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

knows.

And I am now going to go through the site, for any reference to anyoen who ever mentioned that we could do a better job moderating than the BBC and edit the post with the words

'Well that showed you!! Ha ha ha'

(PS This is a joke. I have to work this evening...)

kea: but in that case there was a comment of it being a very rare occurrence, which would indicate to me that there is more to the story. I.e. a reason for why this occurred. That it happened without a message saying that something had been removed is worthy of discussion, but in that case a simple 'should we add a comment when a post is modified?' would be the discussion and a fairly short and amicable one it should be.

Editing itself is not an issue, removing posts wholly is a form since it just overwrites what has been written - a total edit if you will. The point about the addition was that it was a) temporary and b) completely understandable in context.

The only time I would have a problem is if the editing changed what was being said in meaning outside of the usual removal of offensive stuff. As far as the evidence so far shows, this has not occurred. Changing meaning, no. Removal of offensive or legally questionable content ok, it's better than losing the whole post. And a line saying 'edited for content' or something is more of a nicety than anything since most won't know what went, never will know what went and could well end up making assumptions about either why it went or what was said.

Hmm, given that maybe editing with no comment is doable. After all, the only person it actually matters to is the poster and, if we assume a benign and generally honest/trustworthy mod group, it doesn't matter to anyone else and any contention could be dealt with privately by the poster and mods/CEs. I mean, why do I need to know that something I can't read has been deleted?

Z, that's good to have that stated so clearly:

- the post and subject line *didn't* break the HRs

- the subject line was edited solely because of how it would *look* on the FP.


My suggestion is this:

- write up a protocol about the whole FP issue and post it onsite (in fact I think we need a whole section like Magrathea where policy issues and changes can be posted and discussed). Why it's important, where the mandate is coming from (I *really* want to know what NPL are saying on this, if anything), and what future actions are available to the CEs and mods.

- if it's not realistic to do that now, just bung up an Announcement saying where we;re at currently, and that this will be looked at again later once the mod tools are fixed (which is the priority).


As an aside, I think this speaks again to the need to have a space that is off the FP for stuff that isn't acceptable to the FP. I made a case at noesis for The Forum 2.0, and will bring that back to the community when I get the chance. I think it's entirely possible to protect the FP *and* not reduce the whole community to the level of decency needed for that. There's probably some tech solutions too (how much choice do we have about which convos show on the FP?).

Z then as much as we hate no subject, the title should have been hidden, not edited without Taffs permission in accordance with the policy

>>So there's no need to worry really about us.<<

Well, you know, I always thought I was part of the 'us'. I don't feel like 'them'.

>>That's inevitable I'm afraid. As frustrating as that is, it's also a choice.<<

Well, I thought I'd be busy setting up Polyglot Plaza and a translators scheme. Instead I'm getting bogged down in a ridiculous amount of back log here and elsewhere, trying to keep my cool and help making decisions about threads on Ask.

It saddens me, because as long as the site doesn't calm down, there isn't the remotest point in setting up a multilingual scheme.

that sentance is not good is it, you know what I mean

>>Remind me again why I thought this was a good idea.

Because it was


>>
And I am now going to go through the site, for any reference to anyoen who ever mentioned that we could do a better job moderating than the BBC and edit the post with the words

'Well that showed you!! Ha ha ha'

(PS This is a joke. I have to work this evening...)
>>




Although to be fair, I think the broken tools is the major problem.


Would I get into trouble if I started a thread in Ask: What can we blame the bbc for?

(joke!)

kea, you make some very very good points, whether I agree with them or not, and I agree with a lot of them.

What I (personally) find exhausting is what feels (to me) like a constant demand that we tell you Everything! Now! Immediately! Sometimes I think you think there is a stack of papers a foot high of policies and decisions which have been signed and sealed and marked "secret - do not tell the communtity". Not so. We have a To Do list that high though!

I know you don't mean it that way; and I do get that you are concerned about decisions being made without community involvement. (I am concerned about that too, for what it's worth, which is why I want to get a discussion forum for community issues up and running as soon as possible, though the Soapbox and Feedback forums are good places and already in place).

So yes, please continue to hold the people who run the site to account. But please remember we are human, with marriages to nurture, day-jobs to do, bills to pay, and sleep to get.

Ben

>> Would I get into trouble if I started a thread in Ask: What can we blame the bbc for?

No, no, no!!

Bel, by 'us' in my previous post, I meant us rabblerousers I was saying that those of us who speak out don't have any power when it comes down to it, not the kind of power that the SVs now have at least (we have other kinds of power). I think the extent to which the SVs remain part of the community is up to the SVs, and is one of the core tasks. I am glad that you still feel part of the community.

I have been in your situation, only as a paid employee. I was an employee of a collective where I was also a member of the collective. Very interesting dynamics and boundaries, and learning curves for all concerned.

I take your point about the Plaza (I feel similarly, there are plenty of more proactive projects I'd rather be involved in than these threads). I guess my feeling about it is that, one, we've got a really hard job setting noohootoo up because of the broken tools and other software issues, and two, that getting these community processes sorted is core, and needs to happen before much of the other creative stuff does. I think if we sort it well now, it will serve the community well in the long term, whereas if we don't, we will have ongoing problems.

