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

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A666461

You've come up with a thought provoking piece. Now what would H2G2 come under I wonder?

I like this a lot, hope it gets in.

A couple of typos:

hir - should it be her? You have typed this three times - paragraph 3, and twice under the feudalism heading.

Giventhat - Given that - this is under the democracy header.

two points. trivial one first.

you might want to add footnotes saying what "MUDs and MMORPGs".

secondly, you might want to fix the bit about yahoo groups.

what you have said was true of egroups before yahoo bought it.

after they bought, the system got much harder to use, and was only available if you had a yahoo id, which is often nearly impossible to get as yourself. (for example I can't get xyroth, as someone has grabbed it for their dragon, even though their dragon doesn't use the internet).

There are other similar cases of problems with yahoo over their corporate practices which make them not such a good example to use.

For most of the stuff you said about the groups, you would probably be better using h2g2 forums as the example.

For the trivial bit about management of accounts, moderated newsgroups or moderated mailing lists are probably a better example.

Mikey likes it!

One quick comment, though:

The phrase "you cannot communicate without a modem" is not entirely correct -- those of us with ethernet connections can communicate just fine without a modem, we just use network cards instead.

Mikey

hir = gender-neutral pronoun = him/her/his/her

I didn't want to use h2g2 as an example, as I thought it could be politically sensitive - somebody might see comparisons with Stalin or Henry VIII as 'abuse'... Plus the situation on h2g2 is likely to change over time as the site develops, whereas the examples I picked should be more stable.

In any case, the question of what h2g2 is is an interesting debating point - it'll be interesting to see what people think...

Another fine piece of writing from Lucinda and hir mate Al. Thanks for the read.

We'll be getting the Euro in my neck of the woods pretty soon, so here goes for my 0.42 Ecents.


Some typos -

different group of people

It shouldn't be surprising that they are .

identially

dissapears

dependant

priviledges

Giventhat

effected

And a couple of general points:

Feudalism - My understanding of feudalism is rather different to what you have described. The basis of Feudalism is Obedience in return for Protection. Another key issue is loyalty and obedience to your overlord, ie, the next step *up* the strict hierachical ladder; it follows that you require the same loyalty and obedience from those below you in the hierarchy. In the society of the Dark Ages where feudalism grew, being a Duke wasn't just a funky title that got you some cash from the Civil List. You had real and direct authority over your dukedom. You were 'absolute' ruler over your own domain and owed 'absolute' obedience' to your overlord, the king. Within your Dukedom there would be vassals who owed total obedience to *you* but were basically 'absolute' rulers of their own lands. This system resulted in some strange conflicts of interest.

A favourite example of mine is that of William the B*****d, son of the Duke of Normandy, who invaded England in some year that is on the tip of my tongue but escapes me for the moment. Having claimed the English throne he was monarch in his own right. However, he still remained a 'vassal' of the king of France. This gave rise to centuries of confusion, highlighted once again in the time of Henry II (Plantagenet, of England). Henry Fitzempress had been born and bred as Duke of Anjou (among other places), inherited the throne through his mother but not his father, and married land in the form of Eleanor of Aquitaine. In his capacity as duke of Anjou he was required by feudal law to remain obedient to his overlord the king of France. However, he was king of England and ruler of Aquitaine and he didn't want to take orders from an overlord. There was a great deal of fighting and land-grabbing as a result, all perfectly justifiable (for both sides!) by feudal law.

What you have described seems closer to what I would call Absolute Monarchy (Louis 14 being the classic example), or Absolutism. Abs Mon relied heavily on the principle of Divine Right of Kings which you describe. I agree that this principle had been propping up the feudal system in Europe for centuries before old Lou got in on the act, but it was not so strong a centralised power as you describe until the renaissance. Absolute monarchy and the divine right of kings were major issues in sweeping Cromwell and the NMA to power in the 17th C - I can't think off hand if any analogy could be drawn between this bloody demonstration of practical politics and anything that has gone on on the Internet.

Just some thoughts on that Feudalism section, anyway.



Style:

This is a load of garbage - did someone else write this phrase? It doesn't sound like you! (Xanthia, perhaps?)

arguably more important are the people who use those servers, without whom, no discussion.
- this may be a deliberate stylistic choice but it struck me as odd.


great and good - are you describing the 'oligarchy' or 'aristocracy' here?

try and createf - ok, I know I shouldn't, but 'try to create'

thanks for the typos

I'll reconsider that section on feudalism then, to try and clear up my terminology. The parallel is still there I think, but most online feudalism is a lot more limited than real life feudalism. If it's ok, I'll borrow some of your words (and credit you, of course )

Borrow away! Borrow away! If I didn't know better, I would only warn you not to take anything that I have said for granted. I don't think that's necessary in this case, though!

"take anything that I have said for granted" - Uuurrrgggghhh! What a horrible phrase. I'll try again.

not to take for granted anything that I've said.

Mmmmm. That's better.

Hello Lucinda (et al)!

Just skim read this so far and will read it in more depth later. Quick comment about the use of 'hir', which I hadn't come across before. I think it would be worthwhile putting a footnote explainint it.

How widespread is it, by the way?

bookmark

Blimey! No sub-text of course! Sure.

This is really good, and informative. I like it, it is clearly thought through and clearly argued.

Well done.

Ben

I give it a B+.
You seem in capable critical hands.
I think it will be interesting to see how the TPTB react.

Nice. Like it. Interesting

The 'hir' thing though. Not that I have anything at all against it. Far from it, in fact. But isn't there something for 'she/he'? Cos in this sentence:

"if a person doesn't care how people see hir, and if they don't mind being flamed, then they can ignore social restrictions with ease."

It seems a bit odd to go to the trouble of using 'hir' and then switching back to 'they', which seems a bit mismatched to me.

Gracious. Can't believe I'm being so picky Sorry.

It's a fair question, but personally I have no problem with 'they' as a genderless third person singular subject pronoun.

Equally, I am happy with 'their' as a genderless third person singular possessive pronoun, as in the marriage ceremony thing:

"If anyone knows any reason... , let them speak now or forever hold *their* peace."

I don't think I'll be adopting 'hir' in a hurry, but I don't think it is incompatible with 'they'.

An alternative might be simply 's/he'. I don't like it much, perhaps primarily because it is purely a written form (how could you *pronounce* this 'word'?)

It's a long-running question. Has it been brought up on the BrEng thread?

Spiff

I've seen 'shi' used for s/he, but it doesn't seem as common as 'hir'. I think I'll switch 'they' to s/he to try and maintain a more consistent style, though - good advice!

No doubt the sub-eds will switch them all back again (*waves to the more hack-and-slash sub-eds out there ) but so it goes

Oh I like 'shi'. Oh I like that a lot. What a beautiful word. Please use that (if i8t's gonna be changed anyway ).

Actually, I don't mind 'they', 'their' or whatever either, sorry, but 'hir' is so tidy.

On your advice, solshnuka, I've used 'shi'.

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