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

As I have explained at F19585?thread=479, I consider your actions in the digibox debacle to be unforgiveable, so I am personally banning you from my portion of h2g2. I do not intend to talk to you again and have advised everyone else to do the same.

If that's how you feel Gnomon. Personally, I think your opinion stems from lack of knowledge, but hell, you are entitled to your opinion and the ability to act on it. Regardless, I still consider you in good light.

F69786?thread=382710

Hi Saturnine! You don't know me, and I'm sorry to butt in. I just wanted to make sure you saw this thread, seeing as you didn't comment and therefore I figured you might have missed it. From my viewpoint, it seems like you could use some moral support at this junction.

Saturnine,

if you don't mind talking to someone who has vowed to never speak with you again,

You're probably right. My decision probably does come from lack of information. I've been thinking, and someone called "Member" left a very polite note at my space which caused be to think further.

Being heavily involved in music, I feel very strongly about the illegal copying of music. There are many people (millions, probably), who are making mp3 files from their CDs and copying these mp3's to their friends across the internet. This is quite clearly illegal and harms the lives of the musicians. I've pointed this out to the copiers and they just laugh. Everybody does it. If there were a way to make all these illegal copies self-destruct, I would do it, even though it would make me very unpopular.

But on the other hand, I wouldn't be justified in doing this just because I happened not to like the kind of person who was doing the copy.

THis is very similar to the situation you are in. So it all boils down to this:

Did you do what you did because you wanted the digibox users off h2g2 or was it because you felt that there was something illegal going on which you were in a position to stop?

Sorry to jump in as well but I think Saturnine needs some support as well.

Those questions have been debated and answered ad infinitum. For weeks now the reasons have been stated. In deed, the very fact that aka and Saturnine put the question to the community long before (in that thread) the majority spoke and the action was taken speaks to their integrity. This wasn't a secret, vindictive act. They asked the Hootoo community what reasons there were to not report the illegal activity and no legal or even moral reasons were given. Only attacks and vitriol.

The fact is, the deed is done, let's get on with life.

If Sat is not prepared to answer my question, put to her honestly, then I must assume the worst. I will stand by my decision. Yes, we should get on with life. And we should get on it without Saturnine.

Wait one second.

Because I don't answer your question in a carefully allotted time, that means I'm not prepared to?

That's ridiculous! This is precisely why I unsubscribed from threads, and was THINKING THROUGH my response to you Gnomon.

No matter what I do, I am torn apart.

So, no, you won't get your reply now.

Somehow I doubt you'd believe it even if she said what you wanted, Gnomon. It's hard not to feel victimized in such a situation...

I didn't say that you had to answer within an allotted time. I said that until you answer, I will continue to assume the worst. I am prepared to accept your answer. If you say that you had no hostile intent towards the digibox users, then I will apologise and continue normal conversation with you.

*The Long Goodbye*

I can't speak for Saturnine but I do know that in other threads she has referred everyone to the backlog since she has repeated herself a dozen times or more. As far as I can tell Saturnine and aka did what they did for two reasons, one because it was pointing out an illegal act and two because the people it would affect were harrasing them. Before they did it, however they put it to the Hootoo public as to whether or not they should do it. No one had a logical, legal, or even moral reason why they shouldn't. They did contact Telewest and were attacked immediately with what became I believe, further justification for their action.

Quite the turnaround, Gnomon. I'm impressed. I wish more of the people involved were handling this with maturity as you are.

Gnomon, if you would like to email me with the question again, I am more than willing to address all and every reasonable point you want to throw at me. I have more than enough respect for you, but I refuse to bring up the subject on the site again. It's leaving threads wide open for spamming and general abuse. Which eventually wears me out.

OK, Saturnine, I accept your answer as supplied in your e-mail. I'm genuinely sorry that I posted what I did about your actions, without discussing it with you first. I will publicly retract my refusal to talk to you. I'll throw in a free forgiving of aka, although I haven't spoken to him.

No hard feelings! Let's share some champagne together.

I'm so glad this has been sorted out logically and in a friendly manner. Anyone else out there see how it's done? Anyone?

Hi.
Saturnine-
Can you answer my question?
For all the 'nonsense' talked by some digibox users, there were plenty of worthwhile contributors, who happened to be restricted to using their digiboxes. Was as it fair to exclude these people?
Another point is (of course) that there are plenty of PC users talking rubbish-but they don't get their access denied.
It's a shame you couldn't have seen the damage you've done to the h2g2ers that you wouldn't have known were on digiboxes...You might have reconsidered...There's plenty of them missing out on the information and contact that they needed/enjoyed.

Saturnine has discussed this so often that she is sick of it. I don't think she will answer.

Her opinion which she has stated many times is that she was not denying any particular user access to h2g2. All digibox users still are allowed to log on to h2g2 through PC, Internet Cafe or wherever. Sat just informed Telewest of a mis-use of their facilities which was causing problems on the Telewest system.

"mis-use"

"problems"

Any further details on this?

Particularly when did these problems 'appear'?

Seems to me Digibox users have been around a long time with no problems-and any reasons given (as far as I can see) are more to do with personal dislike of 'lol' type talk.

Still seems pretty off to me...and the whole 'go elsewhere' pc, netcafe part seems to be missing the point. No offence to you Gno.

I never used digibox myself so I don't know the exact details of the mis-use. Sat sent them to me but I haven't got them to hand. The Telewest system forbade access to the internet except to one or two sites. The digibox users figured out a way of fooling the system by sending a message to one of the BBC sites and getting it to send back an acknowledgement, which could then be kludged to get to h2g2 without Telewest realising that the digibox was now talking to the internet. But it wasn't a proper internet connection - there was no location/address bar, they couldn't do a refresh screen or a few other things. Digibox users often posted to conversations just so that their screen would refresh.

As for the problems, I have no details at all, except for statements from Sat that there had been a number of complaints that the other Telewest services had deteriorated seriously since the security flaw was discovered.

Well...as an ex-digibox user and telewest customer (broadband) I can certainly say that Telewest's shoddy service did not change over the years of digibox use-unfortunately Telewest is just very handy at removing services-with no apologies or explanation.

It seems to me that any license payer should had have access to BBCi sites-regardless of how they are accessed-and perhaps one day the 'grassing up' effect will be reversed.

In my 2 years of digibox use I never spammed trolled oor flamed...shame the bigger picture was ignored.

Still...no hard feelings-I would just like the people responsible for the broken link to admit they tarred DB users with the one brush.