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

Ooooh! Hi Mark! Shouldn't you be in bed right now? It's not healthy to spend all night in front of the computer...
I believe that H2G2 is thirving.
I believe that statistics can show everything.


* 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.

Are you by chance telling me that my first entries are c**p? (Not a real question, just picking on the too-touchy people...)


Tube

Whilst I don't dispute that many areas of h2g2 are getting on fine, it must be said that a lot of recent posts have been generated by this recent furore and by several peoples' lengthy explanations of their reasons for leaving.

Sympathies to Peta & Mark, who really should be in bed, preferably drinking Horlicks.

Tube obviously realises the value of humour.
I think many problems could be solved (personal gripe again) if people didn't take seriously what they know is meant to be a joke. Or sarcasm. Etc. There is nothing more irksome than a thread which says 'I know this isn't what you meant but I'm still going to argue with what I thought you meant.'
Statistically, I'm spending more time here than I ever have. I could blame you all for messing up my sleep patterns, I suppose... but I know you don't mean it.

Thank you for having the courage and integrity to step forward.

I believe that when you "yikes-ed" the X post you were acting in good faith on what you believe it said. I further believe that, had that indeed been the original content, the subsequent actions taken would have been appropriate.

I have to wonder, though, if you didn't base your interpretation of that post, in part, on your previous experience with LeKZ and what you expected it to say.

Please consider the possibility.

Since the X post was intended as a bit of humor on the subject of censorship, random and some not so random letters were introduced to make it look like something that would require censoring.

Start with the sentence "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 way and have mostly been involved in conversations on Peer Review rather than more light-hearted places."

Remove the spaces

ImayneverlivedownMark'sdescriptionofmeasa'respectableresearcher',but whatIassumehemeantisthatIhavebeencontributingtotheGuideinaquietway andhavemostlybeeninvolvedinconversationsonPeerReviewratherthanmorelight-heartedplaces.

Add new spaces at random intervals.

Imayn everlive downMark 's des cr iptionof me asa 'res pectab l eresearch er' ,bu twhatIas sume heme antist hatIh avebeenc ontribut ingtot heGuid einaquiet way a ndhavem ostlyb eeni nv olvedin c onversat ions onP e er Revi ewrather thanm ore light - he artedp la ces.

Change a large percentage of the letters into X's.

IXXXn XXXXXive dXXXXXXk XX dXX Xr XXXXXXXf me aXX XXes pXXXab X XXXseaXXX eXX XXX tXXXXXas sXXe XXme antXXX haXXh aveXXXXX XXXXXbut inXXXX hXXXXd XXXXXXXet way a XXXXXem XXXXXX eXXX nX XXXXXin X XXverXXX XXXs oXX X XX RXXX XXXXXher thXXX Xre light X he arXXXX XX XXs.

Add a few letters and punctuation marks, designed to make the sentence look like something that is worthy of censorship. (Remember the context of the X post.) Change a few letters for the same reason.

FXXing XXXXXive dXngXXXk XX dXp Xr fuXXXXXg me (aXX bitXXes) pXXXab X XXXseaXXX eXX XXX tXXXXXas sXXe XXme antXXX haXXh aveXXXXX XXXXXbut inXXXX bXXtXXd drXXXXXet way a nXXXXem fXXXXXg eXXX no wXXXXin a XXverXXX bXXXs oXX a bXX RXXk XliXXXXher thXXs Xre light X he arXXXX in XXs.

Result? Something that looks bad, but is meaningless.

Probably not something worthy of a lifetime ban, though.

Hi there Mandragora Scrymidden! Nice to have some kind of personal conversation amidst all these postings...

Moderation: Strange, I grew less anxious about that in the last couple of months. In the beginning I had about every entry/link and the occasional personal space scrapped by the Mods. Always went to the Mod Help Desk and got like 95 % of my stuff back (the ones I didn't get back were links to scantly clad ladies in BDSM/Goth gear and to a Goth-ish page which in turn linked to some dead bodies. Fair enough I'd say...). But on the other hand the Mods took my pages off the air for *no* reason. And with, as you stated with no explanation.... at least nonee which would help me. Like telling me that a first posting of a 5000 word entry contained a link which was not suitable.. like out of 25... enough to scrap the whole entry. The PTB at the Mod Help Desk know my name by now... But all that grew less over the last couple of month. And, as I said in a conversation with agcBen at my space, now that I self-censor and drop fewer one-liners into conversations, the Mods leave me alone. If that's what the BBC/H2G2 wants... that's what they'll get.
In any case I, personally, can't see the moderation getting heavy-handed.

