xyroth - while our opinions may differ sharply on many issues, I am glad to see that it is still possible to have a civil discussion.

With regard to my 'method', it was fairly simple and would be familiar to anyone who does crossword puzzles. I made one basic assumption, that the message was a real one, with (having seen Arpeggio's English article in Peer Review) correct grammar, syntax and punctuation. I took a copy of the message and started with the words with the most distinctive letter combinations, and filled in what would appear to be the only possible (or most likely) words. I can't give you a copy of anything more than that, since I ended up with most of it filled in. If you're interested, you can buy a small gadget like a pocket calculator which will do this kind of thing for crosswords - it will take a mostly blank word like --ay--y, for example, and give you playboy as a possible solution.

With regard to the condition of Peer Review, I have only recently started to read Fragilis' weekly article in the Post, which deals with the issues you raise, about the actual number of articles, the number of recommendations, the activity of the scouts, and so on. I find her very informative and I am sure reading her articles could set your mind at rest on some of these issues.

You say that it takes time to move someone from being an occasional poster to getting an entry in the Edited Guide every week - I don't think it always works that way. Some people will never want to write an entry a week, and that's fine - there are plenty of other ways to enjoy the Guide. I came here specifically because I wanted to write - after years of Usenet posts disappearing into the ether I loved the idea of getting some recognition and a more permanent place for my articles. I launched straight into Peer Review in my first week here, so I consider myself just as much part of the 'life-blood' of the site as either Arpeggio or Barton.

So, as my personal contribution to trying to get things back on an even keel, I will polish up a couple of my half-done entries and submit them to Peer Review in the next few days. Comments from you and anyone else will be welcome.

Azara