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

ok, as far as i can see none of you can get online. this is bad not only because you cannot access this glorious site, but because of the reason/s why.

someone posted a quote earlier today that i thought fantastic:

"The sins of the few come down on the many."

i want 2 particular people to think about that through out this post and maybe they could answer at the end as to why they think they have the higher moral ground to do what they did


as many will know, there has been a little debate raging over whether Digi Box users are welcome on this site. thankfully, only a small number said 'no'. though any number is too high as i would think the creator of this site would admit.

we could go into small print and find that yes, the Digi Box access to this site was, strictly speaking, unauthorised.
that yes, a couple of them abused that access by deliberately causing trouble, please bare in mind that trouble is not restricted to Digi Box users.
and yes, their ways are a little different to ours ie, language, punctuation, grammar.

but i also think that most of us will agree that the bigger differences have been overcome with a lot of hard work from certain individuals and groups, and that Hootoo is a better, more diverse place because of this.

a debate such as this has already appeared here in the past. it was started by the same individuals then who have a vindictive vendetta to rid access to H2G2 to Digi Box users at what would seem any cost. (please remember also that both these people also used Digi Box to first access Hootoo)

if Digi Box was to be cut off from Hootoo the community would lose one of its most varied groups and countless volunteers in the <./>ACES</.>, <./>GURUS<./> etc etc. which would mean that for a while at least, Hootoo's running would slow down dramatically as questions would take longer to answer, Newbies wouldn't get a prompt welcome and may leave in effect of that, entries wouldn't get finished or edited whilst the backlog built up. the re-percussions are there to see to any logical mind, except a certain 2.

now in the most recent debate, a few stepped forward to defend this targetted group and i applaud you, the opposition was stubborn and repetitive and had seemed to have made up it's mind before anything was said.

the reason i post now is because the unthinkable has actually happened. the 2 in question have campaigned to the company Telewest (who are a major Digi Box provider) and had the connection severed.
we all know that it probably won't be long until there is a way around this discovered as has been done in the past, but i am just highly dissapointed by the actions of so called H2G2 representatives in this case.
i now want the H2G2 Community to know in full what is going on and show it's support to all that are missing at the moment.

i also challenge the 2 in question to step forward and explain just why they think they have the mora justification to carry out such a vindictive move and i want them to address the community, the way it should have been done.

you will note the offenders have been left un-named. this is on purpose in the interest of fairness, they may wish to take note.

damn, i have to offline now myself, so please don't expect replies from me until tomorrow

So we've actually lost the digibox users? This is terrible. I don't know the ins and outs of the debate, I've not got involved in any way shape or form but this means that there will be a load of us who have lost contact with friends. Perhaps those who have said the community is getting less friendly are right

Hmmm...well, I can't condone any "getting round the system", so first up, I have no problem with anyone alerting a company to abuse of their services.

That said, I am aware that the motive was to exclude a whole group of hootoo users. And that I cannot condone.

Even though a number of digibox users can be annoying. Even though some of them use irritating txtish, capitals, constant inane chatting and fixation on asl.

I do not presume to tar all digibox users based on the perceived sins of a few. That would be prejudice of the most insidious kind.

*sits back to watch events unfold*

Old Chinese curse - "May you live ininteresting times"

Interseting debate... I actually lurked on the thread about this on Saturines journal.

I concur that whilst I cannot condem pointing out to Telewst the loophole in the system. However I do not for a second that pointing out a loophole to do the right thing by telewest had anything whatsoever to do this being pointed out.

IMHO it was vindictive pure and simple... just to get rid of digibox users. I really think that if all digibox users subscibed to the twos ideals of what a "hootoo user should be" then they would not have pointed it out to Telewest.

Oh this is just not right!!! I also was unaware of any specific problems with digibox users (I'm only somewhat aware of what a digibox is) but I can see NO reason that as a group they should be denied access to this site. As far as the use of txtspeak I don't see how that could be a reason to deny access to them. Even if txtspeak somehow breaks the 'no foreign language' rule that should still not be applied to an entire group of users whose main commonality is the equipment they use. At most, the terms of service policies could be applied to specific users.

I'll have to look farther into this as this is the first i've heard of this, but so far consider my support on the side of the digiboxers.

