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

Here's the relevant text from the House Rules. There is actually quite alot of leeway there in terms of how the Eds deal with a problem.

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Transgressions

If you fail to abide by these House Rules and/or the Terms and Conditions, then the following procedure will be followed in most cases. Please note that the BBC reserves the right to terminate accounts immediately at its discretion (in the event of such things as criminal behaviour or personal abuse of BBC staff, for example), or to vary the following process as it sees fit (typically by being more lenient). The BBC may also implement a period of individual pre-moderation3 - or, in the case of severe flooding or spamming, may temporarily suspend an account - instead of or in addition to the following, at our discretion.

For the first offence you will receive an official warning from the h2g2 Editors.

A second offence will mean that your account is suspended for seven days.

A third offence will mean a suspension period of one month.

A fourth offence will result in your account being closed permanently.

In each case the warning or suspension notice will be sent to the email address in your h2g2 preferences, explaining the nature of the transgression and the process for transgressions. If this email address bounces, then the warning or suspension notice will be posted to your Personal Space from 'The h2g2 Editors'. If you don't have a Personal Space Introduction, then a blank entry will be created and the warning or suspension notice will be posted there.

While suspended, returning to h2g2 by creating another account will constitute a further offence and will extend the suspension to the next period, or will result in your account being closed permanently. Similarly, asking other h2g2 Researchers to post on your behalf while suspended will constitute a further offence on your behalf, and may constitute an offence on behalf of those Researchers.

For information on the process that is applied when closing accounts, please read the Transgressions Procedure for Lifetime Bans.
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"Just to momentarily return to the process by which tig appears to be permanently banned - if he was suspended and created a new account to bypass his suspension then that is an automatic no-discussion-needed banning offense isn't it?"

Some of his more homophobic posts were yikesed (definitely by me, probably by others also). He was put on pre-moderation. He had at least one other longstanding account, and started to post provocative comments from one which was also called tig. The italics were notified again (definitely by me, I think Mr. Dreadful did as well).

So it wasn't a case of posting while suspended, but of trying to get around the premod. Likewise, he didn't deliberately set up a new account, it was one he'd had for ages. He stopped posting then, but are people absolutely sure that he's been banned?

Azara

Oh, hello, Azara. Welcome to the thread.

(Not that everyone else isn't welcome, but everyone else was more *expected* somehow. Don't know why I'm surprised by Azara joining us.)

B

<>

I sure did, I think I mentioned it earlier in this thread.

Thanks, B!

I'm certainly interested in how the community handles problem posters. I think that ignoring people ("do not feed the troll") is probably the best solution to trolling in an unmoderated forum, while here, yikesing is better. But I think that people are being labelled "troll" too quickly--I would apply the term to someone who only posts provocative stuff, just to get a reaction. So to me, LW is not a troll, and even tig was only trolling on certain threads--he seemed to be carrying on reasonable conversations with his friends as well.

There seemed to be a general reaction of "It's about time!" when tig was put on pre-moderation, but I wonder how many people who felt this had actually yikesed his posts? From my point of view, I yikesed a few posts, and replied to get them brought to the attention of the italics, and the next day tig was on pre-moderation, so the system seemed to be working fine, but I can see that if someone else had been yikesing without effect, it would be very frustrating.


Azara

<> (Azara)

I wonder how many people don't realise that this is how it works. That sometimes (maybe even quite often) a yikes'd post is initially upheld by the hired moderators - it's only after replying to the first email that the italics here get to see the complaint.

I've seen a lot of confusion about this in the past, with people who have felt like giving up on the complaints system because - it seemed to them - the yikes'd posts are almost always upheld. I think because they assume the moderators *are* the italics, which is not the case.


az

This post is a slight aside, but relevant I hope.

I find human relationships fascinating in real life and online. I generally have a fairly optimistic feeling that mostly people can learn to get along together where there is good will on both sides, so misunderstandings can eventually be sorted out or at least tolerated. Obviously this is not always possible if one party or the other doesn't want that for whatever reason. If that's the case I think it is best to just give up and move on, rather than perpetually flogging a dead horse; though it's sometimes tempting.

