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

This post has been removed.

Interesting. We used to be allowed that word, and I just posted it to see and it's been yikesed.

If you do a google by site search for that word there are 4,120 hits (although I'd be interested to see if that's the same searching from the UK). If you limit that to the last 12 months there are only 2 hits.


Isa, mods will have to be volunteers from the site, not least because we can't afford to pay professional ones. But I agree that having mods who know the site should be a good thing.

(my concern currently is that we all have such different ideas about what's going on onsite and what's ok).

Kea

I fully back the idea of certain words being 'non-usable'. But of those swear words which may /may not be allowed, I feel context is all. As I said previously, a well placed swear-word is extremely powerful, although the routine use of such should be highly discouraged.

If mods are to be made up of those who know the site, that would be a good thing.

However, there would have to have guidelines (rather than static rules?) as to what would be acceptable/not acceptable, within the new host's guidelines. I presume there would be their rules/regs to to incorporated?

So basically, any swearing would have to be within their guidelines? Obviously, I don't know if this is the case, or if H2GH2 can set it's own standards?

h2g2 is part of the group that's buying the site. We're represented by the Interim Committee (aka c3). So in that sense, and in the sense that we're having to do most of the leg work, it's up to us to sort this out. The other members of the Foundation (Robbie, Aly and Brian) may have some input at some point but as far as I can tell they're leaving it up to us for now.

OK, please give me a buzz err, knock err, shout if you need some assistance with this

I would like to be involved in some way with the new site/transition, & it is an area that interests me

I would hate for you think that my last post was a critisim without basis, but without knowing the new boundaries, it may have come across as such. That really wasn't my intention. Please feel free to involve me in any new/revised swearing policies, because I am really interested in this aspect of internet behaviour

Hi Isa

I'll pop back here later with a link where you can sign up as a volunteer.

Kea, I'm going to have to correct you on how you re representing the decision-making structures of the successful bid. I put in a long post yesterday which I'll track down when I'm at work and post a link to.

Briefly, Robbie, Noesis and the community's Legal Entity will own and run the site, and will set the strategic direction of h2g2 as a whole. Specific tasks are delegated out to specific groups - eg Noesis have the tasks relatng to setting up and running the servers, and we have the task of drafting the relatively minor changes needed to the House Rules, Terms and Conditions, and also the teas of setting up and running some volunteer moderators.

But these are all delgated task, and can be taken from us and handed over to an external hosting company (in the case of the servers) to laywers (in the case of the HR and Ts and Cs) and to an external firm of Mods (in the case of Moderation) at any time.

So we are one of the groups doing the heavy lifting at the moment - and making it much heavier than it really needs to be considering the relatively minor changes needed to the Ts and Cs and HR, and the sheer amount of discussion that has already happened on the topic over the past 10 years. And we've got the task because

(a) Robbie, Noesis and the Inerim Committee trust us not to disrupt the site while we do it and
(b) hosting sservices, laywers and external mods are expensive.

As I said, they are the decision-makers, they've asked us to prepare stuff for them to review, change and implement. What we are doing is part of that larger picture.

I'll add the links when I get to work, probably in about an hour and a half.

B

Flippin' 'eck!

They'll (the ) will be adding 'Noodles!' to their list next

Good to have you here, Isa

Btw, we have B's husband, Z, helping himself to our stock in our thread


lil xx

We can either me moderated by people, who use their judgement, and take context into account, but their is a risk of inconsistency as judgement is often subjective. To counteract this the mods can work as a collegiate team and discuss things a lot, and there can be an appeal process.

Or we can aim to be moderated by robots who strictly enforce the house rules, using whatever the guidance is that they're given. We have that at the moment, and it's not great is it?

I had just realised this this whilst we were having a coffee this morning. I think it deserves a wider audience than Ben and the cats.

Mods are people too



Thanks Ben

My :

-Intent is more important than the words used. So even if someone doesn't swear it doesn't matter if their intent is clearly unpleasant.

-That being said, some words are incredibly likely to offend people so if something is yiksed and the thread is in a 'high traffic' area it may be removed even if the intent is good. I hope that this would happen very rarely.

