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

Or, if not tomorrow, then later today!

HVL - I've been off line for a month and wondered if I missed a posting about the re-translation of the XXXX post? If yes, where can I find it? Thanks.

The Nitpicker

Here you go.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F55683&thread=127664&skip=620&show=20

H.
At work.
Shhhh.

I think it is somewhere in the 600s, and it was quite near the top of the page.

Welcome back.

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a human called Ben
Praying for Peace
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A631261

My. I've never read such passion from someone who 'clams' to no longer care.

Here's to those to wish us well...those that don't can roast in

Pandora, I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm afraid you've lost me. Help?

H.

Yes, I also would like you to elucidate!

I am maybe from now on not going to be so active here because of this disaster in America. I'm spending quite a lot of time in discussions about it. I'll still try and show up here every now and again.

What I wrote was for the person who wrote this 1st bit.
I have had 3-4 hrs sleep each night since the cowards murdered part of our 'Wolrd Family'. I finall reverted to an old habit....I got drunk...I don't mean I drank...I mean I got & still am drunk....it involved the American Legion....men...old friends....new friends...also later the police...
On the way home I DO remember a rock station having a phone line: what would you do to the people responsible for The Attack on America? I was sickened by what one man said....I won't repeat it. (now THAT's what I call freedom of speech!)
So, after pounding so much socth....I'm logging off.
Did you know a log cabin can actually spin?
Oh, & one thing I did bring home from the Legion...alot of people 'have my back'.....as I do theirs.
Peace?!? Please, and make mine a double!

I'm officially baffled now. Is this anything at all to do with the subject of this thread? Am I missing something (wouldn't be the first time...)?

H.
Baffled.

Heh heh hoovooloo ... Pandora has been 'indulging' a bit. I've seen her over on some other threads concerning the WTC/Pentagon attack and we've had a few exchanges. Interesting person. I've left her a message on her home page and maybe will get an answer.

What drew me here? Without a doubt, the dream of a real Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

What kept me here? The discovery of just how much of a do-it-yourself project it was and the perception that it would be worth doing.

What made it worthwhile? Interacting with the other people who were involved in the same dream and the same project.

What called it into question? The discovery that my dream was not shared by the editors and many (if not most) of the researchers. Their dreams seemed to have less to do with the Guide than with the community around the guide.

What supports that conclusion? The general refusal to establish levels of quality or standards of appropriateness that are not ultimately vested in the editors own subjective standards. (Their standards may be acceptable, but I can't tell because they won't. And, since they have 'clarified' their 'we're more important than you are' statement to mean that if they were to leave there isn't enough documentation to allow the site to continue, it seems likely that they aren't about to allow the community to have any idea of those standards [documentation is a form of objectification and their values are exemplified through subjectification] and thus there is no way for the quality of their vision to be judged.)

What's the main objection? The editors do not seem willing to acknowledge that the contributions of the researchers are significant to the project. By implication, this means that any contribution is fine so long as it meets their minimum standards. This, in turn means, that I have no real value here other than to be just another writer. Since I am aware that I am more than just another writer, I would be better off to find some other enterprise where my contribution can be more than statistically significant (if even that.)

Why not just leave? I care for the people I have met and I am reluctant to use only my own judgement when others I respect seem to find value here even at a statistical level. The potential of the mass of such people achieving something worthwhile by virtue of synergistic association also seems rather high and I would like to be part of that.

What legislates against staying? I cannot imagine that that potential will ever amount to more than mere potential, so long as the society is dominated by a complete lack or recognition of the value of citizenship. In fact, there is little doubt that there currently is no such thing as 'citizenship' here as opposed to the kind of stewardship that is applied by a shepherd to his flock. Hence the whole question of justice; a sheep is not entitled to justice.

Mercy is problematic enough, but justice simply doesn't apply. The concept of justice is based on the concept of fairness. Fairness may be applied from outside and that is the kind of fairness where we may look on and speak about the degree of bias in the means and methods of control and husbandry. (He's very fair, he never feeds one pet without feeding the other.)

Justice must be supplied from within, it describes that kind of fairness where those who are concerned may demand to be treated fairly and have means and methods of enforcing a lack of bias. The editors may be fair as they may choose but they are under no obligation to be just and we have no way to demand justice.

Without justice and without recognition there is little incentive for anyone who aspires to more than mere sheephood to stay. (Please understand, I have no absolute objection to living or wanting to live the life of a figurative sheep. There is little doubt that many, if not most, of us here on h2g2 have rejected sheephood in other situations yet are happy with it here. I suppose that under the right conditions I, too, could live the life of a lotus eater without complaint and happily drink the waters of the Lethe as they flowed past. It's just that, even in jest, I cannot proclaim that 'this is the best of all possible worlds.'

