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

I'll have to take your word for it that we are 'better' than other sites, sprout and zoomer. And thanks to everyone for sharing their thoughts here.

Is a relative judgement - does behaving 'better' than other sites mean that we do in fact behave well?

Additionally, you are two long term hootizens, and your first-person experiences of the site have been good. Your judgement, (like mine), is subjective.

I guess it would be possible to work out some kind of objective measure to compare this community with others if one had the time and the access to information about moderatation, and to the user-stats and so on. However, there are better uses for the Italics' time and our money.

What interests me more, and interested me in the first place, was what I see of the mob mentality. It's been called cliqueishness, it's been called a witch-hunt. Some groups have even aquired nick-names.

Why do we, as a group, turn on individuals who are slightly non-conformant to the norms of h2g2 and rip into them? What need in us does it fulfill?

This happens. It has happened for as long as I have been here. But it seems to be less challenged than it used to be, and I am curious to work out why.

Have the truly independent minded b*gg*rs all b*gg*r*d off elsewhere?

Have the italics stepped back to the point where they are no longer arbitarily punishing innocent researchers who need to be defended by the community at large?*

Is it that as we mature as a community our view of what is h2g2-behaviour and what is not h2g2-behaviour is solidifying, and we are therefore less flexible and less accepting of mis-fits?

Is it that as each of us gets more and more comfortable here, we are becoming more entrenched within the population as a whole, and more liable to think in terms of 'us' and 'them' - or more usually 'us' and 'him' or 'us' and 'her'?

I may be wrong, but my feeling is that we are quicker to be judgemental and dismissive than we used to be.

I am becoming increasingly troubled by warnings such as 'do not feed the troll'. I am not sure who these labels serve. I am however sure that the quickest way to acquire trolls is to label people as trolls, and to use those labels to cut them off and isolate them from interaction on the site.

I am not sure about this, but I think I have seen troll-hunting here. In other words I think I have seen people hungry to find trolls and vilify them. As I said, I am not sure about this, but it has felt like it at times.

My feeling is that this is a complicated challenge to our maturity as individuals and as a community, and that we are failing to rise to the challenge with inclusivity and grace.

Subjective, subjective, subjective - what do I know? I'm hardly here any more.

However I do find it interesting that kea raised the same question elsewhere on site, another researcher raised it in an off-site email and I raised it here, all within 24 hours of each other, each of us acting independently and each of us prompted by different threads.

B

*Not that they did this more than twice in my opinion, and on one of those occasions they did the right thing in the wrong way.

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I am afraid I just have to disagree! I am on a couple of other general discussion boards, and there is considerably *less* nastiness, and snobbery on those boards.

Snobbishness is one of the worst aspects of h2g2, as I have to say, sprout, your own post sadly shows..

Well Della, I think your post raises an interesting point.

Does each and every website have to tolerate the lowest common denominator?

Should every thread gracefully welcome the most brutish and oafish of comments?

If that is your vision of the Internet, then you are welcome to it, because it is not mine. If that is what it means to be 'snobbish' then by all means label me a snob.

In passing, could you give links to your general discussion boards? I am vaguely intrigued.

Re Ben's comments above, I sort of share your concern, but only in respect to those contributors who were interesting and different. The dull and illiterate are two a penny, in life as on the Internet, and I would be lying if I said I regretted that hootoo was a hostile place for them.

I think you've partly hit the nail on the head when you mention the role of the Italics. I think this site isn't yet clear about whether we are supposed to be tolerating anyone who remains within the site rules, even if what they post disrupts threads and communities (eg - Oetzi for a while at Lil's Atelier, Tig in the Forum and LW in serious Ask threads) or whether we are allowed to self police.

This dichotomy came out well in the Leisure District vs Saturnine and Aka affair. Aka/Sat took action within the house rules but widely deprecated within the community to remove digibox users from the site. Friends of the digibox users then removed Aka/Sat through actions mainly outside of the house rules but tolerated implicitly by the site.

