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

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F1663?thread=100426 was Referred for Moderation When it came back from moderation the treatment was inconsistent within the thread. Mentions of Lastminute.com survived intact. Mentions of douglasadams.com had the .com removed. Emailcash.com had the .com removed. Sold.com.au got removed completely. Except for douglasadams.com (which I have no idea about), I believe all are registered business names, & also partial URLs. Why the differing treatments? ;^)# This is the correct way of disagreeing with moderation decisions - I hope it doesn't get moderated before it gets read.:-)

I believe that.

Lastminute.com is a registered company name.

Douglas Adams does not have the .com as part of it's name.

Emailcash doesn't have the suffix on it's website, so this was edited to the best knowledge of the moderator, who assumed it was not part of the name.

Sold.com.au again, taken to be a link, which it is in effect.

Sold.com.au is a registered company name (& remarkably similar to a url I'll agree - but I think that's the idea).

Unfortunately I can't give you the details from the Australian Securities & Investment Commission website (copyright) or the URL

Will you take my word for it?

;^)#

This is a difficult point Bruce. The company has called itself that deliberately so that it's name *is* an URL. I think I might advise the moderators to drop all dotcom suffixes, even it is part of a name, it would seem fairer and easier to administer that way... I'll discuss it with the teams here first though, just to make sure we're handling the issue in the best way possible.

I think I'd have to agree with that (& of course the url/name thing applies to Lastminute too) - someone's bound to register a company name in outer Mongolia that will be uncheckable - and it's really not on for moderators to have to check company name databases in 100 different countries just in case.

;^)#

Exactly. We have to take reasonable care, but there is a limit to the resources and information that is available.

*grimaces*

I'd prefer that you changed such names to 'Lastminute dot com', or whatever. For example, in the case of 'sold dot com dot au', there are several companies around the place which use variations on that name - wiping the suffix completely will leave it ambiguous as to which company you are referring to.

In any case, you'll be needing to update the moderation guidelines again...

Does that mean then that if I change my name to ianmorris.com you won't allow me to sign my work
Even though to the best of my knowledge there is no ianmorris.com (I think I'll check that!)

It turns out, just for intrests sake, that if you type ianmorris.com into a browser it returns in small unasuming letters ianmorris.com at the top of the page. How very quaint!

Fancy H2G2 ending up at the BBC, I know all to well about the way BBC Online works!