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

PS FYI
As seen above every 'reply' dialog box:

"Please be very careful if you want to post an email address or ICQ number, as you may receive lots of emails or messages. See the House Rules for more information."


Nothing there says e-mail addresses are illegal...

OK so I'm the only one left here. Fine.

I'll just rant on about how they took my name away and turned me into a number for suggesting the BBC servers weren't man enough to carry the load. It can't be because my name was also my e-mail address. The rules only say to exercise caution before posting an e-mail address and since it doesn't go to a foreign site - only to me, it is not really a URL link of the forbidden kind.

Ah, why bother ..nobody's listening.

*Yes, I have filed an appeal through the proper channels at ModHelp*

Wow. I wonder if they're really worried that people will find n2g2 a viable "refugee camp" when we get sick of battling just to have our words heard here? sad

The rules may be the same, but some of the moderators seem to be a bit overenthusiastic about their jobs.

I think if we asked members of the GerMania club whether they noticed any rules that changed after BBC, their reply would either be NEIN! or else silence (since I imagine some of them have already left in disgust).

The GerManiaConnection are trying to converse in English in their own little corner, but it is not as cosy as it was. Out among the others, there are various campaigns to class this as racism and they/we are joining the Zaphodistas in force.

Personally I have tried various things, such as posting in German like mad so they can't keep up with the moderation and so they see that there is a great demand for the freedom to use other languages, or writing posts (regardless of where or on what subject) in both languages, because, as I am sitting in Germany, English is not the accepted language and I might get nabbed here, who knows!

But mostly, I seem to be reducing myself to making sarcastic comments, which is no way to win anything, I know. So much has been said, and this seems to be one of the points the PTB are trying to make headway in. But I found it very petty when they even blanked out the special symbols (as in Swedish, Danish, German etc) - fortunately, this has, to a great extent been rectified, which shows some good will on their part. It is just that this particular part of the new rules is so contrary to the policy followed before, which encouraged multiculturalism - even the Polyglott Plaza was founded by .. *potters off to look* .... hey - they've taken it away!

and I've noticed that if the headings of the conversations are in another language, that is left in. Only if the content of the postings are in German are they deleted.

When I do post a translation, I also usually add the tantalising disclaimer that, of course, no one knows if the German really is a true translation of the English, so they are left the choice of whether they believe me, or check the translation again (when they will, of course, find that the translation is the same as the original)

One of us has definitely left: Wonko, but for other reasons - if you check out his page you might guess why. I fully support his cause, too, but can't get involved with everything around here.

so just for the hell of it, that lot again in German, see what happens. It is 11:23 CET on Saturday 31 March, in case this posting gets taken away, so you can see how long it was gone.

Die Mitglieder der GerManiaConnection versuchen, sich auf Englisch zu unterhalten, wenn zu Hause in der Bulettenbude, aber es ist nicht mehr so gemütlich. Wenn außerhalb, bei Euch anderen in H2G2, schreiben wir Englisch, sind aber engagiert und beteiligen uns an Kampagnen, diese Diskriminierung als Rassismus zu erklären, die meisten sind auch den Zaphodistas beigetreten.

Ich selbst habe diverse Maßnahmen eingesetzt, zum Beispiel umnäßig viele Beiträge in Deutsch zu posten, um den Moderatoren das Leben schwer zu machen, und um zu zeigen, daß es sich um keine Minderheit handelt, die fremdsprachliche Postings schreiben wollen, oder indem ich alle Postings in beiden Sprachen schreibe, schließlich bin ich hier in Deutschland und Englisch ist nunmal nicht die Amtssprache!

Aber hauptsächlich scheint es, daß ich mich auf Sarkasmus reduziere, was nicht unbedingt zum großen Erfolg führen kann. So viel ist bereits gesagt worden, und, zugegeben, die höheren Herren scheinen hier am meisten bewegen zu wollen. Ich fand es allerdings äußerts kleinlich, daß die Umlaute und Sonderzeichen (auch der skandinavischen Sprachen) nicht angezeigt werden konnten. Das hat sich, Gott sei Dank, geändert, was sicher als ein Zeichen des guten Willens seitens der Elfenbeinturmbewohner gedeutet werden kann. Nur finde ich, daß dieser Widerstand, Fremdsprachen gegenüber so völlig entgegen der Politik der alten H2G2 ist, die eine multikulturelle und tolerante Gesellschaft fördern wollte. Und jetzt haben sich auch noch die Polyglott Plaza gelöscht.