How much of this was wrong? All of it? Some of it, none of it? Perhaps both parties should have been forced to get along together, tolerating each other on the site? In fact, the community was allowed to make the law...

I often think Hootoo at the moment is the Wild West after Billy the Kid has had his comeuppance. There are some sheriffs around, but they don't have full control, so sometimes the good folks of the town have to reach for their shotgun...

sprout

Good questions Ben, I'll give you my idea of answers.

"Why do we, as a group, turn on individuals who are slightly non-conformant to the norms of h2g2 and rip into them? What need in us does it fulfill?

We dont turn on people who are slightly non-conformant. I think that is a somewhat over dramatic way of labelling a *range* of responses to non-conformity. Infact those who challenge non-conformity are themselves a minority are they not?

Most people ignore it. There is a "live and let live" attitude that seems to be the norm here. There are areas of this site I could go to find people to bully if that really were my game do I do that?

Does Hoo go to the religion area's of the BBC online to bait christians?

Do any of the mindless knuckle dragging philistines round here who dont appreciate hip hop go onto rap fan sites to say they dont like shouty blokes swearing over sampled rhythms?

No we treat as we find. I think you are confusing a common dislike with something more sinister. What does happen is that most people will dispute things right infront of them and rarely does it become a reseacher or researchers focusing on an individual or group of other researchers. Though I KNOW this does happen.

I dont thnk there is a *need in* any of us for this to happen. I'd have gone after the same people I went after without the moral support I found from being one of many being peed-off about the same stuff I was. Having said that there was some technical support I could not have done without. Someone (who shall remain nameless) gave me information on a certain persons multiple accounts, I think they may have done this because a group often works on division of labour and when you need a foolhardy person to stick their head above the parapet who better to come to?



"This happens. It has happened for as long as I have been here. But it seems to be less challenged than it used to be, and I am curious to work out why.

Have the truly independent minded b*gg*rs all b*gg*r*d off elsewhere?

I think you have got the numbers wrong here Ben, looking at the "what I hate about h2" style threads I saw a higher number complaining about the actions of the dirty angels. Likewise when Saturnine and the other few were arguing about the digiboxers, the digiboxers themselves aside there were more hootooers shouting about people shouting at each other than there were people shouting at each other, although the *amount* of shouting at each other was greatest from those who were "fighting".

I think it takes no bravery at all to say "I think what you are saying and/or the way you are saying it is wrong". Likewise I think it takes no bravery to say a similar thing about a preceived "gang". Whatsmore I find it ultimately mindless to simply state this a) without checking the background out and b) without offering some other way of resolving the situation.

That's it for now...

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Hey! My knuckles haven't dragged at all since I learned to walk upright...

One of the reasons why I left the ACEs (an awful while ago now) was because they were actively starting to be encouraged to go on seek and destroy missions towards anyone who wasn't being fluffy on the site. Well, I exaggerate ever so slightly, but there you go. Now perhaps it's because I knew where the flash points were then (or rather who), and I don't now, but personally, it seems as though there's a lot less of collective jumping up and down on people now, perhaps because ther isn't anyone to egg a group on/ give them licence to do it.

On the other hand, there does seem to be the impression that any strong disagreement on site is a bad thing now, regardless of how much the participants are enjoying themselves, so I wouldn't be surprised if the were less tolerance of people who refuse to agree with everything that is said. Or use smileys. Mind, there's a big difference between holding a contraversial viewpoint but taking a discussion about it seriously and just making irrelevant or pointed comments just for the sake of it.

Solnushka, how long ago was that? And were the ACEs identifying themselves as ACES when doing that or was it more covert?

Personally I think that strong disagreements are healthy, provided they are:

a) conducted in a relatively polite, and impersonal style of debate (unless you *absolutely know without a shadow of doubt* that the person with whom you are debating will not be offended by anything you say),

b) are backed up with examples that prove the point of view of the researcher involved in the debate, and

c) researchers retain a sense of humour so that the situation doesn't degenerate into personal attack or an attempt to force their opinions on others.

