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

The Internet, by it's very nature, is international. The idea of limiting the posts to one language strikes me as Fire t******* stupid. I can understand limiting the use of swear words, but even that has it's problems.

Who decides which words are innapropriate?

Many words have more than one meaning. If I'm talking about a female dog, why shouldn't I use the word bitch? It's in the Readers Digest Book of Dogs I borrowed from the library.

The trouble with censorship is that it's a slippery slope. More and more things become forbidden, until all you can talk about is what's aproved of by the state.

Siletta, sounds like you might have just returned to h2g2, or just discovered how ridiculous the new restrictions are. Were you aware that any heavy discussion of the UK General Election may be removed? They're worried that our opinions would make the BBC seem partial to one party over the other, in spite of the disclaimers on this page and every single page of h2g2 reading "The majority of content on h2g2 is generated by h2g2's Researchers, who are members of the public. The views expressed are theirs and unless specifically stated are not those of the BBC."

If you want to engage in heavy discussion of the UK General Election, you have to go over to a message board called "The Great Debate."

So anyhow, I thought you might be interested (or rightfully outraged) to check out the current rules about "h2g2 and the General Election" at http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A533468

After you're done there, you might want to sign the Petition for Greater Freedom on h2g2 at http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A544943

Only just discovered. I'm one of the people who heard about this forum after the sad sad sad death of Douglas Adams.

I hope that these rules don't end up destroying this place. Douglas Adams deserves a legacy, and I can't think of am more appropriate one.

Actually, 'bitch' is, as far as I know, one of the allowable words. One can say that life is a bitch, or say that you don't like to bitch, or indeed say that Marge Simpson is a bitch.

But I agree that this whole area is fraught with difficulty, and not knowing what the banned words and the contexts in which they are banned, doesn't help.