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

Dman shame.

What happened to your name B'el?

Oooh, now i'm rather miffed, to put it mildly. Someone needs a good smack upside the head and Fizzymouse needs to be convinced to come back. I don't do PR much as a) I get distracted by the articles, and any links therein, and b) I don't feel confident enough to criticise other peoples work so I didn't see these posts until too late else I'd have had words to say *still

I felt like removing it for a while, to show some sort of solidarity with Fizzy. I can't do that for long, though, as I can't go and leave Ace messages without a username.

Someone has a lot to answer for.

Trouble is, we won't make anything unsaid, and Fizzy has a lot to cope with in RL at the moment. She came to hootoo to have fun, and because she loves the guide, and she was one of the few who really tried to keep their promise in the h2g2 Researcher Group, despite all her RL hassles.

Fizzymouse will be back, hootoo's too addictive to stay away for long

You know Bel, I get the impression that Fizzymouse is upset partly due to seemingly lack of support. Maybe, that says more about other people not taking FM as seriously as Fizzymouse seems to have.

I didn't get to read 'The Drawer' Entry, I hope Fizzymouse has it saved on her computer, and when things have calmed down she'll re-submit it to PR. I managed to find the thread, she's got a lot of positive comments on it, and as almost every house has one, it's factual, is it not

Emmily

Nadgers. I hope she comes back but, having read much of the nonsense, can see why she's ducked out.

I was a tad perplexed to read in the 'Drawer' PR thread that people had been complaining about chit chat. Who had complained and, more importantly, where? Very odd.

With any luck this will all blow over, as these things usually do.

I hope you're right about the addictiveness of hootoo, Emmily. It could be years before Fizzy comes back, though, she once vanished for more than a year, although that was before she was involved with all the guide related things.
I think that I should have been much harsher with what I said in that thread, but I hardly dare doing so these days.
It wasn't so much what FM said, but that Fizzy feels let down by people she expected to react to that, and I feel guilty of having let her down, too.

I remember the fracas quite well now - but it was so vicious on the part of the perpetrator that I couldn't think of a constructive thing to say at the time - only destructive things. Like, for example, how some people go around all day with their heads up their asses - removing them only long enough to announce to the world that everything stinks.

Now I wish I had said so for fizzy's sake - but really, what can be said to such !@#$'s that makes a bit of difference.

That was my problem, too - I didn't want to perpetuate the fighting in places it's not meant to be, nor did I want to pursue anyone to their PS to continue the "debate"...

I didn't know Fizzzymouse had left before Bel, as you know she's resigned from her activities with the guide.

Emmily

The first time she didn't actually 'leave'. She was still new, and RL got in the way and she forgot to come back for a year or so.
This time, it's different.

Mala, I think we all made the mistake to try to keep that thread open for civilised debate.

By the time I saw the thread, it was too late to do anything constructive.

Right now, I'm inclined to tar and feather a certain individual.

With any luck this mood will pass and I'll be able to say something more useful soon.

I'm afraid we can't reduce it to one individual. As Bel points out, everyone acted "wrong" - or at least, in a way which indirectly caused this to happen.

So we can't scapegoat anyone even if we all seem to resent a certain individual at present.

It's more important to think about how to deal with this kind of situation better in future - letting the victim of bullying know they're supported and letting the perpetrator - whoever it may be - know what we think of such behaviour while keeping the conversation on track, as giving in to the urge to argue will only escalate matters.

A real difficulty in such matters as this is that once someone has identified a particular entry and insulted it - it's just deflating and makes it hard for the author to fully regain confidence. It just takes all the fun out of it.

With the benefit of hindsight - I'm thinking that in the future one could yikes a post that identifies an entry by name and clearly intends only to insult the author. Then to follow immediately with a post to the effect that a personal attack has just occurred that is quite out of line with the friendly intent of h2g2, and yikes that so that the matter will be made clear to the moderators. Any thoughts?

Not so sure on yikesing the second post - that might be seen as abuse. Better to put that in the complaints box, and then post that a personal attack etc - so people will know it's been dealt with, and that's why it was yikesed.

And then go give a lot of positive comments in the mentioned entry's PR thread, if you think it was worthy - one of mine was briefly picked out, but because the general resonance had been so good, I laughed it off, especially since it was never explained what was supposedly wrong with it.

I think the problem (or part of it) here was, that the insults were made in a totally unrelated PR thread, and although Fizzy asked several times for the points to be raised in her PR thread, it was refused.

That's definitely a problem, yes. Just goes to show that the poster had no real arguments to back it up and was simply picking a fight.

Indeed.

I think you're right that positive comments are probably better than a yikesing war. The only hope in yikesing is that one might be able to accomplish it before the targeted author got to see the post.

Probably it just needs to be taken on a case by case basis - but I will certainly be more proactive in the future you can bet.

Well, I'm glad that some will try to be more pro-active in PR, that will hopefully balance out those who say they won't go into PR anymore.