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

cheers
I hope my monster post about moderation made some sense.

In the future - if the new site has volunteer mods - and I get my schedule under control, I might throw my name in the hat for consideration.

It's difficult to step away and take a long, hard rational look.

It was the sanest thing I've read all day.

Humph, I need to go back to the youtube thread but it got too silly to want to face it. Kea asked if anyone else didn't click on them, and I said I didn't because our broadband was slow - I DIDN'T say nobody should post them, or that I found them annoying or anything else. I simply don't look at them because it is too frustrating most of the time, but that just means if you want to make a point to me, do it in the text or I'll ignore it - not saying anyone should be banned for posting them!

I know wht you mean though Sho,there are a couple of posters who mke my heart sink when they show up in a thread I'm enjoying.

there are very many of us who skip the YouTube links for broadly similar reasons
I also never (unless the link is explanatory) click on links when I don't know where they're going - sometimes because I'm looking at lunchtime at work, sometimes because I'm using our family PC. But mostly because - meh - I prefer to keep the convo in the thread.

Having said that - I know why some people like to keep, especially the YouTube links, a surprise and I have to just be prepared not to be able to enjoy it. And I do get why David did what he did to annoy, and I partially understand why Kea reacted in the way she did. But she's usually (I think) one of the first to do a "don't feed the troll" and is usually very concialliatory. Especially with some posters who annoy. But in this case she seemed to be on a very short fuse (and we're all allowed off days, don't get me wrong, I have enough of them) and I sincerenly believe two things: one, she was wrong to react in the way she did, and two, if she had been her usual self she wouldn't have done it.

For whatever reason emotions are running high and we probably need a bit of a breather.

Actually, Sho, I strongly disagree with you here. Copyvio is the only thing I've ever had posts pulled for (a long time ago), and it's also one thing where I think the BBC are definitely in the right. Copyright matters.

TRiG.

I am not advocating any kind of copyright infringement - I quoted a relatively short part of a text to put it in context - probably too much it seems.

Because what I've taken away from h2g2 this week is: links with no background and context are annoying and we'll stamp our feet until you stop it


But that was only something that fflipped my switch to bloody annoyed because I was already wound up after flitting around a few threads recently and getting really annoyed at those.

On the subject of moderation - if they are yanked by hand, as I think they are? it's not too much to ask to have a less generic mail, but again, the yanking of the post was just the tiny little thing on top of the heap of other stuff that just made me throw my hands in the air and say: it, I can't be bothered.

My concern about that "Delete Expletives" paper is that 90% of the words on it aren't offensive/ swear words at all.

I'll concede to using a bleep or asterisks in an F or C bomb (though I use both all the time and neither bothers me at all), but words like b***h or shit are so innocuous that their not being allowed is frankly distracting.

And racial and homophobic abuse is allowed at this site *all the time*, and my stalker was allowed to abuse me *all the time*, simply because the post contains (contained) no words on a Hot List.

Context is important! But it's also important to acknowledge that plenty of intelligent, mature adults swear, and that people don't have an inherent right to be offended, even if it is their favorite hobby.

I agree with you about all of that.

Aren't the main points of Expletive Deleted

(1) that some words are "worse" than others and
(2) different people draw the line in different places?

B

That wasn't really what I took away from it... but maybe I missed something.

Just wanted to make clear what precisely my "issues" with the document was. Especially because I am aware that you and I are pretty much on the same page in that regard, so the linking to the document confused me.

PS - did anyone suggest anywhere that all of the words on the Expletive Deleted list should be put on some sort of filther? If so, linky link link PLEASE!

B

Was? Were. Me fail English? That's unpossible.

Kea wanted to create a list of words. I wanted to pull my eyeballs out and roll them in salt. I knew there was a list already in the document Pastey recommended we read and thought about. I linked to it.

I need another

B

Sorry for helping drive you to drink.

I guess what I'm thinking is that a list is a bad idea, and that swearing should always be taken in context of whether it's abusing another person or just using a word because no other word quite sums it up. If that makes any sense.

Hey, it was a chauffeur driven journey. I don't mind.

This post more or less sums up what I think: F21551820?thread=8259033&skip=60&show=20#p109829911

Does that make things look better... or worse...?

It's hard to say because the link takes me to a specific page but not a specific post. So I had to apply my ignore button to get past certain posts. But I read all of yours and you and I are on pretty much the same page... hope the Foundation feels the same way.

