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

Nice entry Lucinda. Are you going to put it into Peer Review? It'd be good to have this in the Edited Guide.

You must have thought about h2g2 as you were writing this. Do you have a view on which one of these systems you'd like to see operating on h2g2, in an ideal world? I'm in a meeting tomorrow where I'll be discussing things like the way communities are structured and moderated. I'd be genuinely interested in your views.

It's in Peer Review somewhere - I've not been my normal organised self and dropped a link to the thread though - I seem to be much more 'fire-and-forget' about my entries nowadays...

Which system for h2g2... Well, thanks for asking I'm completely torn, to be honest - everything's got good points, and can work well - if it's done right, that is.

Personally, I'd love to have an 'adults-only' section/filter, that operated as close to anarchy as is consistent with BBC policy and law - perhaps only accessible for registered Researchers over 18 who've specifically chosen to view it. It'd be a place where Ben's guide to short words, or Wonko's views on the sexes, could find a home. A place which allowed any kind of link to any kind of place. And yes, a place where could vent their anger without fear of anything but other people venting back. If someone doesn't like the idea of such a place, they don't have to ever look at it, so it's certainly not going to make the rest of h2g2 less pleasant at all - just increase the choices available. But that's an old debate, of course, and it'll probably never happen.

Outside of any 'adult' area, I'd prefer some kind of feudalism - at least for now.

I'm in favour of most things that increase the power and freedom of individual researchers. Things like an 'ignore' button - to hide a post, a thread, an entry, maybe even a researcher - so that I can't see it/them, but nobody else is effected. You could also have controls available so that people can 'lurk' to various degrees - not being present in who's online - not having your most recent conversations visible to everyone else. And there's the idea of self-censorship - being able to delete your posts, for example. I'm sure you've heard hundreds of similar ideas - they all take work to implement, of course - and that's the real problem.

To my mind some of the Volunteer groups are good examples of that. For example, the Scouts essentially decide what gets into the Edited Guide. That's kind of off-focus for moderation, I know - but moderation isn't the only thing that's relevant. Another possibility would be Abi's Community Activities - that's something that could be decided by the ACEs, for example. It all works together to make a site that's run by the people who use it - and I'm still left-wing enough to think that's a good idea.

But back to moderation - a feudal solution to that would have some Italic-appointed group (perhaps the ACEs, perhaps a new group) making the decisions. The moderators would still deal with the bulk, but borderline material would be referred to this group, who could briefly discuss it and make a decision one way or the other. Being judged by your peers is far more pleasant, to my mind, and it might even get you better decisions. Such a group might also do a good job of clarifying the rules, sorting out exactly what is and isn't tolerated, and so forth.

Once you've got this kind of Feudalism on a range of issues - Moderation, Clarifying rules, Scouting, Sub-Editing, Editing(?), Community Activities, Support, Graphics, etc, etc, etc - *then* would be the time to think about maybe taking it further. Perhaps at some later stage, the Italics would no longer need veto powers on these groups. Perhaps they might be chosen by the community (democracy), or by existing members (oligarchy). But I reckon you need to have the groups set up first, already working, showing they can make good decisions, building trust. It doesn't have to be revolutionary - baby steps get there fastest, they say.

Just IMO - and I'll probably change my mind by tomorrow - so it goes...

Thanks Lucinda. As I say, I'm discussing this kind of thing tomorrow. It's a bit like the conversation I was having in the 'rule change' conversation, I am truly interested in the views of the community members. Just because we have the current set-up it doesn't mean that things have to stay this way, I'm trying to help the Community develop in a fairly progressive way.

"Personally, I'd love to have an 'adults-only' section/filter, that operated as close to anarchy as is consistent with BBC policy and law - perhaps only accessible for registered Researchers over 18 who've specifically chosen to view it. It'd be a place where Ben's guide to short words, or Wonko's views on the sexes, could find a home. A place which allowed any kind of link to any kind of place. And yes, a place where could vent their anger without fear of anything but other people venting back. If someone doesn't like the idea of such a place, they don't have to ever look at it, so it's certainly not going to make the rest of h2g2 less pleasant at all - just increase the choices available. But that's an old debate, of course, and it'll probably never happen."

It might not happen, but it's worth considering. Ben's Entry on 'Short Words' could probably go up on the existing h2g2, I keep meaning to drop her a line about it. Now we're more established in the BBC and more trusted we could probably put it up as is. Wonko's view on the sexes, I believe that was yikesed, we'll probably always have to take down material that people actively complain about.

Links, Mark and I would like to see any reasonable link allowed on h2g2, and we're trying to make that happen. We're never going to link to child porn sites, but even in an adult area this would be seen to be perfectly acceptable moderation, I would think.