So, without justice I do not see a community that I would value continuing for any great length of time. This, in turn, draws into question the value of making an effort to contribute, since I am never interested in contributing at a minimum level to anything.

So, the final question:
Why bother to stay even this long? There are things in the works that will test this systems capacity for justice and for longevity.

Barton

What Barton said...mostly.

ER, yes, I posted my answer on the wrong thread...er, no, I really ment to test you to see who was paying attention.
I could really use a nap.

Why don't we get this thing back on track? Or, a better question - *how* can we get this thing back on track?

Well, it's the Return of the Prodigal Italics on Monday, so it's to be hoped there should be some advance of some sort by then... Modest Proposal's on version 1.1. Don't know about anybody else's stuff...?

H.

If your proposal is past beta then the real question is are you ready to submit it?

Will they consider it? Or, will they want to wait till all of them are ready?

Do you want to submit in concert or alone?

I can't stand this anticipatio















n!

Barton

while I wish you luck with getting this thing working, I can't help thinking that it has the potential to be a great tool for the italics to hide behind saying "look, we followed the community's suggestion, and they are now banned", while at the same time refusing any further talk about how to make the system anything but "might is right".

We can hope that they do not do this, but so far, I fail to see significant movement from the position they held the first day they came back after the disappearing act. (other than in the wrong direction).

A lot of the stink about this suspension is caused by the culture of arbitraryness and refusal to explain, so we can but hope that they will gradually lose this tendancy.

The italics currently don't look very good for this very reason,and it will take action, not words for them to regain the credibility they had before they joined the bbc.

let's hope they keep in mind that people join this site for the community, and the community then writes the guide. please don't jepordise this.

Modest Proposal emerged whole at version 1.0 - if it wasn't ready for submission I wouldn't have put it up. All the comments have been gratefully received, but have resulted in only one, minor change - the suggestion to email back unedited entries was removed and replaced with the much-simpler-for-the-italics option of leaving the space up and available for the "remand" period - hence version 1.1. But I put a lot of thought into it before ever I committed it to a keyboard, so it's been ready since day one.

I address the point that it potentially gives the italics something to hide behind in the proposal itself. That's *absolutely* true. It does. However, this leads to the following:

If you're "the italics", and you're sneaky, dishonourable, shifty and close-minded, adopting this proposal represents a perfect way of appearing to listen to the community while strenghtening your power over it, all wrapped up in a package which reduces your workload and gives you more time to spend with your fanclub. So you should leap upon it and adopt it with all speed.

If, on the other hand, you're "the italics", and you're professional, honourable and a genuinely nice person(s) who wants to do their job just as well as they can and be seen to do so, adopting this proposal represents a perfect way of listening to the community and making sure that large, potentially contentious decisions are *demonstrably* discussed in detail over a period of time before being made final. It also ensures you have less work to do so you can spend more time trying to screw money out of the BBC for more resources, and generally shepherding H2G2 towards the great thing it can be from the good thing it already is. So you should leap upon it and adopt it with all speed.

So either way, I'll be interested to hear any reasons why H2G2 shouldn't already have this procedure in place.

From our point of view, the question of whether you believe the italics to be shifty and underhand, or good-hearted and professional, is irrelevant. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. The point is that this proposal works for either description. It was very carefully crafted to do that. The intention was very specifically to give the italics (for whom I am *still* an apologist, and on whose "side" I may still be considered in most ways) a tool they could not refuse to apply. Whether they apply it for their own good, or for the good of H2G2, is of course their choice. I'm an optimist. I believe they'll do the latter. If I really believed they were at heart shifty, dishonourable etc. I shouldn't have bothered going to the effort of thinking the proposal through and putting it up - it would have been a rod for all our backs.

I said in the final line of the proposal "I commend this proposal to the italics...". I meant it then, but I'll say it one more time. IT'S READY, NOW. Take it or leave it. Given how (a) easy it is and (b) unlikely you are to need it, I would suggest taking it. But then I would say that, wouldn't I?

H.

The Magna Carta has likewise been ready since the day I posted it.

We technically finished over-writing the Arbiter opus a month ago, and it is no different at heart than when I first brought it up. I wanted others who'd been at h2g2 to contribute, since I haven't been here very long - and it's far stronger (if micro-detailed) for that input.

The wait for a 'user-friendly' version has primarily been in response to a request from a member of the ADT, but the world is a different place now.

If we're going to cry havoc in the streets, we might as well do it now. All for one and all that jazz.

-7sink-or-swim7

Give me till the end of this week, and if I have not pulled my finger out by then, go ahead w/out it? How's that?

Ben