The latter styles of argument seem to have petered out of late - at least I haven't come across many examples of it for a while - but then again, I don't spend as much time here on HooToo as I would like due to family / study commitments.

I consider myself still to be a newbie, although I have been a member of HooToo for about 6 months now, but one of the things I love about the site is the diversity of people that post here; from hard-core science experts to devout religious types, not forgetting the blend of nationalities, too.

Naturally, there will be *huge* differences of opinion among such a broad spectrum of people, and a certain amount of respect for other peoples' belief systems - scientific or religious (let's not forget that much of science is theoretical still, too; Einstein - the high prophet of physics? ) - and their right to hold a different opinion is essential.

In the final analysis we are all individuals and have a highly personalised, subjective view of the world and how it works based on our experiences, upbringing and social order. Who is to say exactly that their version of things is the *absolute truth* and cannot be proved wrong? There are infinite viewpoints and infinite truths.

Live and let live!

Ancrene, the post-modern medievalist

You know thinking about the people I have seen labelled trolls here, it's not their viewpoints that are being objected to it's their *behaviour*.

Perhaps I should hush my mouth; I've obviously missed something and so am not qualified to comment.

Sorry.

If you had to see everything to comment who would be qualified?

Take it from me your as qualified as anyoneelse and your contribution is so much more welcome for not coming in with an I KNOW everything attitude.

Egads! Never would I claim to know *anything* let alone everything!

Thanks for the approbation, Blicky.

The troll thing is seperate to the digi-box stuff and even the dirty angels stuff.

The two later ones being related atleast in the first instance and at some points throughtout to real world important issues. Even the arguments the use of second and third log-ins, cloning PS's and who actually posted what although of no import outside the hootooniverse had some impact here. The troll thing issues purely about on site conventions and making someone a pariah (possibly) because people dont conform to our own moores and "standards".

If the two people Im thinking of can really do nothing else here but post barely comprehensible generally impolite and unthinkingly prejudiced opinion because they just are *that* different from the majority then its wrong not to engage them. We should endeavour for meaningful communication in such cases. I remeber one reseacher getting stick for bad spelling who said they were infact dyslexic and antohter who's keyboard skills were restricted by arthiritis. That's before we even get onto people who have English as an addditional language.

Yet even if some dont want to be ultruistcally forthcoming with the likes of LW, Tig, or Boxing Baboon....if we are as smart as we like to think we are can't we look at the conversation tree and take unilateral descisions to not read anything we dont like, let others make up their own minds and not exclude or turn our backs on a minority.

So I am now ashamed that I have ever typed "Dont fed the troll" and I mean never to do so again.

Thank you Ben for waking me up to that.

one love

You are at a cocktail party. Not an ordinary one, it's a group of people who don't know each other but wish to not only enjoy themselves but freely exchange information with those who wish to receive it. All around the vast room are groups with common interests and participants flit from one group to another, sometimes contributing and sometimes merely listening.

There are several loud, obnoxious louts who make their presence known now and then.

How do you deal with them?

Some would ask the party's host to ask them to leave. Some would ask them to leave themselves. Some would bring their actions to light by screaming at them. Some would merely ignore them and move on to a different conversation. Some would leave the party. Each *solution* is valid to the person that practices it- unless it conflicts with other innocent parties. I agree Ben, yelling *Troll!* here is about as useful as yelling *Fire!* in a crowded theatre.

More interesting thoughts here again.

>> Whatsmore I find it ultimately mindless to simply state this a) without checking the background out and b) without offering some other way of resolving the situation. (Blicky)

Mmmmmm. No-o. I think the mindless thing is to come up with some instant resolution without thinking about the situation first. I am still at the thinking stage. Though I doubt I'll get to the resolution stage, to be honest.