As for the -button: as I said elsewhere: "* Don't abuse the complaints system. - No, Really! I wouldn't. There's no need to do that. The system abuses itself enough as it is. ... Would it be nasty if I thought of it losing its eyesight over time?"

As for languages: Yes, that defenitely s***s. Not because I would write whole postings in whatever-language, but even when you#re posting a quote and supply a translation, the whole post gets hidden for a couple of weeks (that happened to me in a conversation with LeKZ). As for Welsh: the only bits I could contribute are (in translation, don't ask for the spelling... "Gimme a pint", "I love you" and " off".

As for 'taste': * Unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, racially offensive, or otherwise objectionable material is not acceptable. -
"Otherwise objectionable" - might be anything.

The Modding would be less worse when it'd be done in two hours, whatever the reason, even if foreign tongue.

TTFN

Tube

and what are the chances of what you just created being translated VERY PRECISELY into something totally hateful and downright mean? about the chance of me reaching into my pocket and finding arthur dent's version of the HHGTTG.

i'm not trying to be mean, but if that post had been random gibberish, it wouldn't have translated so neatly.

sorry, that was directed at the posting before tube's...

"Tube obviously realises the value of humour."

Uh, after a bottle of wine, I do realise a lot of things I would have never thought about else.

Statistically, I do spent heaps of time explaing what I meant by my postings. Lots more than two months ago.
So much for touchy-ness.

Tube

Researcher 180337, it is a possibility that the text might be random, but it's an exceptionally remote one: it's almost impossible to generate that sort of thing randomly and still have it so that each potential word fits in with the spelling of a real one, never mind about the words making any sense in sequence.

I went through a similar process as did Azara and Colonel Sellers, but didn't actually get subjective until most of it was done as I set up my crossword-cheating/cryptography software to run through it. A couple of dozen of the words in there are the only possible fits for the letters given, and there are many more which only have a handful of possibilities, all but one of which don't fit if you apply the most rudimentary level of grammar checking and frequency analysis. After this, less than a quarter of it was actually down to my judgement. The only thing I had to change was adding an X into one of the original words, as I took it to be a typo. For what it's worth, I came up with an almost identical text to Colonel Sellers, except I guessed 'heads' where he has a***s.

To Researcher 180337
You've missed out on the crucial step - take the 'meaningless' message and replace the Xs with other letters to make meaningful words, phrases and sentences. I'm sure a statistician could calculate the odds of being able to do this - the longer the word, the harder it is, if there are 3 or 4 crucial letters in place ( and the translations included some very long words like accomplishment, manufacturing, dsyfunctional, overwhelmingly etc.)

At a first glance, what caught my eye in your message was 'light X he' in the second last line - there are only two real one-letter words in English, a and I, and neither 'light I he' nor 'light a he' fits in any normal sentence pattern, so one glance tells me that either the message is nonsense or there is some more complicated code which I couldn't be bothered to investigate.

I appreciate the courtesy with which you have raised this possibility. However, I am aware of the fact that LeKZ may be extremely annoyed with me. Since you are her partner, I feel it would be inadvisable to enter into further discussion with you on this topic.

I will of course be happy to engage in discussion with you on Peer Review or other threads, just not this thread or this topic.
Bye!

Azara

"He that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him,and makes me poor indeed".Othello

"Strange thing kindness when you give it away you gain something".Neil Rockley

What are the odds that you could shuffle the letters in a phrase like "Fellow Of The Royal Australian And New Zealand College Of Psychiatrists" and get both "A wealthy organization of persons, all hand selected, for all-wise faculty" AND "We all feel satisfied Prozac is not all that dangerous for anyone. Why? Call!"?

Azora -

There are no hard feelings on the part of anyone I know towards you, personally.

well said timelord.

I should point out, that I am not against the moderation as such, or any of the other rules, just the waythat they are currently being interpreted (inconsistantly, and often unhelpfully).

as an example of the problems with the moderation, I wrote a "for information" article about file sharing (someone asked, so I put up the info) over at http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A544295

This was fine for days, and served it's purpose, but then it went into moderation hell for weeks, (someone must have yikes'd it). when it came back, it was unmodified, with no explanation,and no clue as to why it had been hidden.

When asked about it, the italics did not reply.

This leaves us with an entry that it is almost impossible to work on, as at any time it could be yanked for no obvious reason.

In my case, it wasn't too much of a problem, as I had been around for a while by this time, but I know quite a few people who would have been frightened off if this had happened to one of their first articles.