On the idea of an adult area, do you think that would make some people feel excluded? It would be hard to implement, obviously every horny 14 year old on h2g2 would try to register as an adult member. I'd also be concerned that if we did this, BBC editorial policy would try to encourage us to move some of the currently acceptable adult material, like 'female masturbation' over to the adult area, and think this would be to the detriment of the Guide.

"I'm in favour of most things that increase the power and freedom of individual researchers. Things like an 'ignore' button - to hide a post, a thread, an entry, maybe even a researcher - so that I can't see it/them, but nobody else is effected. You could also have controls available so that people can 'lurk' to various degrees - not being present in who's online - not having your most recent conversations visible to everyone else. And there's the idea of self-censorship - being able to delete your posts, for example. I'm sure you've heard hundreds of similar ideas - they all take work to implement, of course - and that's the real problem."

Yes, these are things that we could viably do. Friendship groups and private conversations are on the 'to do' list, and I think they'd work well. As you say, implementation is the biggest issue here. Deletion of posts could present a problem, someone could behave in a totally anti-social way and delete the 'evidence'. I'd be concerned that it would increase trolling. Do you think it would be an issue? If it wasn't to be used in this way, what other need would people have to delete posts? It might also make following conversations difficult. If someone decided to leave and delete *everything* it could really screw up some of the key conversations, in places like Peer Review for instance. The Researchers would also have to have a facility to undo the deletion, Researchers are notorious for changing their minds.

"To my mind some of the Volunteer groups are good examples of that. For example, the Scouts essentially decide what gets into the Edited Guide. That's kind of off-focus for moderation, I know - but moderation isn't the only thing that's relevant. Another possibility would be Abi's Community Activities - that's something that could be decided by the ACEs, for example. It all works together to make a site that's run by the people who use it - and I'm still left-wing enough to think that's a good idea."

I think its a good idea too, we've already proved that the Community can achieve a great deal when tasks are handed over to them, the Scouts being an ideal example. It hadn't occured to me to hand over 'Abi's activities'; that would be good to do. It could be via the Aces, or if we manage to get some kind of polling device into the Guide we could perhaps do it from there? Or we could set up another group. All ideas on how we might do this are welcome. My time is being freed up a bit early next year, and this is exactly the kind of thing I can implement. so to this one!

"But back to moderation - a feudal solution to that would have some Italic-appointed group (perhaps the ACEs, perhaps a new group) making the decisions. The moderators would still deal with the bulk, but borderline material would be referred to this group, who could briefly discuss it and make a decision one way or the other. Being judged by your peers is far more pleasant, to my mind, and it might even get you better decisions. Such a group might also do a good job of clarifying the rules, sorting out exactly what is and isn't tolerated, and so forth."

Our ideal solution is to go back to the old 'unmoderated' system, but keep the complaints button for really offensive material. This *might* be possible, again we're working on it, but the Beeb are obviously a bit cautious on this one.

Community moderation, I'd be concerned that the Community aren't as liberal as one might think, and that it actually might result in moderation that is actually *more* harsh than it is currently. I read all of the complaints, and from that it's apparent that the Editors views on what is acceptable are actually quite a bit more lax than other peoples'. It's a bit like politicians, the people who are interested in taking the job aren't necessarily the ones who might be best able to do it well. Having a group to discuss issues would be good, it would increase the workload, but that might be feasible next year. We tried to do something along these lines when we were debating the suicide comment. It was good to get a Community view on this one. I'd prefer to see discussion on-site, in the open, but that might be difficult with some content. I totally accept that being judged by your peers is more acceptable though, as long as we get the right people and it doesn't turn into free for all. Moral stances are very different, and people often find it hard to accept someone elses' values and back down on this kind of thing.

"Once you've got this kind of Feudalism on a range of issues - Moderation, Clarifying rules, Scouting, Sub-Editing, Editing(?), Community Activities, Support, Graphics, etc, etc, etc - *then* would be the time to think about maybe taking it further."

Clarifying rules/moderation. Again, my concern is about people imposing rules and values. The great thing about us applying the rules is that we can apply a great deal of leniency. The 'it's a lovely day' amnesty was a good example of this, I'd hate to see the 'rules' applied stringently. I'm concerned that the more we define them, the more people will expect us, or a moderation group, to apply them *to the letter*, and I think that would be a bad thing. Flexibility is a desirable thing.

"Perhaps at some later stage, the Italics would no longer need veto powers on these groups. Perhaps they might be chosen by the community (democracy), or by existing members (oligarchy). But I reckon you need to have the groups set up first, already working, showing they can make good decisions, building trust. It doesn't have to be revolutionary - baby steps get there fastest, they say."

Ideally yes. I like the idea. But wouldn't a similar situation to the current one build up? Instead of resenting 'us' the community might resent the 'leadership' of the community leaders? Any bias that we might be accused of could easily be equally, if not more so, applied to community members with authority. Would it cause more problems within the community than it solved? That's my main concern. If we implement something that turns out to have a negative effect it may be difficult to rescind; but, I know, we can't evaluate it without putting it into effect. That's where it all gets tricky!

