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

I know my own limitations and the amount of time that i can actively participate in PR is restricted due to other things, such as volunteer schemes etc (oh no an overlap of threads! )

However, aswell as recognising the importance of PR and its relation to the fact that i sub some of the entries, I do enjoy passing through it as much as i can.

Encouraging people to 'pass through' can only be a good thing and will set them in good stead for a time that they can contribute more. It can be quite unnerving at first and the more a person reads without commenting will give them experience for when they do feel they can participate.

I think this was mentioned in the b'log somewhere but forgive me for not trawling through it!

Mort

i don't know how relevant to topic this is and would probably be better off posted elsewhere (i don't know where), but since i just saw the comment here i'll reply to it here. mort, you said you regularly lurk around in peer review but rarely ever comment because you don't feel qualified on many subjects. when i'm looking thru peer review i try to find a few subjects that i know nothing about to see how clearly they come across to a lay-person. an author who is very well-versed in a subject sometimes tends to go along with the assumption that everyone has an equal precursory knowledge of said subject which isn't true. asking for clarification on points that aren't clear to you is equally valuable to the process as knowledgable feedback. just a thought

(too many posts to keep up with!)

No, I think that is a good point. Part of it is probably my lack of self esteem, which means i dont ask for clarification when perhaps i should. If an entry doesnt make sense to a lay person then every other lay person like me might decide to not read it. It may also be how new researchers to PR may feel.

I am subbing something at the moment, that many will understand etc but i have had to ask for clarification about the origin of some words (Sanskrit) because as a lay person i wanted to know, and also the entry needs to be clear. Had i seen this in PR i probably wouldnt have asked.

Thanks, now that has demonstrated exactly the point you were making, so i will stop being afraid of PR Seriously though, I wonder if newbies feel the same on their first few visits to PR and so dont go back.

Afterall, what we want is more visits to PR, leading to more reading of submissions, more comments and a possible end result of improvement of the entries. With the added bonus that more researchers will want to try their hand at it too.

Mort

I have to say as a fairly recent Newbie (probably more recent than most of the rest of you guys who have posted to this thread, I have to say that PR is quite an intimidating place to read. Some of the comments made appear to be bordering on rude, and there are some people who obviously know so much on a subject (like HVL on console wars) that it is quite scary to even post feedback there never mind submitting an entry.

Much of the apparent rudeness could probably be attributed to the difficulty in conveying emotion/body language through the internet. But I do feel that rather than just saying This doesn't belong here, perhaps a gentle nudge in the right direction would be more appropriate.

Another worth

I think a lot of the intimidating atmosphere in PR could be changed by simply increasing the numbers of posters/lurkers...at the moment the place is dominated by the scouts and a few others, it would be nice if the scouts became if not a minority at least matched in numbers of postings by non-scouts.

PS this is not an attack on scouts but the thing is scouts *have* to be around in PR and the rest of us don't, but it does give the place a feel of a message board where the moderator/host is the most prolific poster.

I actually posted in two threads in PR yesterday, one on a subject i know fairly well, and the other i didnt but knew of an associated use for it. And this was picked up and agreed with by someone else so now i feel a bit more confident about it.

But you are right, everything seems to boil down to getting more people in and active in PR which will have a positive knock on effect through the EG process.

mort, don't feel silly asking stupid questions in peer review. In a lot of the subjects, I am an expert, and still have to ask stupid questions if it is outside my area of expertise.

It is the only way that the points in question can be clarified.

the really stupid person is the one who needs to ask the questions, and won't, therefore remaining ignorant where they didn't need to.

One of the more "blue sky" ideas I raised earlier in this discussion was the possibility of age limits on members of the volunteer schemes.

Clearly this is not only an unworkable proposal, but also unnecessary. Age is not the issue with volunteers, it is ability.

However, elsewhere on hootoo, age *has* been raised as an issue in regards to the behaviour of researchers (volunteer or not) and the quality of their posts to various conversations. This is currently leading to possible abuses of the moderation system and could, in the long run, endanger the hard won freedom of hootoo'ers to operate in an environment that is self-policed, i.e. there is the potential for the site to regress to a full moderation system where every post is reviewed.

There is a serious issue here that should be debated.

IMO age can not and probably should not be used to discriminate either for or against any researcher. However perhaps there should be some measureable standard of behaviour for ALL researchers.

In the absence of an arbitary "age standard", is there a need for something more than the current house rules against which unbecoming behaviour can be assessed and dealt with by the italics?

Are the "flaming" and "trolling" clauses sufficient as they stand?

Similarly, on what basis do TPTB assess "unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, racially offensive, or otherwise objectionable material"?