-Until we actually get the site, and we get to see the tools we can use, it's very hard to discuss this. There will be a good deal of 'suck it and see'. I really hope to set up a way to get solid feedback about what we do once we start.

-I don't think a conversation about moderation can be had successfully at the moment, because we are discussing a system which will disappear. It will be far more productive to have this discussion once we have already made the transition. We can talk about what we want, but we already know what we want; what we used to have before it all got stupid around here.

>>>> 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
<<

Sorry, just seen this Ben. To clarify, I wasn't talking about me and Ed when I referred to the culture of abuse. Ed wasn't being abusive (although it was still antisocial IMO). But the lack of respect in those lower level spats does add to the general culture of abuse here.

I didn't mean to imply Ed was being abusive. A plonker, yes. A self-satisfied plonker even. (And I'd say it to his face). But not anything more than that.

I still think we could do with a bit more nettiquette here though.

B

Definitely. I've appreciated your posts on this today.

I really liked what pc said in the other thread about never mind offensive, are we being mean?

Hmmm, catching up, I'm not sure that I would say that there is culture of abuse, you might be right though, I don't really fully understand what that means

I am not a subscriber to 'fluffy bunnies' school of thought. I would say that on Ask there is a degree of over-familarity and that has bred a certain amount of contempt in some threads and (I'm treading very carefully here)a level of disrespect between researchers that is quite uncomfortable to be around sometimes.

At it's best, Ask can be humourous, challanging, interesting, it is a great place to learn (as good as the guide)and it's a very broadening social experience. It can be a friendly, tolerant, welcoming forum.

At it's worse, it's like a horrible family occasion when everyone is taking bites at each other, and because it family everyone knows where a nip wil hurt the most. Or a couple of people just end up slugging it out with a series of very long posts potted with personal comments and everyone just backing away.

So I'm not sure that there is a culture of abuse, I would say that there is tendancy for posts to get personal when they really shouldn't, bad habits maybe. A lack of insight of impact that certain behaviour patterns have on those that either on the sharp end of them, or just witnessing it, and that fact that too often its behaviour that we do just tolerate, or ignore when really we shouldn't always let it go.

I have got some more to say but can't put it into written words at the mo but h2g2 has had a fair few community issues lately, not just on Ask, and none of them have been 'little issues' which could have just been dealt with a few appropriate yikeses and conversation cooling.

It would have been a challange for any community team to manage, specially a new formed one solely relient on voluneers, in new surroundings.

Peanut

Thanks Peanut, that's a *very* good overview of the situation.

thanks peanut, from me as well. I like to hear you calm voice of reason

thanks Kea and Lanza, I never know if I'm going off the beaten track or not



Peanut

I'd agree with peanut, there isn't a "culture of abuse" here. A few individuals who may tend to get snippy or bullheaded sometimes isn't a "culture". Even when discussions here get heated they are much more thoughtful and restrained than other parts of the interwebs. For instance, we tend to be the exception to Godwin's law here, something we can be proud of. (Although, I did get modded for simply mentioning the statements of a cretinous American conservative talk radio host after he demonstrated Godwin's law recently so maybe the mods are being excessive in enforcing that.)

Besides, heated discussions shouldn't necessarily be discouraged. Sometimes they can be quite invigorating. A few years back, there were many fierce debates around here. Granted, I've unsubscribed from many of those areas myself, but I remember some barnstormers in the old Forum area and also around Ask, for instance the old "What's Wrong With Americans" thread (until it imploded). That's the thing about this place. If someone doesn't like the tone of a discussion, one can leave it.

Of course, we should address any instances of real abuse (rather than just disagreement, of course).

I know of at least two people that have been seriously harrassed here, and can think of a couple of others. I can also think of someone who is currently being subjected to abuse. It's tolerated, that's what makes for the culture.

Within the hard core debate threads and subcommunity there is definitely a tolerance for abusive behaviour. I'm not talking about tone or hotly contesting debate topics. I'm talking about people being mean and nasty to other people and this being acceptable.

I think its playing with words.

The site will develop its culture. those of us who can no longer cope with certain tolerated behaviours will simply leave. But that's fine. Life ain't perfect.