Anyway over to you Lucinda. *Almost* anything is possible here. The BBC are interested in following and backing our strategies. If we have truly feasible strategies we can at least try to implement them. We just have to be reasonably sure that we're trying to persue something that isn't going to go horribly wrong. And that's the tricky part...

adult area: resentment and exclusion... I can see the concern. I think if (for example) the front page contained links to 'adult' entries, then that'd be worse. If you could ensure that people registered as 'young' researchers never saw 'adult' stuff, I think it'd be reasonably easy. So, if I'm 'young' and I visit Magnolia Thunderpussy's page, I only see the 'young' threads and 'young' entries she's written. Technical issues will arise, I'm sure, though...

Another rule to reduce exclusion would be to only allow 'young' pieces in the Edited Guide, the Post, Community Activities, and so on. Which cunningly gets round the concern that Editorial Policy is going to boot masturbation into the 'adult' section. But that all helps make sure the focus of the Guide is still on the 'young' section, with the adult area very much playing second fiddle.

Verification: that depends on the BBC, I guess, and how certain they want to be. Reasonable steps, imo, would be requiring a checkbox and date of birth, blocking access to net nanny and the like, and asking Researchers to keep an eye out for anyone who says they're under 18. It's never going to be absolutely safe, but I think it'd be restricted enough - after all, children sometimes watch late night TV too...



Deletion of posts: consider what message is currently sent in the following conversation:
Fred: blah blah blah

Fred: blah! blah blah! Barney! BLAH!

It's pretty clear what's happened, from the 'evidence'. Sure, I can't see exactly what Barney did wrong, but I can get an inkling - and that's all I need, really. And the same thing would occur if posts were deleted.

It'd be better, in terms of preserving evidence, if both deleted and moderated posts had names attached. I'd not know exactly what Barney called Fred, but I'd know that there was some trolling going on, and I'd know if I met Barney myself to be careful not to respond to any further trolling. And not to say anything to Fred that could be misinterpreted, of course.

Actually, myself I'd make self-deletion permanent - because that'd be a good incentive for people not to do so willy-nilly. It'd confuse some conversations a little, but no more than moderation does, and most conversations are either informative stuff, so all you get is information loss, or party-like stuff which is irrelevant after the party's finished. Peer Review threads are largely irrelevant as soon as the entry is in the Edited Guide, for example.



I don't reckon a community group would be any harsher. I recognise that you get a number of complaints from the community which are unfounded, but by its nature the system only shows you where people are less tolerant than you - it doesn't really show where they are more tolerant or as tolerant. And initially you'd still have veto power over the group, just like Scouts and Subeds, so I reckon the over-zealous would be easy to spot and politely ask to leave.

Clarifying rules - see elsewhere...



Obviously there's going to be resentment, no matter who's in charge - even in a pure democracy, people still get pxxsed of if a vote goes against them. But I do reckon it'd be less. EG: people get annoyed by Subeds doing a poor job, and by Scouts being over-critical or not recc'ing their masterpiece. But the annoyance is less because *anyone* can potentially become a Sub-Ed - if they are willing to do the work. Whereas very few people can become Italics...

Also, the resentment gets spread out a bit - over various groups and more people in each group, which I think would make it less of a problem. It's a lot easier to be criticised solely on one issue (say, over-critical in Peer Review) than to be criticised on practically everything you do. And a lot easier to change to reduce such criticism.

Obviously it's difficult to undo such a thing - but perhaps you could try it first on just a single smaller group - and see how that goes. Random example: ask everyone who's had an Edited entry, a week or two after it's been sub-edited, to privately say whether their experience was good or bad. If a couple of people are getting consistently poor 'scores', ask them if they wouldn't mind giving someone else a chance. People with high scores get the chance to sub-ed the sub-editors: that is, take over the final in-house tweaking.

Have fun in your meeting...

Hi Lucinda

Thanks for the comments. Introducing another rule to only allow 'young' pieces in the Edited Guide could be difficult. I think lots of Researchers would see this as us being more restrictive and censorial. Some of it would be hard to categorise too, have you seen Crescent's excellent Entry on Cannibis? Not finished yet so not in Peer Review yet I believe. It's educational and informative, but is it adult? And what about the Durex condoms Entry? I'd hate to see the Guide become a wishy-washy guide to Marmite and so on. An adult area would probably encourage the posting of really 'adult' material, and I'm not sure that the BBC would want to host a site like that.

The meeting went really well by the way. We actually may be making some real progress!

I put the 'young' in quotes to mean stuff which is OK under the current house rules - kinda opposite to 'adult' which would be stuff that is not OK under the current house rules, but would be OK in a seperate adult area. I probably should have found a different word, but I couldn't think of something appropriate...