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

I'm quite interested in the legal technicalities behind the modding. It crossed my mind more than once what if the community bid was successful, is there anyone here who would have known what they doing, modding wise?

Apart from pointing to the very large sign saying 'We take no responsibility for the comments on this site, if this disclaimer does not suffice, we blame 2legs'

It seems that several of the posts on this thread have been
raptured...

Th BBC nor anyone else have specifically said any specific footballer has a superinjunction out...all the BBC has reported is the name Ryan Giggs being mentioned by an MP and a certain set of words including the word 'superinjunction.

None of the posts hidden linked anyone witha superinjunction they mentioned a footballers name...which is not contempt of court...mentioning a persons name is not contempt of court...it would be if you specifically said a certain person definetly has a superinjunction has...no-one on this thread has done.

Hi Peanut

I've written about some of the challenges of moderating discussions about this injunction here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2011/05/moderation_and_superinjunction.html

to explain why we have to do what we do. You're right to think that it is more complex than it first appears. To be frank, I really don't like to see the comments on here where people are insulting the moderators for doing their jobs - if they decided to ignore UK law, even if they thought the law was stupid, then we couldn't have them working on the website for much longer.

That said, there have been a couple of comments that I've reinstated as they shouldn't have been failed and my team have also been talking to the h2g2 eds and to the moderators about those errors - one mod appears not to have been across the latest guidance early this morning.

I think you've made a good point about post-BBC h2g2. Interestingly in cases like these disclaimers do you very little good at all. I don't think any UK-based site should take these kind of legal issues lightly, but it must be said that the BBC - with it's high profile, large coffers and many enemies - faces greater legal risk than most community or social media websites.

Paul - Editor, Moderation Services

Hi Central Communities Team. it would be great if you didn't use Barlesque, other skins are available which 90% of us use. Whenever I see a mass of >&#39;< which as a Brunel user I use as I simply can't put up with the lack of functionality of Barlesque and 404s, I tend to ignore those posts now.

And yes we know that the BBC is closing down discussion boards because of its new online policy, and pushing people onto blogs written by BBC approved bloggers.

So just to be clear. If I posted as follows:-

Off topic - Ryan Giggs is a very fine footballer who Manchester United will miss very much when he retires.

That would be fine?

PP

Peanut if we win the bid, and if a situation like this arises again, the mods there will put out a message something like,

'Hey guys we're not the mighty BBC with its £billions of Licence Fee payers money..we don't have access to BBC lawyers, so please don't discuss this here, go somewhere else with plenty of dosh and lawyers. We hope you can see our tricky position. And we know you are all with us with keeping h2g2 going.'

Or something along those lines?

Will NooHooToo have to a lawyer on retainer? I'm going to have to prepare to donate more money...

The Interim Committee has given a lot of thought to the theory and practice of moderation, and we're drawing on the experience of former BBC mods and people who've modded larger and more feral sites than h2g2 will ever be. We've been very fortunate in this regard. This is an interesting old thread though.

B

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the link, I've been thinking about our modding capability in general when we move on. While some of it seems like common sense, the legalities are a different kettle of fish, especially this case where no-one is really sure what the legalities are.
While we may well be small enough not to be a target we don't have a legal team to advice us.

HS, I think we would have asked everyone nicely to behave in this instance and we probably would have. The issue would have been raised in some form and some volunteer mods would have to be closely monitoring the thread to make sure that we were behaving, or didn't accidently cross some line, and dealing with anything naughty that may have cropped up.
As it was this thread was a bit of fun, (or it started that way and I appreciate it wasn't so much fun for Paul)and we could have done without it.
Other threads where modding is complex are the ones about Madeleine McCann for example, are we going to request that that we don't discuss it or be able to rely on people to 'behave'? I think no and no.


Peanut

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>Madeleine McCann for example, are we going to request that that we don't discuss it <

Why? They haven't issued a super injunction. That was a special case. I've read some very outrageous stuff about McCanns on other small sites.

But we can't muck about with stuff concerning superinjunctions or injunctions.The Giggs thing was altogether different..because we know it was spoken about suing Twitter. But yes it was utterly farcical so we had a bit of fun..and maybe we did push it a bit here because it was the beeb.

I hope I wouldn't do that on the new site though if its run by the consortium.

Why? Because there are still legal restraints about what can be said about them. There are guidlines somewhere round here on exactly that and I'm guessing that some of the posts that have be modded on exsisting threads have been removed because they haven't been adhered to.

As well as the legal reasons, it is not a thread that I would trust people to self moderate.

Re post 171 I did try really hard to spell alledged and put ifs in

The Honorable Mr Justice Eady states 'the evidence before the court at that point seems to strongly suggest that the claiment was being blackmailed' Now that the injunction is defunct could this evidence now be tested in a criminal court?

Wow, two mentions of the McCanns and not one yikesed...shhh...the mods can't have seen them yet.

With the McCanns I have no idea why the mods yikes the posts apart from possibly the McCanns sueing...though I've never said anything libelilous merely told the truth, they left children alone in a foreign country, and my views on why they are still keeping themselves in the public eye(which he mods seem to think I can't do.

Of course, they could be yikesing them because they htink it might be offensive to people but I find leaving kids alone for long periods of time offensive.,

"That said, there have been a couple of comments that I've reinstated as they shouldn't have been failed..."

Just wondering, Paul, now that moderation issues are being discussed on site, what it was about the single-word posting - a synonym for 'twittering' (posted immediately after a rather risqué, though amusing video) - that was considered too dangerous for it to be reinstated?

This post has been removed.

Mmm yikesing on the grounds of causing offense, it's a house rule. It is an interesting one. I'm not sure I've seen it discussed yet on noohootoo threads but might have missed it. I know that people don't want to be overwhelmed by noohootoo stuff on Ask but this one house rule is prehaps worthy of a thread? It's a community issue rather than a legal one and raises 'Askey issues' like free speech, censorship etc

> I know that people don't want to be overwhelmed by noohootoo stuff on Ask<

I can only remember reading one person making a big fuss about that.

I would say noohootoo discussions are absolutely ok to discuss on Ask. They are fundamental to our very future. This is a particular period when we are going through transition. It seems entirely appropriate to me that during this period that questions about our future should be asked in the busiest part of h2g2 that lots of people go to.

If people aren't interested that can simply not click on that question. As is all the rage to say these days..'It isn't rocket science'.