[Here's a rant explaining why I didn't contribute any new guide entries to h2g2 for about 5 months. Basically, one of my purposes for using h2g2 is to get people reading some of my stories already posted offsite. When moderators decided my other webpages were too offensive to link to anymore, after leaving the links functional for the last year or two before that, they took away much of my reason for using h2g2. Since then, I've used h2g2 as a message board, but only began creating new guide entries again in January 2002.]

Nice place to visit, but I won't live here anymore

3 Sept 2001. A link to my original off-h2g2 webpage called "Awkwardly" has been retroactively judged too offensive for readers of h2g2. By "retroactively," I mean the link has been available here for months (actually years) and I haven't changed that page in months, but today when I updated a few links on my h2g2 personal space, a moderator suddenly decided that this link was too dangerous. Did someone yikes it because they found the site offensive, or is this another moderation judgment that is inconsistent with earlier judgments? Please take this into account when you read that patronizing message on someone's intro or guide entry that says, "This Personal Space Introduction has been hidden, because it contravenes our House Rules in some way. However, the author can easily re-write their Introduction so that it doesn't break the rules, so let's hope they do just that." If the House Rules could be so "easily" interpreted by researchers, then why do moderators have trouble even agreeing with each other from week to week and month to month? It paints me as the fool for not "easily" fixing the problem all night (or all weekend when waiting for clarification from Italics), but I'm only a fool for my inability to read the mind of the moderator who interprets Rules differently than other mods who have passed the same page.

Another inconsistency in this case is that in the past, offensive links have simply been replaced by "[URL removed by moderator]" instead of hiding the whole page. If they had done that, then the rest of my page would have been accessible, and I could have edited the allegedly offensive part last night. There's probably some explanation for this other than persecution, probably a new policy because the URL is not saved anywhere if moderators write over it, so the researcher might actually lose the URL. Whatever the policy or the explanation, I'm no longer interested. h2g2 has effectively broken down on me once too often.

Sick of having to explain myself, sick of having to wrestle with moderation just to communicate an URL, sick of the way h2g2 malfunctions not due to technical difficulties but due to editorial decisions. I have better things to do with my time than struggle to be heard here.

h2g2 is a nice place to visit, but I won't live here anymore.

[It sounded cute at the time, but I never really moved out. Kept posting messages all the while. Now I'm back with tail between my legs. Oh well.]