For myself I find the development and enrichment of relationships with people can be one of the great joys of being alive. I am at present re-reading the novels of E.M. Forster. He may not be the greatest writer in the English language, but over and over in his books he deals with relationships between people that are full of misunderstanding and confusion, where people don't get on, but eventually they do. Sometimes one of the characters has to die for this to happen (That's Romantic tragedy for you.) But underlying this there is general sense of optimism in the stories that, that is what most people really want; I agree with him.

Azahar sorry maybe I came to the wrong place to find a friend ,can youi take my pics out of your album thanking you

It seems to me that what we are seeking is a way to deal, not with the tigs of this world (who are well catered for under the House Rules) but with someone literate and disposed to express opinions that many of us find offensive.

I have no idea why Della repeatedly returns to debate fora, fully aware of the consequences, with views she knows to be highly unpopular.

Unfortunately/Fortunately, she has every right to express them.

So, what do we do with people who disagree with us...and won't go away?

Is someone who "disagrees with us and won't go away" one of the definitions of a troll?

Disagreement is a good thing and leads to healthy debate in which all parties examine their own opinions / values in the same way that they would the other persons, in order to formulate a convincing counter-argument.

This leads to enlightenment and a better understanding on all sides of why each party feels / thinks the way they do, and consequently fosters greater mutual respect. Therefore I am very happy to have people disagree with me.

(I don't consider bigoted "I'm right, you're wrong, so there!" to be disagreement in the context of constructive debate, however, and will choose to disengage from conversations of this nature. Good natured ribbing, however, is fully acceptable. )

I thought that the purpose of this thread was group introspection rather than finding a cure-all method of disposing of people that some don't get on with and others do.

I agree that persons who persistently break the House Rules need to be dealt with for the good of the community at large, and thought that this was one of the tasks undertaken by the Italics. In which case it is not for individual members on site to hound each other, no matter what the provocation, since that way everyone ends up in the wrong and deserves sanction by the Italics, whether they feel justified in their behaviour or not. That is simply sinking to the level of the person considered to be in the wrong, isn't it? Why would anyone choose to lower their personal standards by taking the bait?

I fully understand that some of the posts that have been discussed here were offensive in the extreme, and that people were understandably upset by them, but that is precisely what the Yikes button is there for. Hate-filled rhetoric on any subject is abusive to us all.

Abuse of the Yikes button by reporting messages as a means of getting at another researcher for personal reasons is highly irresponsible, however, and such behaviour should be acted on - again this would have to be by the Italics since they would have the records of what had been Yikes-ed and by whom.

Rudest Elf, it's not just a matter of expressing unpopular opinions. It's the way they are claimed to be justified that seems to lead to trouble.

>> So, what do we do with people who disagree with us...and won't go away?

Listen to them.

1) They may be right, which means we will have learned something

2) They may be wrong, in which case we can practice our tolerance-skills

3) They may be wrong in an interesting way, a way in which we may be able to apply to discover new ways of being right ourselves

4) The debates may be worth listening to simply for the entertainment value

5) The debates may be worth listening to because other debaters have good debating skills, and it's a privilege to watch masters at work

6) Right, wrong, stupid or bright, they are a human being, and unless they transgress the house rules they have as much right to be here as any of us

7) Finally, listen to them, because it is by listening to others that we eventually manage to stop listening to the sound of our own voices prating on and on and on and on inside our own clever, stupid, blinded heads

"listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story"

B

Well, for one thing, B, I think that one of the best features on my main other board, is the 'ignore' list. If people piss me off enough, after being given huge numbers of chances, there they go - ignore list. (There are three on mine on the other board, and I don't know how many might have me on theirs - if any. )

As far as my own 'ignore' list here goes, I am not saying.

How it works on the other boards, is, I don't even see the postings by the people on it... Which I can undo, if I want to see something one of them said, because the reactions of others to it is interesting...

(Another good function there is the 'quote' one - and even better, on one of them, the multiquote one. Just tick the box, and lots of peoples' posts appear in the reply box - worth looking into by TPTB.)