Has this been confirmed by Telewest as a firewall block to this site?

"Newbies wouldn't get a prompt welcome and may leave in effect of that, entries wouldn't get finished or edited whilst the backlog built up"

Whilst some digibox users have been invaluable as aces, the rest of us will make sure the newbies keep being welcomed. Also no digi user is a sub-ed so it won't affect guide entry editing (they cannot use the tools needed for subbing)

I think the first thing would be to confirm if it is telewest putting a block on the site, as digi users were definately on the site earlier today, rather than a technical problem with them

Mort

*enters contraversially*

I have confirmation, not from Telewest, but first hand from the Set Top Box system itself. There is a 403 block enabled.

Ok... pending more knowledge of this subject (there's a lot of backlog and as I said, I am only partially aware of what a digibox is) I'm gonna stick my support back in my pocket.

My gut reaction is to feel that if someone isn't abusing THIS site they should be welcome.

If they are being denied access by the act of someone telling their "ISP" that it is being abused and the "ISP" agrees, well that's the way it goes, but it does seem like a petty thing to do.

But I don't know enough of the facts yet to express any strong opinion.

So I'll just say...


Wibble.

"Wibble"

A welcome change from the last few days of argument

> we all know that it probably won't be long until there is a way around this discovered as has been done in the past

I'm afraid that if, and only if, Telewest has taken the decision to block all BBC URLs containing (say) /dna/h2g2/, I, for one, can't see any possible way around the block. Also, if this is indeed the case, I'd strongly suggest that all remember that this decision was taken by Telewest - and not by BBCi, h2g2, the h2g2 team, or any h2g2 Researcher - and so the only even potentially constructive complaints would be those sent directly to Telewest itself.

Rho

Exactly my point, Rho.

(See my Journal)

Oh, and I can say that only DNA has been blocked as

1) Telewest see it as a threat to their bandwidth
2) Telewest do not want it to be accessed for the above reason
3) Telewest have News pages provided by BBCi on there. That's why DNA can be accessed in the first place (h2g2 being on bbc.co.uk was the only way around the firewall. Unless h2g2 moves around a bit more, there is NO workaround)

"I'd strongly suggest that all remember that this decision was taken by Telewest - and not by BBCi, h2g2, the h2g2 team, or any h2g2 Researcher"

hmmm yes but the reason the decision was taken was because of the action of a researcher (well two). Don't mean to offend you aka but I reckon if I was a digibox user a P*ssed that this had happened I would be blaming you and Saturine... just my /

Can I just ask aka, have you never done anything, anything at all that was illegal? I've just read the conversation in Saturnine's journal from start to finish and your argument is hinging on the illegality of the action, which is fair enough if you've never commited a crime.

aka you said that you used to access h2g2 from a digibox, the other resarcher did as well at one stage.........let him who is without sin...

"if I was a digibox user a P*ssed that this had happened I would be blaming you and Saturine"

So would I. You can't vent your anger at the company Telewest, because it just puts you on hold and transfers you to the X department, which in turn transfers you to the Y department, which in turn transfers you to the Z department, which returns you back to the X department. Besides that, complaining to Telewest that "You deactivated my unauthorised free Internet!" is hardly going to be well received by the support staff.

If somebody took away my access to h2g2, especially if I was of the opinion that I'd done nothing wrong, I'd be really upset. However if I knew there was a reason behind it, say, my ISP went out of business, I could understand that. My connection would have died. This is what's happened. Aside from what 'hidden motives' there may have been, the company should have been alerted.

"Can I just ask aka, have you never done anything, anything at all that was illegal?"

Once when I was five years old I stole a keyring.

Don't quote the Bible at me.

We've also gone over this part of the whole story before. Read the backlog, read the responses. Understand. Quiet yourself on the matter.

"At the end of the day", a Bad Thing was stopped. Which therefore makes it a Good Thing.

Really? You've only commited one thing that is technically a crime in your life, you've never driven above the speed limit, drank or smoked while under-aged, gone to see a film or into a club when you're not old enough, you've never told a white lie on a form, you've never accessed h2g2 through a digibox yourself? (sorry, low blow but I couldn't resist) You've honestly never done any of these of one of a million other things that many of us do daily but are actually against the law