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

Re: F16547?thread=140271&post=2187194#p2187194 Post 1362

A link was removed by a Moderator as unsuitable. Now I know the link was to a commercial site but it was in answer to a quetion about what Kippers are. I thought such links were allowed in the appropiate context

We allow links to commercial sites only if it's not directly linking into the shop area of the site itself. If it links to an information page run from a commercial site but with no evidence of direct commerce present on the page, that would probably be approved (as long as the content is appropriate).

Hope this helps,

Jimster

Thanks for the clarification

I had something like this: I linked to eel pie records, because it links direct to most of the official Pete Townshend resource material, unlike [Broken link removed by Moderator], which links to (you guessed it) eel pie records, mostly. Also eel pie is much cooler-looking.

Anyway, I just got an email saying it was broken. It isn't, although presumably a ping to the site failed at some point. Is there some safety trip to stop temporary fluctuations in internet service from screwing this kind of check up?

E.g. I sometimes can't get at very popular, but definitely functioning, sites because of traffic.

Hi Andrew,

I'm sure a member of the Communities team can clarify this, but basically, if the Moderators come across a broken link, they'll fail the link regardless of whether the site's downtime is just temporary or not (because BBC guidelines state that no broken links are allowed - and in fairness the Moderators can't be expected to sit around just in case the link comes back up again). If you find this to be the case, you're welcome to restore the link, but bear in mind that if you're linking to a site that is regularly down, you might be best just leaving it off permanently.

Ironically, the Pete Townshend site you reference above appears to be down just now, so maybe linking to the Eel pie site instead was a better idea.

Jimster

It's working fine for me.

I wasn't so much thinking of sites which are regularly down as faults with the mods' connection, causing the appearance of broken links where there are none. I've never known either of these sites to go down. However, I am at a BBC workstation and know the quality of service well, yes indeed. If you can't see it, then perhaps it's a broader problem ....

Besides, I was suggesting a script could do the work: VBScript could check a link dozens of times and then feed you a beautiful excel spreadsheet of the results without your having to stir a finger (literally, if new entries were pre-moderated by machine automatically before a real person got as far as it).

F47997?thread=195138

is interesting in this connection.

I've just checked that Pete Townshend link - it jumped to Pete Townshend.co.uk (wasn't it a dotcom address before?). Earlier, however, it just went to a 'page not found' message.

The problem with the current moderation tools is that it only allows the Moderators to view one page at a time and won't let the Moderator skip without approving, referring or failing the page (which is actually a good thing, believe it or not, as it encourages them not to ignore a problem or put it to one side).

This might be a discussion best directed to one of the Community team then; for the moment at least, we're tied to the moderation tools we already have. Maybe you could post this to the Feature Suggestions page - http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A388352

Jimster

Aha!

I'll do that.

Sorry, not meaning to be a pain in the Arms. So to speak. I was just curious about finding a genuine solution.

You are right in that the petetownshend site does jump to a .co.uk address -- and it looks different to last I viewed it, too ... so maybe I was just unlucky enough to pick a day they were maintaining both sites.

Not a problem, Andrew. You've made some valid points and also helped us identify an area we might be able to improve.

... and now that I've been able to get into those sites, I can see why you wanted to link to them. Very nice!



Jimster

fellow!

See you at t'party

F75855?thread=146197

(Mina's on the case so you can ignore this posting, I'm just posting here for my own purposes)

F75855?thread=146197&post=2354782#p2354782

Now your taking th p***

wot the hell is wrong wiv [Unsuitable link removed by Moderator]???

Hi HappyDude,

I can't be certain, but it would appear that when opening that link in IE it saves a file to the user's C:/drive and opens up in the user's Temporary Internet Files rather than a new browser window. That may well have caused problems for the moderator who checked the link.

Rather than drawing the discussion over to an old thread, the way to question this removed URL is to 'yikes' the posting itself so we can then check back with the moderator him/herself.

Many thanks,

Jimster

I didnt have this problem

so the site wuz failed coz the mod's got a dodgy IE configuration ?

Rather than continuing on this discussion, can I ask you to limit yourself to the thread concerned and use the 'Yikes' button as I suggested above?

Many thanks,

Jimster

you can ask but the answers no

It has been indicated that they have mime-type problems on that site in which case the moderator quite correctly failed it.

Quite Ironic really, an article on how to ensure cross-browser
compatibility has problems with MSIE.

One Question: dose this mean I can go around
yikesing all the post that contain links to sites that only work wiv MSIE?

And a final comment:
I always thought the "Yikes" button was for when a user believed something needed moderating NOT when they believed it needed un-moderating

This post has been removed.

I'm sure the moderators are very nice people, they don't make the rules.