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

Sock puppets within sock puppets...

I know I've not always been a model citizen, but I've never been this bad. Have I?

Don't answer that...

The way I see it is that a successful online community relies on its senior members to help set the appropriate tone and standards. If that means being heavy-handed with some people, so be it. No skin off my nose.

In the days when the BBC paid staff to set standards, it wasn't possible to do that, and a lot of established members got very frustrated with the Beeb's policy. But now that we're standalone, it becomes necessary to speak out about people's behaviour.

Ben asked me a while ago if I'd think about volunteering to be an Ace, simply because I have a lot of experience of the way people behave on a range of internet forums (I'm a staff member on two other fora, and a moderator on a third, and I've been a regular on both 4chan and b3ta, which requires plenty of gumption). I said only if the staff had no objections to me wading in and telling people exactly how they were behaving. She had no problems with that but I think certain other elements might have had the opinion that I was a bit inflammatory. If we continue to be nicey-nicey something-to-everybody without the BBC to back it up then the community will go under, beneath a mountain of trollage.

B

I must say I've noticed your stories on b3ta. Especially the ones involving gastric distress...

To be honest, sat on the bog at 2am and thinking "I bet QOTW would enjoy reading about this..." is probably the sign of an unhealthy mind, let alone bowel.

B

I think the community members should speak up more and let people know when they are being out of line more. More plain speaking in the thread as it happens is something I'd really prefer.

But it seems that a lot of people would prefer to leave it to the mods who really don't have time.

I've just been talking about this elsewhere.

I definitely agree that the Mods aren't visible enough; Ask needs some strong, common-sense personalities, with the ultimate power to censor if necessary, but more importantly who can be easily visible in threads, warning people as necessary before censorship/deletion takes place. As the community gets used to that, we should also be able to do away with the swear-filter. If we want to foster intelligent conversation, then intelligent people should be able to use rude words creatively, humorously and etymologically.

It's noticeable that nearly all the bad behaviour takes place in Ask because other hubs of the site (PR, Atelier, Games) have good communities with focussed aims. It's sadly ironic that the site is supposed to be (at least half) about community, but one of the central areas is miserably failing to achieve that.

I would still prefer calling them Community Editors rather than Mods, because there is still the overtone of anonymous censorship among the site veterans, whereas CEs were generally positively regarded.

B

I can't believe you haven't realised that the crass inappropriate joke on that guide entry was just playful creativity. She's an artist, after all. A Playful, creative artist. How COULD you mistake that for rudeness.she only pisses off everyone on h2g2 abd tries to tear down everything that it is because she cares about it so much. It's just a Shane that all these mean Internet bullies mistake her creativity for piteous whining, wilful rudeness and all-round twottishness. Oh the perils of being a misunderstood genius.

Now, you see, that was much more nasty than anything I could have come up with.

B

"It's just a Shane"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsskPPgkIe4

Are you saying that us trying to use the site is like us throwing that poor shepherd a gun, knowing that we're going to riddle him with bullets from our Yikes button?

Yes, that's exactly what I meant.

Good. I applaud your point.

It's lucky you can type better than me, or you'd be applauding my pint.

Given that I've nothing left in the fridge, I might well applaud your pint.

B

Ireland adopted the euro so I can't applaud your punt.