I've always seen this stuff as part of the CEs job.

Needless to say, some of these issues came up at noesis, weren't dealt with enough, and so we're dealing with them now.

>>
So yes, please continue to hold the people who run the site to account. But please remember we are human, with marriages to nurture, day-jobs to do, bills to pay, and sleep to get.
<<

Fair enough Ben, although I am struggling to see what I can change in my approach. I will think about it though


btw, I consider some of us without formal power to be part of running the site, and we also are human, with day-jobs, relationships, bills to pay etc. It's a funny thing, this us and them divide, the line shifts alot.

>> we also are human, with day-jobs, relationships, bills to pay etc.

Not then? Or even ? Hot damn.

Srsly, I didn't meant to imply I was some sort of super-special snowflake or even some sort of . More that - as Mina rightly pointed out - I've spent most of this year prioritising as I've never had to before.

About three pages ago, Z asked what was the system we had 8-9 years ago.

To the best of my memory.

100% reactive moderation. Moderators would not edit without a Yikes or without consulting TPTB, although some issues were temporarily deleted for referral. Obsessive Yikesers were told to cut it out and not to read those threads if they were easily offended (just like the rest of the internet, really).

Swear filter bleeped out one letter of the 'really rude words', and users were only reprimanded for swearing if it was gratuitous, part of a personal attack or excessive. And, yes, I realise we could debate over at least two of those categories all day.

Community Editors provided an ongoing italicized presence. I think having italicized CEs rather than non-italics are important for easy recognition, and I appreciate this is harder now everyone is a volunteer. A good CE would publicly reprimand culprits rather than moderating them straight off. I really can't emphasise this enough - when there were named Italics (not just a faceless 'editorial' account) participating in threads, then the community gelled much better. Yes, there were complaints about Mods, but they weren't half as widespread or common as they have been in the last 2-3 years.

Call it nostalgia if you like, but is there anyone who genuinely thinks the site functions better now than it did in 2003?

B

Ben, decisions have been made, policies have been decided, scenerios discussed at length for example

Open modding
Editing
Closing threads

They haven't been discussed with the community when they could have before now, they have not been consistantly applied, there has been poor moderation decisions made

All of the problems that have come about from this were completely foreseeable.

I appreciate that the tools are not working but some, most of this has come down to decisions not tools

Now tell me how to be helpful in terms of dealing with this and I will but it was avoidable, so for that the community and mods are accountable. Sorry

I don't know what to do.

community team, not community

I don't, not yet anyway

A couple of points:

- we didn't have a filter back then, the starring out was done manually. Not sure if it was the mods or the Eds though.

- while I take the points about the roles of the CEs in the past and how their presence onsite helped, I think we are in a significantly different situation now. The CEs are my peers, not externally employed Editors. Even when the old CEs had good presence onsite, there was still a dividing line between us and them. The old CEs didn't take part in the site as researchers in the way that Bel or 2legs or lil do. I can't see how them turning up in their personal, italicised accounts and telling people to pull their head in is going to work.

"If we'd removed it, then that would have been a bit unfair as it wasn't against the house rules,"

If it wasn't against the House Rules it shouldn't have been touched.

Bel I didn't mean to pick on you, it just happened to come up, and as I learned, a very hard way, (I think the phrase was 'sorry we've broken your toy') you can't ever not be a Community Editor. None of you can. If you are responsible for helping the Community when things get hard, following thread *about* the Community, House Rules, how the site is run, then calling people in the thread stirrers is not going to go down very well. You might have to make decisions on this thread. You've already let us know that you are not happy with some of us. So of course, if posts are removed, we can't help but wonder, and maybe do some more stirring, was it that CE that made it well known she had the hump with us?

The years Master B mentions yes were what I thought of as the Golden Years. It all went to shit towards the end of 2002 when they cut the team.

I have to agree with pretty much everything Peanut just said. I feel like I'm cutting alot of slack because the broken tools and associated workload will be making decision processes much harder. But some of this predates the move and was raised before the move.

Mina, thanks, I see what you mean now. Let me just point out that it's not the CEs who fail (or pass) posts. It's the moderators who make a decision if a post gets yikesed. If I made a post that breaks the house rules and somebody yikesed it, I would expect the moderators to fail it. If I yikesed a post just because I don't agree with what the poster said, I would expect the moderators to pass that post and tell me off.
Not that I would yikes a post just because it contains an opinion that differs from mine, mind. So if you'd find a failed post in here and wonder if it was me failing it, I certainly can't help that, but this is not how things work, or should work.

I would hate for anybody to suspect I was abusing my 'power' just because I expressed that I'm not happy with this or that.

"If you ever want to spoil the enjoyment of an activity you love, then join the committee".

Spoken by a very dear friend of mine who, sadly, has now passed away.

I've seen a lot of this in a previous life; I can assure you, these words are so *very* true.