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

Why wait a week? You know they only want you to forget about it.

B

Like i said, getting this type of answer from a faceless bureaucrat is difficult enough without p*ss*ng them off by hassling them every day.

Once a week is about right to be an annoyance that needs to be dealt with rather than buried.

BluesShark been watching the Shawshank Redemption?

I'm sure I remember him saying that it was his favourite film...

B

Exactly. It's a bloody great establishment- it's not like turning to the bloke next to you in the pub and saying "why'd you do that?". It should be, but it's not.

Keep us posted, KA and FB.

No, I work in a large, publicly funded organization. I *know* what happens to bits of mail that repeat more than once a week. They get filed in the round circular filing cabinet under CS for chicken sh*t.

Whereas the ones that come in on a regular but rasonable time scale do get dealt with.

Still, does sound exactly like one of the subplots in Shawshank.

True enough. You think King knows a little about how these places work as well?

I think King knows a lot about a lot of things, and this'd be one of them.

Part of the problem here is that the only people I am able to "hassle" directly are the Editors of h2g2. This is less than satisfactory, as one of the few facts we know for certain is that they are NOT empowered to make any decisions here. Hassling them is therefore not only annoying, but pointless. I need to speak to the organ-grinder, not the monkeys.

I have no way of contacting "Editorial Policy" directly, as far as I know.

I've suggested that the Editors forward my communications to them, and they've agreed - but it seems anomalous that these people, who clearly exert ultimate editorial control over the site beyond the authority of the Italics, are not named here and have not got an email contact address ANYWHERE on h2g2.

Where's the accountability?

FB

I'd agree with that. But I'm guessing that accountability isn't top on their list of priorities. In fact, I'm guessing it's nowhere on their list of priorities.

Got it! This has taken aaaaages of searching, but I finally found editorial policy's email address on .

It's .

Hope that helps in some way!

I'm not sure they'll be entirely happy about you sharing that with us.

B

In which case they should not publish that email address on the open internet.

Or rather, in which case they should not bury it, layers deep, in an obscure corner of an obscure part of the most boring bits of their website.

Cynical...?

...or just Tired?

You decide...

B

I can't be arsed to read the whole backlog, but apart from the question of whether this Edited Entry was acceptable or not, has anyone emphasized enough that "This Guide Entry has been deleted from the Guide by the author" appears to be an untrue statement and ought to be manually removed or corrected? Is there no way for the Italics to make that statement accurate? I understand that it's probably an automatic message from some software tool built into the DNA system.

Even if a person concedes that the entry should have been removed, I hope everyone sees that false statements about the author deleting the entry should not stand.

Yes, IIRC, this was already brought up.

I've just read the backlog. (No, not ALL the backlog... )

Maybe I'm more cynical than I thought I was, but I really don't expect consistency, accountability, or decency from *any* large institution. Nature of the beast, and 1984 was 20 years ago. Ask Leonard Peltier about getting answers.

Here's my theory.

Only last week, the article came to the attention of someone in a position of *power*. How they found it, who knows. Maybe they were idly tossing words into a search engine instead of working. Lord knows I've done it. Dosn't everyone?

They read the article and said, "I don't like it. Make it go away." Someone heard them, someone in a position to increase their power by getting their nose a little brown. They went and frightened or bullied some underling of theirs into writing an order to be sent down to the h2g2 Towers.

Whoever actually wrote the order doesn't know the reason behind it, and isn't particularly inclined to cross the person they'd have to cross to find it.

That person knows what the reason is (they're trying to impress someone), but they'll respond to any inquiries with doublespeak, smokescreen and/or indifference.

The person who actually read and was offended by the article might or might not know yet that any of this happened, but if you want to know why *he* was sore about camcorders that day, ask his wife and/or mistress.


This is all irresponsible speculation, intended for your amusement, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or deceased, is a real shame, wouldn't you say?





Special thanks go to...


...Blues Shark, for the tai chi comment, and then for putting the gloves aside and helping keep the thread on task.

...Potholer, for "the higher up a 'no' comes from, the less likely it is to be followed by a reason (or be the result of an active or rational thought process)." I wondered when someone would point that out.


,,,also to Potholer, for "some articles could be viewed as noble sacrifices to the god of perversity for the sake of all the other borderline cases." Beautiful! (though I'm surprised the god of perversity is still hungry, after *my* last failed relationship...)


...to Tube, for "Nulla poena sine lege certa, as the Romans said..." I love it when you speak Latin, you dirty vicar! Not that I believe a word of it. Of course, I live in the US, where the Bill of Rights was recently recycled as bird cage liners. Y'all are next, you know. Individual rights are *so* Twentieth Century.


...and finally, to Frumious Bandersnatch, for, "the more assiduously we should pursue it..." BRAVO. BRAVO. Not because I think you'll effect some great change (although let's please get the extemely regrettable "the author has deleted" wording changed, as Deidzoeb rightly reminds us), but because pushing against immoveable objects - for the right reasons - is Good Spiritual Exercise, and spiritual exercise, carried out by individuals, is the *only* force for good in the world.


Little Boy Blue, blow your horn.


GTB

It appears that Little Boy Blue has blown off for the time being.

Sorry for waiting so long to answer this one, but the following jogged something in my "not so extensive" memory:

from post 106:

"And, I would submit, the more assiduously we should pursue it until either
(a) a reason is forthcoming, and one backed by a rational thought process at that, OR
(b) the decision is reversed.


FB/HVL, you got this thing dumped on you just prior to last weekend, right? It may well be they were feeling legally exposed in light of the apprehension of a well-known felon who used "do it yourself porn" to video himself into prison for the next 124 years. I'm referring to the grandson of Max Factor who actually filmed himself committing felonious sexual assault on three women.

Maybe they thought in some bizarre way that should some abysmally stupid person pervert your guide entry and do the same as this Luster (that's really his name!) character did, that somehow they could sort of maybe in some remote chance be sued?

VERY slim (or dim, as the case may be) thinking, but they are a corporation and most of those are getting very paranoid these days.

Not very plausible, but who knows WHAT corporate legal departments spend their time doing?

They definitely owe you and KV an explanation. No question.

SC