I could mention entries in forums with similar problems, but in those places the consequences are even worse. the normal reaction in most of the forums i've been in is for someone who hasn't seen the hidden post to ask what could have been bad enough to cause this, followed most of the same information cropping up in the next few posts. later when the post comes back, when you look at the thread, all that you see is a sudden massive discontinuity in the flow of the discusion.

it is this sort of problem which means that the moderation problem doesn't disappear (like some people wish it would) and is mostly caused by the proactive moderation policy. in most cases that I have seen, this just doesn't happen with reactive moderation. (I know that the lawyer interpret the law to mean that, but there are a lot of other places that have forums,and don't do proactive moderation, and either the bbc lawyers are wrong, or an awful lot of other lawyers are wrong).

ps thanks to mark for the statistics, but it doesn't alter the fact that an awfull lot of names that everyone is familiar with have disappeared from peer review.

I don't want to dispute about the meaning being in the message or not. It certainly is, now. And I don't want to dispute about which part of LeKZ may have meant to say that. What I do believe is that they never ever would have said that had they not been persecuted and hunted and haunted in the way that they were over here. And I still honestly and truly believe that that message slipped past LeKZ's defenses - they wouldn't have consciously wished to shoot themselves down like that, or to give others ammo to shoot them down with.

Glad to see it's not just me that spotted the persecution of lekz.
now perhaps people will accept that it happened, and talk about how to stop it from happening again.

After all, it's important that it does not happen again.

I mean, the meaning is certainly in the message here, now, in the minds of everyone here, because once it's been fixed in that way it will be difficult to perceive it as anything else. I am still keeping an open mind about what meaning might have been in the message to begin with, though ... LeKZ seems to want to prove that the original meaning was quite different. I'm not ruling out that possibility.

And I still believe that, even if the message was indeed there to begin with, it was not fully unjustified in the light of what happened. Again, no disrespect to Mark or Peta; I'm just considering how the entire business was perceived by LeKZ from their perspective.

What they have done and are doing worries and disturbs me so much not just because it is a kind of thing I have seen before, as well as its potentially extremely destructive consequences, but also because I have grown so extremely attached to LeKZ in the brief period that I had to get to know them. And now I don't know if I ever will get to know them any better again. This problem now so dominates their mindset that they can hardly focus on or talk about anything else. And the sad truth is that before this fiasco they had so many things to tell us all, most of them extremely nice and extremely helpful.

LeKZ has been silenced. But LeKZ was only just starting to help *me* to start to talk. So now with LeKZ being silenced I have been silenced as well. I don't know if I will be able to talk now. But I will try. This has ripped me up inside, truly and verily. Rules or no rules, rude or not rude. I now feel like an empty, cavernous cadaver.

please don't feel that you can't talk. if you don't want to talk in the general threads, pop over to my page and talk to me.
If even that is too much, then use my email address link, and talk to me by email.
don't be frightened off. please.

I'm not going to go away any time soon. Thanks for the offer of support, I may use it, but the thing is - do you know the things that LeKZ know? Do you have the information they have? I need information about serious kinds of things to enable me to talk in a meaningful way about what I want to talk about. Do you have LeKZ's kinds of abilities? That's the prob. Can you relate to what I want to discuss? I know LeKZ can - at least, they could... I don't know if that's true any more, they don't seem to be thinking very clearly any more, they don't answer me when I ask them direct questions ...

Some final thoughts, before this degenerates into a did-not/did-too argument, which it will if I stick around here any longer tonight.

Try to remember that the actual content of the post that got LeKZ silenced was mostly a bunch of x's. So disgusting that it's still up and available.

If the h2g2 community can take any steps towards seeing that this sort of persecution doesn't happen again, to see that moderation is done with less bias, to see that those who request clarification of the house rules as presented get answers rather than referrals to the sites that generated the requests for clarification to start with, to see that official censorship is carried out with hands less heavy and more even, then something good will have come of this.

I have returned one last time, and with a heavy heart. . .I have been watching this thread all day. It was Dante who once wrote "there is no greater sorrow than remembering the pleasure of the past during the pain of the present" (this is just one translation of how he is actually wrote it) This message is not meant to take sides or nit pick anything, this is just an observation I have made.

First let me say I lack finese sometimes when I post, so bear with me.
Arpeggio has banned, people have left, and I am sure the offsite commo links are buzzing, of that I have no doubt. But as far as on here, this topic is being battled by people unwilling to bend their point of view, and that is fine I admire people who can stand for what they believe and to all of you who have taken such positions I will drink one in your honor. . .but the point still stands that no one wants to bend. . .on one side you have those who support the bannishment and who are appalled at the XXX post, and on the other you have those that are sickened by what they feel is an unjust decision and are appaled at the circumstance all the way around. . .and then you have the rest of us who feel the loss of researchers a tragedy and wish not to enter their feelings of the matter, for as one of my fellow researchers told me, I don't have as much knowledge as others. . .

