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

From the Community Editors:

The Lounge has been launched! The Lounge is the place to find links to the most popular community threads on h2g2.

The link to the Lounge (http://h2g2.com/thelounge/) can be found in the menu bar at the top of the Front Page. There you will find links to Miscellaneous Chat, Ask h2g2, Games Room and Science Explained as well as the five most recent posts for each forum. The Lounge also has its own forum for posts that don't quite fit into any of the other categories.
The eight most recent posts across the entirety of h2g2 can still be found on the Front Page.

The Community Editors Team will be moving some threads that better fit into other forums as they come across them. Once you are subscribed to a thread your subscription will move along with that thread, so .

From the Moderators:

The h2g2 Moderation Team would like to take this opportunity to publicly acknowledge our gratitude to our Researchers for making h2g2 such a fun and friendly place to be.

For the most part, our Researchers exhibit some of the most exemplary behavior we have seen in any online community, and do a fabulous job of alerting us when necessary. An overwhelming majority of you make our job incredibly easy. You make the h2g2 Community a vibrant and special place, and a wonderful one for which to work.

You may have noticed over the last couple of years that some prohibitions that were in place under BBC management have been relaxed. For example, we no longer remove foreign language posts, provided their content does not otherwise break any House Rules and that translation could feasibly be obtained if necessary. We also have somewhat relaxed the rule forbidding swearing (although we are still using the filter we inherited from the BBC for the time being, so we do still have to override some flagged posts on a regular basis).

We do ask that everyone continue to think before posting, and avoid excessive or hardcore swearing, flaming, trolling or flooding.

Flaming and trolling include name-calling, derailment, and other disruptive or abusive behaviours. Flooding is making more than two posts in a row without allowing other researchers to reply in the interim - particularly when subsequent posts change the topic or are out of context to the thread (as opposed to natural topic drift). Dropping a series of links into a thread without any comment or stated purpose would also constitute flooding.

Please remember that hardcore swearing and being abusive toward others is never permitted. Please try to wait to hit the post button until you have included most or all of your thoughts, and if you don't receive a reply right away, please wait to give others a chance to reply before replying again.

Please feel free to contact us directly at [email protected] any time you have questions or concerns about h2g2's House Rules (http://h2g2.com/entry/A87523211) or the moderation procedures.

Thank you once again, Researchers, for your loyalty and stickiness over these last two and half years, and for making h2g2 such a fun, friendly and informative place!

Best regards,
Milla
on behalf of the h2g2 Moderation Team and the Community Editors

"We also have somewhat relaxed the rule forbidding"

KNICKERS!

*faints* knickers? ... dare i... dare.... I.....

Bottoms!

Gratuitous profanities are still banned

I didn't know that there was ever a rule forbidding knickers. What was I supposed to wear instead?

Not a question to ask when 2legs is around

err no comment

OK. I do not mean to turn this into a test thread, but I just have to know if Father Jack's favorite word is still banned...

Ahem...

...


I think I got the answer I wanted.

"Announcing the Lounge and a word from the Moderators"

I must have multiple vision, as I see many words, not one Which one is most important?

Are spitting and panicking still discouraged?

[Wanders over to the piano at the edge of the lounge and starts playing chopsticks]

*starts mixing cocktails* < how about... I mean... can we... or could we... or would tha tjust really really annoy the moderators?

What does hardcore flaming mean? Presumably flaming means inflaming which sounds similar to WUM. Trolling I am not sure about - does that mean having a muck around - not taking people and matters seriously? Swearing seems to have a bad name it used to mean an oath or declaration of honesty. Some of these "swear" words seem to have lost all meaning yet they still carry over a sense of social taboo.

Ps isn't it the norm to announce the change before making the change? It seemed to confuse a fair share of those still perusing these spaces.

We try, but sometimes it just doesn't pan out as we hoped Travelling for work for example...

I think it's great. Discouraging people who want to ask questions and encouraging those with potty mouths is long overdue.

Yeah, we really like to torture ourselves like that.

I have been thinking long about how to response to this announcement, but after only 42 seconds I reached the conclusion that really says it all

wheres me water wings

Are you going to include the "How do I" forum in the lounge? It was never as popular as Ask but still occasionally gets a question.