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

Get a load of this. I posted this article on h2g2 way back on 11 Jan 2002. This was back in the days of pro-active moderation, so it must have been read and approved at the time.

Years pass. Meanwhile, the article somehow got noticed and linked from blogs like memepool and Bruce Sterling's Schism Matrix.
www.infinitematrix.net/columns/sterling/sterling30.html
In Dec 2005 it was blogged in the Second Life Herald and MMOrgy.
Four years and four months after being posted, approved by moderators, and read by probably a lot more offsite readers than most unedited h2g2 entries, I get an email saying the page had been removed because it violated the rules.

I'm not going to link to the original version, but if you know how to look up archived versions of old webpages, you'll be able to see the original version of this one. While modifying it to meet censors' approval, I actually cleaned up some of the phrasing as a bonus, but people told me the original was funny. It never would have earned links from those other sites if it wasn't funny or interesting or something.

When I asked for details about which words or sections could be cleaned up to help the page pass muster, they pointed out a particular word in the title. (Hint: The word "strumpet" replaces this old synonymous word which rhymed with "war".) I needed to use a word less provocative. Also the sexual imagery in the Habbo section needed toning down.

True, I didn't mean the article to help people become furni strumpets or to get away with engaging the services of a furni strumpet. But it's a little like spelling out the ingredients of a molotov cocktail. The recipe is common knowledge, and any small child could guess at the proper construction after seeing one of them on the evening news, but if we duck our heads in the sand, no small children will burn their houses down playing with molotov cocktails ever again. (Or at least h2g2 won't be blamed for giving detailed or even vague hints at how to construct one, or how to gain the services of a furni tart.)

Anyhow, in the process of self-censoring the article, I cleaned up some of the poor word choice, so now I actually like the new, improved version, even if "furniture strumpets" doesn't have the impact of that
old title. I'm not trying to make a federal case out of it, but it's funny how an entry that was approved by a moderator can be read by hundreds (?) of people, apparently with no objections, until 4.3 years later, and then it gets removed pending clean-up.


Subcom. Deidzoeb