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

A bit of inconsistency is something you live with. There'll be that in any case because of context complications. If people can't cope with a bit of inconsistency they can change their behaviour and just cut of swearing altogether.

Realisticaly we do need that sort of list. I'm quite keen on not reinventing the wheel, though. Pastey keeps on linking to just such a list in a white paper by the BBC.

Talking of reinventing the wheel: F19585?thread=8259379

Actually doing those re-drafts, drawing a line and moving on is getting urgent.



B

Okay, but as a general thing I'm all for a bit of inconsistency. It's called Life.

I've just had a quick key word search of Stockholm and the only vaguely looking relevant thread on Magrathea and can't find any more swearing convos. I'm sure there are some though. Where are they?

Can't find anything on the c2 page either

Possibly not sweary ones. Certainly generic mod ones though.

There's going to be human beings being Mods.

Kea - http://www.audiencemap.com/whitepapers/delete_expletives.pdf

Page 56. NSFW, obviously.

B

I was sure there was a swearing convo somewhere. Ok, I googled by site for 'delete expletives' and there seems to be a bit in: Subject: Magrethea - Volunteer Moderators Posted Jun 10, 2011 by Vip - sign up to h2g2Future releases at A85834173 http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/F20643547?thread=8237015&skip=0&show=200 Subject: Noohootoo: standards of behaviour Posted Jun 12, 2011 by kea http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/F19585?thread=8238874 Those seem to be the main too. I'll have a look at Icy's convos too.

We are white-listed at the moment, so the discussions are around should we relax the house rules or not, not whether or not we *tighten them*.

Yes, but...

1. we won't have the bbc filter once we move. Will we still be suitable for a whitelist then?

2. I thought we were suitable for whitelising simply by being part of the bbc. Once we're not, won't we be assessed on ourselves? Are we sure we will still pass, given point one?

3. What's the criteria and what time period of hootoo are we thinking of? I doubt very much that that we will have the same degree of tightness we have now. But do we go back to the pre-filter days? And what about the historical content? Will that affect our whitelistability?

These of course may all be redundant questions. I don't know much about whitelists and how they work, so I could be being overly cautious.

My feeling is we should be pragmatic.

We are where we are.

It's going to be a while before we are in a position to engage directly with schools. Sure we should be prepared for it when we do. But we don't need to beat ourselves up now for it.

So my feeling is that we should start where we are in terms of what is and is not allowed (theoretically) and work on the things we know need improvement for all our sakes. Like having a sane approach to moderating the site.

As I understand it, (and Brian Larholm and Pasty understand it better), white listing is an individual decision made by the IT administrator of each workplace or school. Some of them subscribe to various bits of software which do the white list for them, some of them make their own.

The judgement that the administrators make is 'Is this site suitable for students at our school', we can't get on the white list at every school, but we can, on average, be seen as a site which is suitable for most schools. And why not, we've got the reference material, in the EG. Of course some schools, maybe very religious ones, aren't going to ever think that we are suitable, but all we can do is aim at the majority, if possible.

The Filther is a tool to reduce the moderation workload, it doesn't affect the house rules in anyway.

>>The Filther is a tool to reduce the moderation workload, it doesn't affect the house rules in anyway.

The filter introduced a level of restriction we hadn't previously had. So it's a different implementation of the HRs than we had before.


Ben, I tend to agree, but the thing that keeps popping up at me is that so many people have such different experiences of the site. I think there is a culture of abuse here, others think there is none. That's a pretty wide gap. I think starring out the F word is acceptable, others think it should never be used. Some people see the site as full of fluffy bunnies, I see a lot of jaded bunnies (and a few nasty ones).

(as an aside, I don't think the culture of abuse can be dealt with by the mods. It's something that the CEs and the community need to sort out, with mod backup if necessary).

In general its the written rules are what affects insurance, (and I think white listing) and not the details if the implementation of them.

>> I think there is a culture of abuse here, others think there is none.

*sigh*

There used to be a term called Nettiquette.

I read the thread about youtube links today, and realised that what Ed was doing was poor Nettiquette. I'm not taking sides, it was one of those threads you don't get a feel for without being in it in real time, and yikesing's a whole nother Nettiquette issue in it's own right. But once you and toybox explained your technical and legal constraints it became a Nettiquette thang.

Hey ho. Maybe the future's in the past.

B

Ah, that's good to know.

I'm a newbie here, & have been censored - yikesed? - for a word rhyming with 'shining bright' (which forthwith will be my signature swearword).

Having been on other forums, I felt that this would be acceptable - evidently not, but not a problem. I feel that I have to adapt to the general forum standards, so I just have to live & learn, & adapt to these, on an individual basis.

The odd well-placed swear word can be fantastically effective & powerful, dependent on the convo & poster involved, so I ultimately feel that understanding of the convo & the poster involved should be involved in any moderation process.

So should mods in this area not be better being regular contributers/readers of this site, who have an insight into the general standard of discussion? Just a thought, although may be completely misplaced (as a newbie), so fair do's if so

Sorry if this is not the majority view,

Isa