Now in a posting earlier, reference was made to people that don't know the whole story and so they shouldn't be posting here (that is a paraphrase and striclty the interpretation of Aaron O'Keefe so if I got it wrong I am sorry). But changing your nickname to reference what is going on draws attention to the matter, I have already gotten half a dozen emails asking me what this is about. And I am not saying changing your nickname is bad, go ahead change away, but do we really want to draw this kind of attention to the subject? Do we really want to introduce such a thing as this to newcomers? I mean, yeah all the feelings are justified by the person, but to give credence to a thread like this in such a manner really doesn't advertise the site like we would want it to be advertised.

Now people have left, even going so far as Barton (and I am not gonna bash it) to leave a blasting page entry for all to see, and to lose such people in such a manner saddens me. Now I don't know how Arpeggio or Lekz are taking this matter offsite, of all the people I have met here (and each poerson I have met is a truely wonderful addition to the site) I only know two personally, so all I know is the site persona as it is given to me. . .so if you say your are the keeper of bellly buttons and chest hair than I assume you have a fetish of some sort and get my impression from there. . .I mean shoot if you look at my name you can probably infer alot, is that bad, no it is natural.

Now there is a lot of debate on the XXX posting. . .okay. . .so. . .the point has been made that the inference that was made was hurtful. Whether intentional or not. . .I had to be corrected myself by a researcher and I acknowledged the point of view of someone else. . .but the XXX post doesn't leave much in the way of good intentions associated with it. . .like I said, I don't know why it was posted, and I probably never will and that is just fine with me, I read it, and people tons smarter in the ways of crosswords and cryptograms have interpretted it. . .but I can tell you that when I read it (again this is not taking a side or blasting anyone else) it didn't have a friendly tone to it. . .I mean if you either support one side or the other or are just indifferent, you can ardently follow whom you choose.

I said this before, but I will do it again just for good measure. . . to me this site is about the free exchange of ideas amongst like minded individuals in a way that is fun and friendly hence the reason the rules are in place. This thread, to AARON O'Keefe, is contrary to that. It seems to be a point counterpoint of the issue with no one agreeing or compromising.

Now, I again, don't know who Lekz is/are nor will I, unfortunately. But to the outsider lurking about the site, highlighted issues such as this, don't give off the best impression to either side of the arguement. You may say "So" and I will say "just tellin ya." And you will say "You can't dictate what people should think or feel" and I will say "You are absolutely right, but I can offer a differing point of view, a point of view that has been expressed to me, and You can't deny Me that."

Hey if someone wants to leave over this matter, there is nothing any one can do about it, but I will be the first to welcome them back should they change heart. And should this thread continue on into infinitum, as long as the rules aren't broken, there isn't alot a guy in GA sitting in front of his laptop can do about that.

But just remember that EVERYONE can see this thread, and while your offsite conversations might be a little more driven, the onsite one can give the wrong impression about what we all joined this site for. . .and for me that was a great book written by a great man who sadly isn't with us anymore.

So let me caveat this with this. I am not posting this to take sides, though I do have my opinion and I won't share it (some things are better left unsaid). I am merely trying to bring the focus in on the core of the issue and hope we can all agree to disagree on this matter to some point or another, or aggree to agree depending on where you are. It is sad that what has happened has happened, can it be changed, time travel is only real in Scifi. You all can think what you want on this subject and I will say as long as you can support yourself and are unwavering, then heres to you. . .but remember that you are not just talking to a screen of goo or alabaster. . .there are real people oin the other end, and people will respond as people do. Lets not hurt each other here, there is enough of that in RL, here we ALL should be able to enjoy the freedom from antagonisms or misinterpretations. . .am I saying that these two apply, no, I am not saying that here, all I am saying is that if someone feels they have been hurt or feel that something is egregiously profane and inappropriate then it needs to be quelled, and someone did in this case.

I am not going to insinuate that this needs to be gotten over anymore. I am just going to say that everyone has a stand on this issue and no one seems willing to bend, and we only stand to lose if some compromise of ideas can't be reached. Will arpeggio ever come back, I don't know, will any of the lost researchers come back, I don't know, will the legacy of Lekz continue, I don't know. But what I do know is that to some people here this is bad press and not the best way to show how great a community I believe this is, was, and ever will be.

If I have put anyone off by this I am sorry, I tried to put my ideas in as polite and nonoffensive manner as possible and I assure you that is my intent.

so until this matter is solved I wish EACH AND EVERYONE OF YOU Godspeed and I look forward to your contributions to the guide.