Übrigens - wenn man eine Posting nur mit einer deutschen Title versieht und der Inhalt bleibt Englisch, scheint es, daß hier nicht "moderiert" wird. Sie schauen nur auf den Inhalt.

Wenn ich meine Postings in 2 Sprachen schreibe, hänge ich immer den herausfordernden Zusatz dran: Das was ich jetzt hier als Übersetzung angebe, könnte natürlich eine falsche Übersetzung sein, es bleibt ihnen überlassen, ob sie es NOCHMAL übersetzen, nur, natürlich, um dann doch festzustellen, daß es tatsächlich richtig übersetzt war.

Einer von der GMC ist auf jeden Fall gegangen aber aus anderen Gründen. Wer bei Wonko auf der Home Page schaut, wird ahnen können, warum. Ich stehe auch hinter ihm, kann mich aber nicht überall reinhängen.

Und jetzt ergibt sich die Frage - wenn ich z.B. 20 ellenlange Postings auf Deutsch schreibe, und in der "most erudite" erscheine, verschwinde ich dann aus der Liste, wenn die Postings wegmoderiert werden?

Post 126 censored so I can't reply to it - however to answer a question no one has asked
ALABASTAR: A fictitious country whose inhabitants are moderate (adj; mediocre,indifferent). The definition of moderate is taken from Chambers Thesauraus)

Alab******s: the inhabitants of Alabastar

Just checking.

The subject is Why moderation is censorship...

It's not quite the Red Square is it? I mean, there aren't Vogons storming about waving Vogon rule books... No-one is, in fact, getting hurt by the moderations going on are they?

I mean I'm not sure about censorship... Does it really serve anyone to use vulgarities or to try to offend someones sensibilies? I mean, why push it?

For every nailbiter that thinks a little bit of ethical moderation is
unusual, they have to remember that we aren't living in a world where
carnal urges are bleeped out by people following us around without our
knowledge!

You must admit that a bit of moderation can be taken as a good thing
or you will at least possibly conceed that the BBC isn't going to try
ursuping your editorial privledges with some censorship ploy.

My advice- read everything carefully, and take it in the humour that it's intended.

::Grinning somewhat irrationally::

I hope you mean that that is your advice to the mods and not to the innocent people posting here.

Hey, if you try and give us advice, we'll just bleep it out.

Well, I guess I'm not really giving advice-- I was just trying to see if I could get away with something on a sort of philosophical level.

You see, in my previous post I used the phrase "Push it", which relies only on a bit of space to not say something crude about Pu. (which we all know, is made up by a number of Ningi-- a form of currency that is non-existant in the universe, as defined by that wholly remarkable H2G2 Book) So, "Push it", despite what I had in mind when I wrote it, is okay to say in a public forum.

I take it then, that any arrangement of letters that clearly spell out words, from left to right, are acceptable, providing the words themselves are acceptable-- and "INTENT" is not easily discernable or if it is, at least not "Bad Intent".


So, if my words were to spell out one thing, I could, in fact, in the privacy of my own thoughts, mean something entirely different, and not get moderated... Yippee! Hurray for the Free Press!

Now, what if we didn't write things from left to write, but instead wrote things that made sense from top to bottom and left to right? What then? Do we only interpret the left to right, and assume there is no other intent? In a nutshell, do the moderators have to read things left to right, back to front, top to bottom and bottom to top to make sure that there isn't, by some random chance of course, a hidden, nasty, subversive message?!

Do we assume that there is no top to bottom intent?
And can we say for certain that there isn't hidden meaning in every
Message that we read? What if we had to double check everything from
Now on?

It doesn't make a difference I suppose, at least it make no difference
That I'm aware of!

Afterall, we will read into things whatever we want to read into them.
Loud and vociferous complaining about it all won't really change that.
Life, afterall, is not, in fact fair.

Life, don't talk to me about life.

[this posting will probably be removed soon due to a breach of copyright: the author]