I meant post 78.

I *think* they do. Most of them are pretty sane. Apart from the ones who've been driven mad since January of course.

B

And while I'm chauffeuring... have another and I'll have some iced .

It's 37°C + here again and I'm whinier than usual. But I hate seeing longtime friends want to leave over the bad behavior of others. We're focusing on swearing (even I got that back into my craw again) while people are behaving atrociously but because they're not using naughty words, they get away with it. I'm sad every time I hear a hootoo friend say they may not make it to the new site.

This post has been removed.

I hope it's ok to chime in here, all things considered.

I'm sorry you are feeling like not being here Sho. I'm feeling like that too. I think the thing with me and Ed is an aberration, and most of the rest is the insane bbc moderation. That should change once we move. I do have concerns about how people are behaving on site, and I hope that will change too once we get some new blood (my feeling is that the same core group of personalities has been rolling round in the same Ask topics for far too long and have just got bored with debating the topic so now we're eating the site).

>>
Having said that - I know why some people like to keep, especially the YouTube links, a surprise and I have to just be prepared not to be able to enjoy it. And I do get why David did what he did to annoy, and I partially understand why Kea reacted in the way she did.
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Sho, I think you're confusing two things.

1. I started a thread about the youtube link issue, and I did it in an offhand, rather thoughtless way. But at no time did I say that solo youtube links should be banned or removed, and I certainly haven't yikesed any anywhere except in that one thread (see point 2). I'm not sure that I even said that people shouldn't post them. I think I was just saying that they're annoying and was curious if other people did too. I didn't expect everyone to stop posting them, but I did hope that some people would be more circumspect about it some of the time (a not unreasonable hope given that most people on h2 are considerate). I agree with you that it's not always appropriate to post an explanation with a youtube link, that's exactly the kind of comment I would have welcomed in the thread.

2. Once Ed started spamming that thread with youtube links and the phrase "End with a song" as a way to wind me up, I then started yikesing his *posts* (as spam, offtopic, and being intended to wind up other researchers). It was not because they had youtube links in them that I found slow to load, it was because he was spamming and flamming. I told him that I had yikesed his post, so he had ample opportunity to stop posting them until the Eds clarified if it was against the HRs or not. He chose not to, and preferred to stick with the wind up.

Points 1 and 2 are completely different, despite what people are saying in various places onsite. I yikesed Eds posts because he was being antisocial by intentionally winding me up and spoiling the thread. I *didn't* yikes them because they were youtube links. This is really important, because people are reacting to something that isn't actually there.

I'm fine with us disagreeing about whether I overreacted or not. I just wanted to be clear about what actually happened, because there is some confusion and misleading statements being made about it. I'm also not very happy that my character has been maligned by some in all this, but it doesn't particularly surprise me given the state of the site.

>>
don't worry about me feeling sad. This site has been annoying me over a far more serious issue recently and that is that some people are allowed to get away with some absolutely appalling behaviour and they don't get called on it partly because people are sick of seeing the bloody mess the fallout from that makes. If that kind of thing is going to be allowed to continue, here or elsewhere, in the name of "diversity" then each post is going to have to have a disclaimer (i have tourettes, I have MPD, I got out of the wrong side of bed, it's THAT time of the month) or it's going to get either nasty or empty.
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I think this is a really important issue. Part of the problem is that no-one is being specific so we're all left to guess which behaviours any one researchers is objecting too. I think this is firmly in the camp of the Community Editors and I really hope they will step up and do something proactive.

(personally I think we should name names and give specific examples, but I think we'd need some ground rules to have that discussion otherwise all hell could break loose).

*

>>Kea wanted to create a list of words

No she didn't.

What kea wanted to do was look at what gets modded now compared to prefilter (or even now compared to two years ago compare to 8 years ago). It was a way of getting sense of how the terrain has shifted over the years and what's been acceptable to the *community* and what hasn't been (bugger the bbc).

I wasn't trying to pin anything down , nor was I suggesting that the mods have a list of naughty words that aren't allowed.

The reason I wanted to get an overview is because I see such a wide variation in what people think is acceptable. If we use community members as mods, and some have no problem with x word but others are removing it, then that kind of inconsistency will drive people batty (it's what is already driving people batty).