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

Sunday 3 February 2013: Announcing The Return of the Move Thread Tool

Have you ever started a thread, then realized your conversation belonged in another part of our vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big site? Been informed that your conversation more properly belonged in tech feedback or the community Soapbox? Wished you had posted the details of your vacation to your journal rather than Ask h2g2?

Problem - solved.

The Tech Team fixed the Move Thread tool, which had been broken for about two years. Now the Moderators can easily move a thread to the most appropriate forum, and your conversation can receive the attention it deserves.

To let the Moderators know about a thread that needs to be moved, simply yikes the thread and tick the box for "is off-topic for the board or subject being discussed". Our volunteers will handle the rest.


Happy Nerd
Communications Dept
Operations Team

Always nice to have shiny new tools.

Will watch with interest to see if this gets
abused by johnny-come-lately pedants who
may not understand the true nature of ASK.

Hopefully the founder of a thread will have
to give permission before a thread is moved.
Especially from ASK, where prejudicial 2nd party
judgment may not be the most suitable criterion.

~jwf~

I agree. There always going to be someone who wants to be a pain in the neck, it would be shame if threads were being moved when a procedural complaint were more appropriate, or nothing was wrong at all.

mines allways going to be as there allways off topic

{Have you ever started a thread, then realized your conversation belonged in another part of our vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big site? Been informed that your conversation more properly belonged in tech feedback or the community Soapbox? Wished you had posted the details of your vacation to your journal rather than Ask h2g2?

Problem - solved.}

* * *

Is it uncharitable to suggest that this is not the problem for which the tool was designed? We're not absent-minded enough that the BBC are going to invest expensive programming time into developing a tool for those occasions. Neither is Pastey, struggling to relaunch the site, going to concentrate on this kind of thing. It's a moderation tool pure and simple. If the moderators want to ensure a thread does not appear on the lists of researchers subscribed to a particular forum, then this is the method by which it is removed. To suggest any other motive is misleading.

It's probably more likely to be part of the Editing team tools, as they have to move threads out of Peer Review and suchlike all the time. Mods probably find it handy too.

I don't really mind who the tool was originally written for though, I'm just happy we get to share.

This is a tool that was built into the original h2g2. It's always been an integral part of the site.

We've not fixed it for moderation purposes as has been suggested, we've not fixed it for anything other than it was *originally* designed, and that is for making sure that threads are in the right place.

I'm sorry jwf, but it doesn't matter where the original poster started a thread, if it doesn't belong there it shouldn't be there.

Recently a thread was created in Ask asking about how people used Ask, and the vast majority of people who replied stated that they wanted it to be a place to ask questions and get answers. A few replied that they posted topics there for discussion because that was where people were, and it was more likely to get noticed. We've got a lot of stuff coming up to help address both of those issues, amongst many others, so that we can make sure that h2g2 is the site that everyone wants. Fixing the move thread tool is just the first part of that, there's a new front page coming with a new layout that doesn't just have Ask on it, but forums for chat and discussion too.

We're not doing anything new here, we're fixing what was broken and bring back what we used to have.

And us'ns on the content side .

Now - give us an EDIT button to fix typos!

An Edit button would be new functionality, and whilst new functionality is coming, for now just try to remember that Perview is your Fiend

An edit button?

No, no. The moving finger writes and then moves on!
Revisionism is a sin against the essence of Truth.
Post-event changes disturb the time line and create
an evil pair o'docks. Grandfathers may not get borne.

But... if some feel the need to correct their own typo
or spelling then I guess it's OK so long as only the
porster is allowed to change or edit a post. I shudder
to think what would happen to my campaign to improve
the Englitch Langwitch if others could pounce upon my
posts to ko-wreck my spells.

~jwf~

T'was a forlorn hope.

I just know I'd use it, for the mistakes I inevitably make and the second thoughts and revisions I always have. Perview is good, if you use it, but I say we should have both!

I reckon it should timed, so say after an hour or whatever the post became permanent but prior to that it could be tinkered.

Just as long as we don't bring in pre-dick-tive speilling

lil xx

Noodles!!

And NO auto correct while you type

I doubt we could survive autocorrect.

>> I'm sorry jwf, but it doesn't matter where the
original poster started a thread, if it doesn't belong
there it shouldn't be there. <<

In principle yes. I can see the logic of that.

But logic is not an h2g2 ASK criterion. It has been the lobby,
the foyer, the common room for 13 years. It has always been
a minestrone, a melange, a melting pot, a community dance.

Be careful that placing this extra burden of having to make
even more value judments on the shoulders of war-weary Mods
doesn't become the proverbial strawmen on the broken backs
of our most faithful and dutiful camels.

The potential for abuse of power is frightening:

"Your post did not have a question mark and does
not appear to actually ask a question therefore
we will be moving you to..."



~jwf~

Ask hasn't been around for 13 years, so it's been none of those things for 13 years. Don't forget I was here when h2g2 started, which was long before Askh2g2 came along

Ask was originally created to allow for there to be a place where someone could ask a question, and get an answer. And in the thread where people were polled, the general consensus was that this is what the community in general wanted it to be. Which is why we're also bring in the new front page with the new discussion forum on it. Because although Ask was created for a certain reason, it evolved over time to do several things. But the majority of people want it back to how it was, and rather than just cutting it back to that, we're trying to accommodate both uses.

There is always a potential abuse of power with anything that relies on volunteers, however we also have some *very* good processes in place to make sure that it doesn't happen. I know full well for example that no individual moderator has the ability to put sanctions in place against an individual, everything is a consensus of all of the team, and anything that requires the larger, more serious sanctions are also signed off at a higher level.

So, whilst there may be a temptation, even if it gets too great there's no opportunity for it to happen.

And rather than becoming more of a burden, we believe it will lighten the load. A fair amount of the stuff referred to the mods is down to things being off-topic/in the wrong place. Each week they get quite a few requests saying "I've posted this in the wrong place.." etc. Now, rather than having to go through the procedures we've made sure are in place to stop posts being removed, restarted, etc, etc, the mods can just move the thread to where it's supposed to be.

"I doubt we could survive autocorrect"

I doubt the autocorrect could survive us