>> Live and let live! (Ancrene)

Yeah! That's what that's kinda what I was trying to say in the first place.


>> There are several loud, obnoxious louts who make their presence known now and then. (zoomer>

Mmmm. But are they being loud and obnoxious, or are they just wearinig loud and obnoxious clothing? cf Blicky's point about being able to choose to ignore posts you don't like or people you don't like.


>> if we are as smart as we like to think we are (Blicky)

That's the nub of it, isn't it? Just how smart are we?


The sounds of tick-tick-ticking you can hear are the cogwheels of my mind.

B

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The point - or rather the question is: who gets to judge? The self-proclaimed highest denominator? Presently, those who consider themselves to be the 'brightest'(and I use that word for a reason) are the ones who decide who else is a troll, and who should be hounded from the site - or even, 'contacted about' to TPTB. A certain man is constantly offering to email the Towers about this or that person - and funnily enough, when he does that, someone is pre-modded or banished within the week.

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No way, sorry - I want to keep them totally separate from h2g2.. for reasons which may seem obvious to you on reflection...

>> those who consider themselves to be the 'brightest'(and I use that word for a reason) are the ones who decide who else is a troll, (Della)

Mmmmm. That is the behaviour that I am asking about really. Have you ever seen a couple of sheepdogs isolate one sheep from the flock? It's fascinating to watch.

B
*still trying to understand*
*still failing*

The way people make descions in groups is fascinating. I saw something simialar on a e mail discussion group. It's normally a very staid group, which rarely ventures off the straight and narrow, but we were discussing our experiences of sex.

A - 'I have a fantasy of 'insert fairly standard mildly kinky fantasy*'

Nothing was said for a couple of days.

B - who doesn't often post to the group. 'I have just read A's posting and I was disgusted by it. Some people on this group have been sexually abused and will be offended.

C, D, and E, (all of whom regularly post to the group, yet hadn't mentioned anything before) 'Yes I saw A's post and I was offended.'

Z (me): (admid a long post containing quotes from femminists) 'In general as long as things stay fantasy they don't offend me personally, but then I was never abused'

F...'I've had that fantasy too'..

What's interesting about this exchange is that A posted something that was considered controversial, but no one mentioned anything until B posted several days later. Then there were lots of posts agreeing with B until I posted.

B and I have both been on the group for several years so it seemed to me that we were considered senior members, when we posted people agreed with us, who hadn't thought to post on their own.

Sheepdogs is a good analogy.

I watch these things sometimes, and I can't readily tell who's the victim. There are certainly people here who pretend etiquette, but who behave with calculated cruelty.

Other sites are rougher, sure. But high-minded viciousness is something else.

This is merely hypothesising, so I apologise in advance.

H2G2 has been around for some time since before Auntie Beeb took it over, as I understand it, and I may or may not be right in thinking that it was rather smaller back then.

There is an element in almost everyone that sees change and wishes it wasn't happening / wonders if the change is going to be for the better.

I think I'm pretty safe in saying that H2G2 has changed considerably in the intervening time, and probably most of all during the last year since the Hitch-Hikers film was released. I also remember posting to a thread some time back that was asking what kind of questions "old-timers" may be likely to see cropping up as a result of the influx of newbies at that particular time and, being a newbie myself at that time, being quite offended by the patronising and disparaging tone of some of the comments. (I was assured these were meant as purely humourous comments and then had to apologise myself for getting on my "all men are born equal" high horse! )

What I'm trying to get at, I think, is that long-term HooTooers have a deep attachment to something that was once much smaller and more "elite" (sorry - can't think of a less confrontational word at the moment) and are maybe mourning the passing of that? Perhaps having a low-tolerance threshold for persons that do not meet - I can't think of another way to put this, so please forgive me - the standards (?) they have come to expect in terms of level of conversation is a symptom of this?

I could be completely wide of the mark here, but it's just a feeling I've got from time to time while I lurk about the place.

That's far too much deep thought and theorising for me... I need a lie down...