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

Would it take you more than a few minutes to construct an example A-page of a Bear Pit forum? Some seem to think it would be a no-holds-barred sort of thing. Which no version of this site could really afford to sustain long ...

Yes, it would. I need to think about it. Some people are complaining that the idea isn't clear. That's because I'm literally making it up as I go along, and as I go along what I'm making up is changing as I think.

On the one hand, I'd really like to think that the h2g2 of the future is somewhere where, if you wanted to, you could encounter and properly engage with the thoughts and ideas of a BNP supporter, a radical Islamist, an anti-abortionist, an animal rights protester, a psychic healer or a Catholic priest.

On the other, I have to say I've sympathy with those who say we don't want those sort of people on "our" site. But then again, that means those sort of people will simply stay on their sites, and never engage with anyone else. h2g2 is quite pluralist, although it's less so than it used to be because of the liberal bias of the BBC. I wonder whether it can survive a broadening of its user base...

Either way, the Pit as I'm currently picturing it is simply a repository for those conversations which I'd rather people didn't encounter during their first minute or month here, but which I would personally not want to see locked shut or polluted with too many "This posting has been hidden" notices. I *hate* those, and not just when the posting in question is mine.

>>you could encounter and properly engage with the thoughts and ideas of a BNP supporter, a radical Islamist, an anti-abortionist, an animal rights protester, a psychic healer or a Catholic priest
<<

Haven't we had that diversity historically?

It's not that I don't want those people on this site. That's not it at all. It's that if they come there there are certain standards of behaviour.

We've had strong debates about the BNP where pro BNP ideas have been presented, so it's not like anyone is saying that you can't talk about that either. What you can't do in those conversations is say all black people are subhuman and should be enslaved. And I guess that is what you are meaning. You want that extreme stuff to be allowable too, is that right?

I think there is an irony here. We will never have psychic healers coming here to debate because you (and probably others) would hound them off the site.

I think an A page once the ideas are clear is a very good idea

Yes please.

B

"We've had strong debates about the BNP where pro BNP ideas have been presented"

Hmm. I'm not sure I've seen those. I've seen people arguing against anti-fascists. I've BEEN people arguing against anti-fascists. But that's very much not the same as being "pro-BNP". It's like opposing anti-abortionists - I'm not pro-abortion, I just don't think YOU (you, random passing anti-abortionist) should go unopposed in your desire to impose your opinion on others.

"What you can't do in those conversations is say all black people are subhuman and should be enslaved. And I guess that is what you are meaning. You want that extreme stuff to be allowable too, is that right?"

That is a very hard question for me, as I think I've made clear.

On the one hand, that's an extremely offensive opinion, and one I would hope that hardly anyone would hold, much less express.

Nevertheless, one of my dearest principles is that everyone is entitled to their (wrong) opinions. And, assuming you don't break the law, everyone is entitled to express their (wrong) opinions.

It's very hard for me to stand up and say yes, I believe it should be allowable for racists and homophobes and misogynists and religious people and animal rights nutbars and psychics and the like to express their opinions on a site I'm of which I'm a member.

But free speech is free for everyone, or it's not free at all. So with the gorge rising in my throat I must stand by that principle and say yes, I think that stuff should be permitted. Explicitly condemned, ghettoised and closely monitored - but yes, permitted.

Frankly, however, I believe I'm in a tiny, tiny minority, and that the majority would prefer simply to pronounce such opinions beyond the pale and ban their expression entirely.

Free speech - *proper* free speech, free for *everyone* within the bounds of law - is *difficult*. You have to stomach people like Fred Phelps, and it's unpleasant. Personally, I think it's worth it. There's nowhere I know of on the web attempting it. That alone, I think, makes it worth a try.

This site isn't a forum for free speach and hasn't been since late January 2001. I'm not sure it was before then.

The thing is, you are right. Free speech includes hate speech, and pedophilia and incitements to acts of terrorism, and all sorts of things.

h2g2 is a small website in a big world. We aren't a platform in the way that Wordpress is a platform. We are (or hopefully we will become) a publisher.

If we are going for brutal honesty, then I have to be brutally honest and say that here - on this website - I do not want it to be acceptable to post hate speech.

Now the question becomes should it be *socially* unacceptable only, or should it also be forbidden by the rules of the site?

I know where I stand on that, and having re-read the house last night, I think we should keep them. And that means no, not full freedom of speech.

Sorry.

B

"Free speech includes hate speech, and pedophilia and incitements to acts of terrorism"

Nah, it doesn't. Those things are illegal, apart possibly from hate speech, depending on your definition of "hate speech". Incitement to an act of violence is a crime, regardless of medium.

Anyway - you've made an excellent and most pertinent point, re: platform vs. publisher.

And as I said - I've a principled desire for full freedom of speech, coupled with an almost relieved intellectual realisation that it's neither technically achievable nor socially desirable.



That said, does the Pit idea, as a place to stash conversations we'd rather not publicise but don't wish to actually stop, still fly?

I'd like to try it for 3 months and see how it goes. But then that's the approach I'd like to take to a lot of this stuff.

B

Since basic mechanisms already exist to move odd threads from ASK to Misc Chat, or from Peer Review back to la-la-land, it would seem to be a no-cost thing to trial.

Well, I'd have thought so....

B

I don't understand why those topics have to have a special area. It's not the topics but the way in which they are discussed.

I appreciate it's an idea in flux, but for the topics, I don't see what was wrong with the forum for that, but if the bp is also going to be for bad tempered shouting matches, well, I think that's a mistake.

Actually I like the white out option for the bad tempered posts (with removal reserved just for actually libalous or illegal stuff more than for premod or banned people wholesale.

Still think the bp is a terrible idea.

"What you can't do in those conversations is say all black people are subhuman and should be enslaved"

That would be a fascinating conversation to view...we do not tend to yikes offensive stuff on this site...the mods remove stuff...I think if someone did come out with that then we would engage with them...find out why they think that and argue against it....oh, and of course say they are wrong...

warner has said some pretty iffy stuff based on his views of what being a Muslim is and how it allows people to treat other people but people argued against those views rather than yikes stuff.

As long as there is no incitement involved then I see no problem.

We also have to remember that the BBC have to make sure the Daily Hate-mail can't make anything out of stuff on this site to bash the BBC...hopefully the new owners will not have that issue and we can be freer.

I will say it will mean we can talk politics during elections...woohoo.