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

Congratulations the the Lynn Family

"IanG of the science boards says that soon (unspecified time frame) they won't accept overnight posts at all."

I've heard this rumour too. Probably to save on moderation costs...

I don't think it is a rumour. IanG appeared to be warning us in his official capacity as a board host. He doesn't seem prone to starting or passing on rumours.

He does occasionally get involved when he thinks the mods aren't doing their jobs properly and comment on board issues like that. So most of us scientific types over there think he's an OK dude (or something like that).

congratulations may he always be healthy, happy and fulfilled.

Yeah, he's cool. I had a drink with him this afternoon in fact. Will pass your comments on...

Would that be the same IanG (U118316) with whom Abi is ... erm ... friends?

Not unless he's had a body transplant.

That would be scary. Which one would Abi keep?

There were people talking about that sort of thing on the Science boards the other day. I suppose they might still be doing so except these things tend to wander off and on-topic a lot. The "all science is evil" brigade tend to try and disrupt every sensible thread. I think that one may have started with cryogenics or cloning and migrated to body versus brain transplants.

Ah yes, the old body v. brain transplant debate....

I saw that there was a 'creation' messageboard on science - could guess right away that that one would cause a lot of debate...

What do you think of the science quizzes?

The Creation board was put there primarily to stop the religious nutters ruining the Evolution board. It hasn't worked though because they are trolling (and spamming) all the boards and the moderators are useless at enforcing the board remits by removing blatantly off-topic posts (some mods are even sympathetic to creationism and the shifts can be roughly determined by the response to yikesing). It is nearly impossible to actually discuss science seriously but if the bible quotes are ignored by the scientists and left by the mods it makes it look as though evolution, carbon-dating, cosmology, big bang etc etc have somehow been "proved" wrong and all scientists are frauds. Some of them get banned for a week or so for being abusive and libellous but they create new fake IDs immediately or come straight back afterwards. It really ought to be possible to ban them permanently from selected boards - ie let them proselytise all they want on Religion but not on Science. Though in fact the problem is nearly always various kinds [in-joke] of Christian and they also disrupt the Jewish and other specialist boards on Religion.


I haven't seen the science quizzes. There hardly seems any point.

Unfortunately, that kind of thing is very common, and has happened on usenet since time began (the atheist newsgroups was constantly under fire, despite a 'no proselytising' clause). You also get a lot of people trying to argue (stupidly) that 'atheism is a religion'. There's also the argument over whether religion and science are mutually incompatible or not.

"has happened on usenet since time began"

Well possibly since usenet began, unless you want an even younger earth than the YECs do.

They go beyond "arguing" that atheism is a religion to claiming that "evolutionism" is! They don't like the few religious scientists telling them that they don't have a problem reconciling their faith with their scientific work. Of course the various trolls don't approve of each other's faiths either but they probably hate scientists even more. Then there are the racists and the misogynists and some very strange ageists (mostly one homeopath at the moment) who are all usually from the "christian" contingent too (but that could be a matter of statistical bias in the people likely to sign up with the BBC).


The software is rubbish too. Missing boards (whole pages), missing threads, missing posts (almost but not entirely random as far as I can make out) and links which don't work to put you back where they say they will. It got worse after the last "upgrade" in the spring. I actually spotted a genuinely serious question about meiosis and chromatid transpositions possibly leading to new alleles and was all set up to answer it when it mysteriously vanished. So that's another reason the board can't fulfil its apparent purpose.


The worrying thing is that people have detected posts disappearing and reappearing on h2g2 too. So I hope the rot isn't spreading over here. Jim needs some high-strength bug killer.

When I first read this I got a bit of a shock! I thought what has Ian got to do with the Science Boards and if he does manage them why is he pretending to be doing something with .NET in the City?

It's OK Abi - you're just part of a cunning scientific experiment.

Oh well that is ok then!

He's clearly a man of many talents Abi...

Well things on the message boards are going from bad to worse. The complete overnight closure is now in place. Also not only are the trolls as active as ever but they've started pretending to be existing established and reputable posters. This is identity theft (in some cases of real names even though in others it is just a nickname). So these people are being made to look as though they are saying stuff which they aren't.

As the boards show only text name not ID number/link, changing one's nickname does not affect previous postings to make it obvious and the only trail is in the post numbers. This is a bit subtle for some people or casual visitors to spot but can be used in conjunction with style of posting to identify the culprits. A totally new ID starts at 1 again. A long-standing member of the boards tends to have a high post count.

People have tried to complain to the mods and alert them to this rather despicable behaviour but this was rejected with:

===
"After careful consideration we concluded that the message in question
doesn't break our House Rules, and can therefore remain on the board.

We're sorry if you disagree with this decision, but the high volume
of traffic to the BBCi messageboards means that we are unable to
allocate time for discussing each moderation assessment in depth."
===

The sooner dna manages to eat the rest of BBCi and its budget the better as far as I can see. Although people are allowed to go off-topic here (as I have - oops!) the mods don't do anything to stop the trolls doing that on the MBs anyway. At least here the sites are open all the time (except when crashed ) and people wouldn't be able to get away with identity theft for long. Even trolling is probably handled better by the residents and mods here.

Just wanted to wish you my congratulations