I am not saying the other boards are perfect - by no means! Both technically and in terms of the people - there are points in favour and points against, which will always be the case, because we are all human beings - even those with whom we most adamantly disagree!

<>

True - and yet denied by his supporters at the time. Double standard alert!!!!

<>

What the ......?
This says a whole bunch about the way some people regard h2g2 as their posession *and* regard their views as unquestionable orthodoxy. Sigh.

My apologies, I meant to ask 'So, what do we do *about* people who disagree with us....and won't go away?'.

[As I typed that, the words 'send them to Coventry' came to mind.....but that would be going too far!]

We can, though, "choose to disengage" (Nenrace) before trench digging and bitter sniping have a chance to develop.

I wonder, is it possible to exclude a researcher from a specific thread/or threads, but to leave the rest of the site open to them?

There *is* a quote function enabled within DNA. If you go to just about any one of the Beeb's messageboards that have recently transfered from the ancient howard2 system to DNA, you'll see it in action. This functionality was built as a sop to make up for them losing the threaded structure of their old boards.

Us, well we don't need it at the moment, as we've got (and have had for many years) the tree gadget. Though I do hope that one day they'll enable the quote tag in h2g2.




< technical point>

Not only is the < quote > tag available in DNA messages. *All* GuideML is theoretically usable, it's just that most of if is switched off.

Now think for a moment the fun and games that two people could have with the tag...


Person 1: Have you heard what just said?

Person 2: Yes, it just goes to show what a fool really is.

Person 1: I know, that that can't be trusted can they.

Person 2: No they can't. And smells of wee as well.

</ technical point>

<>

Yes, I've used it on the BBC message boards, an I really miss the tree gadget on the other boards, it can be so difficult finding my way back to where I was on a particular one - which while not having multiquote won't allow users to post another message until someone has replied to the previous one - which can be a right pain, with a large backlog and a12 hour time gap!

<>

You mean like when people start on Creationism?

Don't like the idea of ignore lists... I've seen abuse of them first hand (guy on a board ignoring everyone who disagreed with him, when the moderators told him of he ignored them as well! Needless to say he got banned.)

I think h2g2 can be a learning experience in some ways. I've learned to try and remove all ambiguity from my serious posts (lest they be open to violent misinterpretation), SoRB has learned to step away from the one trick pony that was Hoo, and despite the continuing Wolf-baiting Foxy has learned to stop posting minute-by-minute updates of his life and actually post on topic (rather than just linking to Animal Zone or one of his own threads).

Della wrote:

"<>

True - and yet denied by his supporters at the time. Double standard alert!!!!"

This is what is technically termed a "lie". Nobody, to my knowledge, denied it. If anyone did, they were misinformed. For f**k's sake, *I* didn't deny it. How could I?

The sequence of events was:

1. I was suspended.
2. I noted that there was no announcement telling anyone else I was suspended, no explanation anywhere on the site which would explain why I wasn't posting, no note on my personal space to indicate why I had suddenly become inactive. A simple line at the top of my PS saying "Hoo is currently suspended for one month" would have sufficed.
3. I opened a new account entitled "Bang Tango", giving the same contact email address and making no attempt to conceal my identity.
4. I made one (1) posting from that account, clearly stating who I was, and that I had been suspended, and that that was the reason why I would not be posting henceforth.
5. I stopped posting on h2g2 for the duration of the suspension, and indeed for some time afterwards, opened no other accounts and never used the "Bang Tango" account again.

Note that if (2) had not occurred, (3)-(5) would have been unnecessary and would not have happened.

I can only assume that the reason I was not banned permanently for doing what I did is that the staff recognise that what I did was reasonable and within the spirit of the House Rules if not within the letter.

Given that I was completely open, then and now, about what I did and why, I cannot understand why anyone would suggest that it had been denied by anyone.

Della - please, please, STOP LYING about me and my "supporters" as you call them. Your consistent lies were what caused problems before. PLEASE STOP.

Thank you

SoRB