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

It's Shea. I wouldn't worry too much about that thread. Everyone that's on it is there to come up with really vile insults to each other. And it looks like none of them are online now anyway. It looks like a couple of posts have been yikes. Did you do it? If so, once the PTB come in in a few hours should take care of it.

I'll write a message to him/her on the "h2g2 new to me" thread. Good heads up on the problem! Too bad both of us were too late to catch it while it was happening.

Thanks for replying, sorry I got so steamed up,but I was alerted to it by "mrs the wife" who had been personally insulted on this thread. She was the 1st to yike it, I went & had a look then yiked two others.
What really upset me was the following:

1. A newbie went quite innocently into what must have sounded like an interesting discussion about the nature of h2g2; I'm pretty new myself, this thread was going on when I started; it's just as well I didn't join in then, my 1st action on h2g2 would have been to yike it, followed by resigning, followed by a letter to the BBC. A newbie cannot be expected to understand "weird" senses of humour straight away, & feeling probably a bit insecure would feel personally attacked. They probably wouldn't have the know-how to trace the thread back to it's roots, nor should they be expected to do so.
2. On an open chat-room like this, the sort of people I was led to believe are taking part should be intelligent & sensitive enough to realise that different people have different "bad taste" threshholds, & that if in doubt open conversations should not be offensive to anyone. I happen to know that one of the people involved in tonights episode has been under severe stress recently, and could have been deeply wounded by what they took to be a personal insult. Another person I know is online at the moment who has undergone an exceptionally tragic bereavement, thank goodness they did not (as far as I am aware) take part; it could have been the last straw.
3. If the "self-moderating" experiment is still in place, this sort of thing could jeopardise it & ruin things for everybody. I'm sure you think I am over-reacting & are a humourless party-pooper! The first part may be true, but if even ONE person is offended,in my opinion that is one too many. The second part is not true at all, as anyone who "lurks" around my conversations would surely agree! (Please feel free by the way, or talk to any of the people on my "Friends" space!)

Please don't feel I am getting at YOU in any way; far from it; I was desperate to find an on-line Ace, you responded very quickly,as you say, it's a shame that the damage wasn't discovered earlier, but that can't be helped if we want to continue self-moderating.

Right, I think I've let off enough for now, I'm glad of the chance to get my viewpoint down in writing (better than seething quietly!)
Here's something to cheer us all up, won't hurt a soul I promise!


How very

Terri(& Yoda too, she likes to get involved!)
Speak to you soon on happier topics I hope!

Hi!
Being pulled into this sideways, could someone please state what the problem seems to be?

Is it
a) the "What's wrong with h2g2 researchers?"-thread in general?
b) the 'answer' that was given to mrs the wife at post #1276?
c) the welcome U211101 got?

Hi Tube

I hope you don't mind me butting in here, but as I seem to have caused all of this (indirectly I feel) I thought I ought to try and sort this mess out.

I'm not sure what other postings were moderated, only the one from T'wersh D (can't be bothered to remember his full title), no 1276. I yikesed it as I found the language rather too strong for this site, and also the references to 9/11 in extremely poor taste, god forbid any americans read that one!

The thread in itself is harmless, it has always been done with postings very tongue in cheek, however this particular person is crude and unpleasant in a way that no one else has been. I do not wish to speak for Terri, but she and I have been chatting for a while and I mentioned to her how unpleasant I found this posting to be. I think she went into it to check it out for herself and give me her opinion ( that I wasn't overreacting to post 1276).

I did notice the newbie on the thread last night, and posted his space to say hello and offer much the same advice as you did. I noticed that his english wasn't the most fluent so I think (for what it is worth) that you helped him as much as you could. I went off line very soon after I yikesed 1276 so do not know what happened afterwards. Does that help at all?

Well, as for #1276, that's what I thought had happened aand I can understand that you yikesed that posting.

So we are in agreement that the thread itself is otherwise fine and that U211101 was dealt with correctly....?

Why would it be necessary, then, to get the whole cconversation stopped? The number of yikesed postings is lower than in the lifetime-ban thread for example or several of the darwinists/creationists threads (IIRC)?

I just think it was rather unfortunate that a newbie stumbled on that particular conversation ... in fact, I tried my hand in it at the very beginning of the convo, and got out rather quickly. The insults were a little too "creative" for my blood.

I think that "yikesing" a post that you find overly offensive is the right way to go, and the fact that so many people went out of their way to assure this new Researcher that there were nice people here may have helped. I'm sure that if someone *did* stumble on that conversation, and acted hurt, people would be quick to let them know it was all in fun ... which someone did, as I recall.

Hello, I'm back, had rather a sleepless night over all this, lets hope it will all calm down a bit now; maybe we can all learn something from all this.

As far as I am concerned, I agree completely with everything that has been written above. It was an unfortunate set of circumstances; the chances of a newbie straying onto a particularly "creative" bit of the conversation must be pretty low, but they exist nonetheless; & I stand by my "statement" on Post.2.

Would it be possible to change the title of the Conversation to something less ambiguous such as "Join here if you want to get REALLY insulted!" so that people (especially newbies) know what they're letting themselves in for?

If the conversation has in fact got a history of a bit of a blind eye being turned; ie. baiting the moderators is all part of the game; fair enough if everyone knows about it; but if it's to be considered exempt from the normal "house rules" & has its own rules, these need to be stated I would think.

This sort of thing will ALWAYS be a dodgy issue, some people will always be upset by things other people find harmless or hilarious. Maybe it would be a good opportunity for those "at the top" to clarify the issue a bit?

I'd welcome any comments you all might have, for now let's hope & reign for a little while!
Terri.

I know the Italics are aware of the situation, and are keeping an eye on things.

Errr... while fearing to sound silly now... I didn't lose my calm over this incedent as I felt it to be quite minor (unless I missed something in other threads...).

The title of the conversation as it appears on the "ask h2g2" page cannot be changed by us, maybe it can be changed by an Italic. However, as there are probably hunderts of new researchers ever since the thread was started and only one stumbled into it and was not insulted straight off (but only after having explained to hir the reason and rationale of the thread), I don't think that there's no need for this unprecedented (?) thing to happen.

I do not think that this conversation has "a history of a bit of a blind eye being turned" it underwent the moderation process like everything on this site. I am led to believe that there is *no* technical way of having a conversation not moderated in the old stlye. There is *NO* extemption from the house rules. And I would be strictly against one. There cannot be extemptions. And I remember the Eds catching a lot of flak for the mere thought thst some things went outside the rules. All the rules there are to the thread are stated in posting # 1.

The prople involved in the thread can always yikes a posting, as, indeed, happened with # 1276. I don't shed a single tear after that posting. But the official rule is
"We'd like you to click the complaints button if you see something that you think breaks the House Rules, or that you personally find offensive. Don't use the complaints button if you think someone else might possibly be offended by the material, or we might find ourselves reviewing loads of content unnecessarily."
(A864236)
The Eds have always taken the circumstances of the case into consideration. On this particular posting I was rather borderline... but then again it was the thread for "completely unfounded and inexcusable" (posting # 1) insults. I, personally was not offended by it, as it was not aimed at me. Thus I didn't yikes it.


I suggest to stick to that rule and let the thread do on as it did for the last couple of months.


Tube