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

That was very funny, Rob, and one person has laughed at it, and it included wordplay, and you said yourself it may have constituted effrontery.

Let us know when you get your Official Warning, won't you?

H.

Make that two people. Mind you since we are both members of that small but pesky minority that probably makes it *worse* for Rob, not better...

*helplessly trying to smother her giggles*

Oh, and s and es to both of you while I still can.

Ben

Humor! Arr! Arr!

Barton

7rob7 - If I may make one small correction to your summary, Colonel Sellers was suspended for sending a (what they considered) rude email to the staff after receiving his official warning. Having been warned about being offensive, whether he thought he was or not, he then did it again.

As a general note to everyone, although I don't think it's being quoted here, the response Mark gave to Lucinda about offsite activities affecting h2g2, Lucinda didn't mention other websites. From memory, he mentioned instant messages, email, and being down the pub. Forgive me if I put words in his mouth, or left something out. Mark said things said there would not be counted in decisions about disciplinary action here. Again, nothing was said about websites.

Mina,

that information about the Colonel is actually very important. Would you please post it in the Won't Tolerate Rudeness thread?

This is the first time I have seen it stated here on site.

Regards

Ben

Watch it! Firstly, saying something sarcastic or ironic or satiric or even just subtly witty about the editors, staff or their policy is offensive, and such offense is grounds for banning, so there goes 7rob7. Secondly, *laughing* at something offensive, or considering it humorous instead of being deeply outraged by it, is grounds for banning also, so there go Hoovooloo and Ben. OOOPSS! What did I just do? I guess there go I, as well!

I *hope* not. I am filled with a deep heaviness ... no more wit, no more satire, no more sarcasm, no more irony, and this site is supposed to be inspired by DNA!!! Come on ... people should lighten up. I am critical of policies ... of things that people do ... because I want that they should do *good* and not *bad*. What harms any living person is bad. What harms this site is bad. What harms people of future generations is bad. What harms the reputation of a deceased person is also bad.

Yes, I would like to know if that is what happened. I remember the Colonel saying he *wanted* to do that, but as far as I could tell, he said that he was able to keep his angrier parts from doing that. If he did then go ahead and do it, it does make things more difficult for him.

"Colonel Sellers was suspended for sending a (what they considered) rude email to the staff after receiving his official warning. Having been warned about being offensive, whether he thought he was or not, he then did it again."

You've got a point there, Mina.

(but the way you spike your hair, it really doens't show... )

I wonder if he saved a copy of that email, and whether he'd care to post it at FoLKZ... ...there, I've asked.

If he does, I'd appreciate it if one of the FoLKZ could copy me on it.

Ben

no prob; I'm pretty sure I have your email.

Mina (#1204) -

As Ben said (quoting, I'm sure, the folks on the Titanic post-iceberg) "Well, *this* changes things." I did not realize that there had been an email exchange between the Colonel and the Italics. My understanding of the sequence was put together from the bits and pieces I could glean from the fora here and over at the Ol' FolKZ Home (which I only read on the web - I do not see the apparently copious email exchanges that do not get posted there), and that lilttle bit of info slipped by.

What I did see was a de-named (i.e. the names had been replaced with initials) description speculating on what kind of image would achieve an utterly reprehensible level of offensiveness (within the context of an exchange on levels of offensibility.) *I* think it failed. To someone like me who has been consuming 'underground' comix and films since the very early 70's, sexual interaction with skeletal parts is pretty darn tame - a fantasy: no more or less substantial than the idea that Mickey and Minnie Mouse have sex off-camera (with who, I don't care...) So >> to my mind and my mind alone<< the image was non-offensive. Far worse is generated by every pro- and anti-war propaganda agency ever. I suppose this could be construed as some sort of failing on my part - but many things qualify on that point.

(For what it's worth, the initials I saw in the reconstructed comment were 'L' and 'M'. No justice; no 'P'.)

Of course, none of that matters. If C.S. was deliberately rude directly to the Italics - regardless of perceived provocation - then the rules in this case are very clear and constantly getting clearer. I am, however, still bothered by what seems to me this: the Colonel was originally censured for comments made off-site, and this escalated into the direct confrontation ending in suspension. That still seems sorta uber-reaching on the part of the Italics, IMO.

I am personally unoffendable to the point of ludicriousness simply because I have no self-respect. But I know if I look hard enough and far enough, I'll be able to find a real or implied personal attack that could leave me in tears. (Ok, everybody - don't go getting any ideas...)

A web search once for my own name turned up, I think, six other blighters (is that an allowed word?), none of whom were me. I didn't/don't exist. Or - at the very least - I haven't been caught. Yet.

Look at the time! Gotta run. Ta!

-77

I wanted to make it absolutely clear here (too) that my nonchalance over the severity of the offensive comments has not one whit to do with the severity of the offense taken. No one has the right to tell someone else how to feel. You can disagree with those feelings, but that's all you can do. Conversely, no one can tell you how to feel about something, either: it works both ways. If you don't like it - sorry; tuff kitty.

(Gotta stop. Talking in declarative sentences always makes my plams sweat and my breath short. Bye.)

>>My understanding of the sequence was put together from the bits and pieces I could glean from the fora here and over at the Ol' FolKZ Home (which I only read on the web - I do not see the apparently copious email exchanges that do not get posted there), and that lilttle bit of info slipped by.

Just to make it 100% clear to everyone, I do not know anything that no one else can know. The information I posted here, I got from FoLKZ.
No one else seems to have put the two posts from him together to work out the train of events, but the info is there.
7rob7, this was not aimed particularly at you, I quoted you because you mentioned that you had been to FoLKZ, and it is there to be found by anyone.

Understood, Mina. Posts at FolKZ get a little disjointed for me - I see a lot of responses to postings I miss and/or can't find - so I missed whole chunks of the sequence; including, I believe, the infamous original. Hard things for a Gemini to admit, I know...

Thanks. As I think I said, this was the murkiest of the three transgressions for me to reconstruct.

Glad to be of help and to know that my general nosiness can come in useful sometimes.

Mina, I pointed it out on FoLKZ as well, just a while ago. I remember the postings where Colonel Sellers said that ... as I explained there, I was in a bit of a hurry reading over everything so I forgot the 'rude email' part of it, afterwards.

Willem, thank you. I have actually just been there to look for something else, and I saw your message. Although you have felt that I am not always as civil as I can be, I have never felt that you are 'against' me, and that I appreciate, and you.

Just to let y'all know that my personal space has disappeared. I assume that it will be restored unaltered once it has been referred to the Italics, so I am not going to re-write at present.

It contained an altered and updated version of Post 65 in this thread (which is stil there):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F13393&thread=150605&skip=60&show=20

The differences related to issues 3 and 5.

*feeling bemused*

a bowl of petunias called Ben

I read through it quickly when you changed it and didn't see a problem with it. Is someone trigger happy this week??

Same here.

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