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

I noticed that when a guide entry is deleted it is only marked as cancelled so can therefore be brought back and reinstated. How can I fully delete an entry, that is remove it utterly so it can never be returned.

Bear in mind that under the Data Protection Act (1998) you must provide a mechanism for data to be deleted or corrected if it is found to be inaccurate or out of date. The edit mechanism fills the correction requirement but currently there is apparently no way to fully delete entries.

The particular entry I was trying to delete was due to the fact that it attracted replies of the homophobic rant variety. I've decided to only post it to places where I control the response mechanism so can delete the vile responses.

Stephen

Hi Stephen,

If it's your own guide entry, I suppose the best thing to do is to edit it and delete the text of the entry, as well as marking it as "deleted".

If it's someone else's entry or offensive comments, you can click the appropriate button beside the entry or comment to being it to the moderators' attention. They will remove anything unsuitable, which I suspect includes homophobic rants.

Hope this helps...

About clicking the icon to bring an item to moderators attension. that's a beautiful theory. In practice often moderators (in general, I'm not just talking about H2G2 here) won't see that an item is offensive since they don't have the negative experience tied up with that. Or they might adhere to some faulty view of 'Free Speech' that leads them to believe that everyone has the right to say what they wish; at the cost of ignoring the rights of others not to be forced to listen.

Consider the 'N word'. Yes, we all know it is offensive. But, I don't think you can really appreciate how offensive it is until you've had it directed at you in a disparaging or offensive way (for the record, I'm white but a number of my black friends have explained to me why they are sensitive to the usage of that term).

I've just noticed that removing an entry doesn't seem to remove the comments attached to it so I now have to live with something I personally find deeply offensive being advertised from my own personal space on H2G2. Perhaps I should just withdraw from the forum entirely? No doubt the message would still be there, but at least I wouldn't have to look at it.

Stephen

I've managed to get the link to the offending post off my personal space (turned out I just had to unsubscribe to the conversation).

I do want to reiterate that my comments about moderators were based on my experiences accross a number of forums, not just H2G2.

Stephen

Hi Stephen,

EV has given you some really good advice (), if there are offensive comments on h2g2, then using the complaints button is the best way to draw our attention to them.

However, all Researchers are entitled to their own opinions; no matter how offensive that opinion might be to other Researchers, it isn't against the House Rules to express that opinion politely.

As you have found, unsubscribing is the best way to avoid conversations that you are no longer happy to be a part of.