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

This about sums it up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb_sqh577Zw

We have come a long way from that time.
In Texas June 19,1865 the final slaves were informed of their freedom, many blacks today celebrate juneteenth as their independence day.
When I was born miscegenation laws and sodomy laws were still enforced.
Now the supreme court has ruled that even persons of the same gender who marry may raise children, and get the same federal benefits as anyone else.
the words on your video sound very dated to me.

Funny thing is, Sharknuts, to ME, it sounds right bang up to date.

Perhaps you should pay more attention :

"...nothing but bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy"

and : "...for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival."

Sorry if I peed on your Birthday Bonfire, but to me it just
Smells bad from Sea to Shining Sea.
Do I NEED to give examples?

alec.

Something is rotten in Afganistan,Syria, Venusuala, Moscow, and south Africa. and you say America is without rival...prove it.

This post has been removed.

No idea what got hidden there, wasn't me.

...anyway, here's a pretty good example of a large number of the populace being lied to about what is happening before their eyes and sucking down that sugar-coating because they are too stupid to know, nor do they WANT to know what it is they are actually paying for.

http://www.tmz.com/2013/07/01/cowtown-rodeo-horse-dies-duke-grant-harris/

Listen to the announcer justify injuring animals during the course of the rodeo by saying that the cowboys and cowgirls feel just as bad as if it was one of their colleagues who got hurt.

So...in terms of:
"nothing but bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy"

and : "...for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival."

I think this first example of US cultural superiority manages to meet all the above criteria.

alec.

Shagbark has shown the link hidden in posting 5 on Facebook.

It's not nice. In fact it is awful. But it is as true as any other sad news, which is why I see no sensible reason for censoring it.

I would very much like to learn the reasons for this moderation, please!

Hi Pierce,

As you know moderators do not discuss individual moderation decisions. However you can be sure that for something to be moderated, and for that moderation decision to be upheld, it will have broken the House Rules.

In this case I will personally add something extra as it is not part of the moderation decision, but the content that has been linked to elsewhere is *not* the same content that was linked to from here. What was posted elsewhere was pretty bad yes, but what was posted here was incredibly graphic and not only broke our House Rules, but potentially several UK laws.

As with every moderation decision that is made, a process is followed to ensure both protection and impartiality, and as part of that process all moderated content is stored off site, and the moderators occasionally have to consider passing information on to the police. This is an incredibly rare occurrence, in fact it's not happened since we took over. If during the ongoing moderation issue here this is deemed necessary, then it will be done.

As I said, what was linked to elsewhere is *not* what was linked to from here.

Thanks for clearing that up, Pastey.

You're welcome Pierce.

Because of this we're also considering changing the rules regarding moderation decisions not being discussed.

One of the main reasons behind this isn't that it stops the mods being drawn into arguments, it's to protect the researcher who's been moderated. Most moderated users are rare occurrences, a bad choice of words when having a bad day, etc, etc, and we all have those.
But h2g2 isn't the only site on the internet where we talk with each other, and the moderators not being able to put across their side of the story, the documented facts, puts them into a very bad position at times.

Every moderation decision isn't made by an individual moderator, they work as a team even for removal of slightly offensive words. Everything is sanity checked and taken in context. For a post to be removed it has to be agreed by at least two of them that it breaks the House Rules. For a user to be suspended even for a short period of time means all the moderators have discussed and agreed to that course of action. And believe it or not suspensions are quite rare, in fact I think since we took over only about eight researchers have been suspended in two years. Usually there's a warning, and the past behaviour of a researcher is taken into context to see if it's out of character for them. So believe me, if a long time researcher who's contributed quite a bit to the site over the years is suspended for one posting, there would have been a reason for it.

I believe I understand what happened and I can only hope that my friend thinks twice about it and stays, but that is now entirely up to him. Case closed as far as I am concerned.

- - -

I also think I understand the arguments for not discussing moderation decisions (but on the other hand in real life there have to be very good reasons for courts to treat cases behind locked doors.)

This is a very delicate matter. A matter of trusting nameless moderators making the right decisions on the right grounds.

Maybe a spokesman for the moderators could make verdicts public and explain them without naming whoever has been sanctioned? I don't know, it's just a thought and I should probably think a lot more.

But I trust you guys to think it through and come up with a sensible solution.

Have a nice day

Thanks Pierce, knowing you trust the moderators will mean a lot to them.

And the moderators aren't exactly nameless - the current ones are always listed on the Moderators home page (if I only had the link handy...) and ex mods have a Former Moderator badge on their page. They just don't do the moderation actions from their daily account.

Milla, I did not know that

I can never get my links to work properly from my work computer, but the moderation team's home page is A87706704

http://h2g2.com/entry/A87706704

Found it

Ha!