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

Greetings >URL of content (now removed): >http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F33462?Thread=107414&post=904607 > >Subject: >Budapest sights > >Posting: > It's been a while since I've been there (8 years) but I >remember Budapest as the most beautiful city I've seen. The >parlaiment building is absolutely beautiful, and there is a >cathedral directly across the river that is absolutely breathtaking. >The night lights in Budapest are beautiful, especially one bridge >(whose name I have forgottten). >I would love a reminder on these names, by the way. I fail to see how this violates the 'terms and conditions' for H2G2. The reason for removal was... >It has been removed on the grounds that it contains personal >information, such as a telephone number, or postal address. For your >own personal privacy, we recommend that you do not post details such >as these. I didn't give out any such information... How did I violate the rules??? Please help, -Luna

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F57153?Thread=107363&post=943351 has been removed. this was a sumarisation of the basic ideas being mentioned in the previous posts, and in particular, why americans seemed to be cropping up a lot in relation to fat people. As the americans do have a problem with a lot of their population being clinically obese, I can not see any reason for removing this, or why it has beached the house rules. Would it be possible to send an explanation, and to get the moderators to read the previous couple of posts before deleting to make sure they weren't being overly officious. :-)

Luna,

I can't see a reason for this removal either. I've put the post back, and I'm investigating this with the moderators.

Thanks for letting me know, I'm sorry that your post was removed in error.

Apologies... Peta

I can see why this post might have seemed okay, but it could well be taken to be offensive to obese people, it suggested that they need specially strengthened chairs, and cause lots of practical problems, and that fat people tend to be American.

I don't want to upset obese people, I think that they have more than their fair share of problems already. Society does seem to think that they are a fair target, and that's not on. So whilst I do understand where you're coming from, and know you didn't mean to be offensive in any way, it's just kinder to remove this kind of posting. Okay?

while I would agree that in general it is a good thing to remove this sort of post, in this particular context it is being used to maintain discussion, focus it on the real problems behind the other posts, and generally exclude a whole host of people from being included in the bunch likely to take the hump. in context, I don't see any reason why this should be removed without first removing a large number of the previous entries. Also, I have freinds who are clinically obese, and see no problem with including facts in a discussion about the subject.

ps, regarding americans, although some of the largest people are of other origins, the majority are americans. and there are practical problems associated with being this large. If you think it unacceptable to include it all in one post, how would you suggest that I am supposed to talk about these facts?