Is it desirable for researchers to post using standard spellings and grammar (accepting of course that for some English is their second, third, fourth etc language)?

Alternatively, perhaps a simpler step would be for the italics to publish the guidelines that *are* used to assess behaviour that is considered to be against the house rules.

The House Rules do the job, don't they? If people are being offensive, they're breaking the House Rules.

"Similarly, on what basis do TPTB assess 'unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, racially offensive, or otherwise objectionable material'?"

Unlawful: Not allowed under UK law.
Harassing: Presumably, following a Researcher complaint that someone's bugging them.
Defamatory: Could it get the BBC sued? Is there any known evidence to support claims? Beyond that, I don't know.
Abusive, threatening, harmful: Self-explanatory - personal attacks etc.
Obscene, profane, sexually oriented: At the italics' discretion, I think. No overt description of sexual acts, methinks.
Racially offensive: Use of racially charged language, words, insulting someone on account of their racial group.
Otherwise objectionable: a get-out clause allowing moderation as and when it is deemed appropriate. Not necessarily popular, but pretty much necessary, and fine when used responsibly.

Whoami?


All this is just me guessing, mind. Apart from the first one about 'unlawful'.

Do they do the job?

Based on current activity, this may be open to question.

The rules are fine really. Any current problems are in their application. It's open to question as to how losely they are actually followed, especially when the Terms and Conditions states that they can remove anything anyways (ie they don't actually _have_ to follow them).

The h2g2.moderators also hasn't replied to two of my emails yet, which is irritating.

spelugx

"publish the guidelines that *are* used"

I doubt that there are such guidelines in existence and therefore available to be published even if such publication was deemed advisable. This opinion is based not just on the observed behaviour of moderators/staff on and off site but also on the fact that such things are very difficult to write.

The problems I see round here are often ones of ageism and favouritism. Note that the ageism is _not_ usually of the physical type but of the virtual h2g2 type. "older" researchers are treated quite differently from "younger" ones and are allowed to do things or get away with things that others are not. Decisions in most areas, volunteer or moderation, are not based on ability or fairness.

A787223

"If people are being offensive, they're breaking the House Rules. "

The problem here is that "offensive" is a subjective term.

I have had posts hidden which no reasonable person could construe as offensive. See my current personal space for an example.

On the other hand, in response to what I can only interpret as the EXTREMELY wide latitude now allowed by the moderation system as to what constitutes offensive, I have, against my normal policy, yikesed some postings *I* consider offensive.

Over 100 complaints later, not a single one of those posts I complained about has been hidden, even temporarily, to my knowledge at this time.

I can only interpret this as one rule for some, another rule for me. Specifically, that while others' opinions of what constitutes "offensive" will be backed to the hilt by the staff, even in the teeth of reason, MY feelings and opinions are completely worthless, and I might as well never bother using the yikes button because anyone can say anything they like about me and be allowed to get away with it.

If there is any other interpretation of this than duplicitous and unprofessional double standards, I'd be interested to hear it.

H.

Thanks, Madent. Though you really need to be waving that at the staff who are currently waiving it.

"duplicitous and unprofessional double standards"

No argument from me there HVL. That's what I see too.

I've only ever yikesed one thing, to my recollection - if I consider something offensive I generally just , but this one I considered not only offensive (in this case to anyone suffering with depression) but potentially dangerous. It stayed, under the auspices of 'acceptable satire'. Maybe it was, and I was just too depressed that day to be rational about it.

I understand the importance of making it tacit in the rules of interaction in any organisation not to allow things that could be considered offensive on grounds of Race, Gender or Sexuality; the holy trinity of moral outrage, but still I see plenty of *national* discriminations, and others on grounds of one or other aspect of human frailty (even 'ginger') spread wide-rife and mostly accepted. So I can probably call you a useless carrot-top mick-canuck schizo and get away with it, as long as there's no intimation that you're also a c**n or a d*ke.

I'm not going to get on my high horse about it, not again. I just think that if a community like this wants to respect the sensibilities of its participants then it's going to have to approach it along the lines of -

'I am hurt by this. Does that matter to you?'

'you' being the editors, not the legal eagles, because I already know the British legal system generally doesn't have any particular need to defend the sensibilities of the mentally ill. Their neighbours, certainly, but not them.

I apologise to any unemployable redheaded Irish-Canadians suffering from schizophrenia who might have been insulted by the above.

Hey Krispy - who are you calling a clan? Or a duke, come to that?

H.

Apologies... I did just get a couple of strongly worded letters of complaint - one from Prince Phillip, one from the KKK.