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

It's amazing how sometimes the tiniest things can really throw your hackles up - the tiniest disagreement lead to the bloodiest flame wars (and real wars, I might add). In election methods, the question of IRV versus Condorcet versus Approval has a huge amount of flamage associated with it. In programming, trying to get people to have a rational discussion about the merits of C and java is doomed to failure. And the Unix/Windows debate won't end till one or the other of them dies.

Hackers call such things "Religious Issues" - matters of faith which cannot be rationally debated. The irony is that actual religion is much less likely to cause such debates than many of these "Religious Issues": by and large people can realise when they're going down a blind alley in such cases, but when we talk about which type of is best the same sensors simply don't kick in.

I care about h2g2 - I'm one of those people who thinks that the idea of a repository of knowledge created by the people for the use of the people is a good idea on it's own. Of course, in the real world such blatant communism doesn't work - but the ideal is there at least. And I think that the repository should cover everything. Nothing should be too controversial, too important, too insignificant, or too obscure to get an entry in the Guide if someone puts the time and effort in to create it. And the Guide should do what no other reference work has done before - be impartial, authoritative, and high quality.

That's my manifesto, as it where. That's why I volunteered to be a Scout when in every other online entity I've stayed as far away from any kind of semi-offical role as possible. That's why I spend so much time here. And I'm afraid for me it's a Religious Issue. We're building something marvellous here, people: let's not lose sight of the pyramids for the blocks of stone.

I take it this is about "Palestinians" - do correct me if I'm wrong. I actually came on h2g2 early this morning just to see if I was going to be publicly reprimanded. I can understand that people do find it a sensitive issue, but to be perfectly honest what was going on there seemed a lot like a pressure group to suppress the issue.

yep - perceptive of you to work that out - and accurate...

You thought you were going to be reprimanded... you didn't see my post to the scouts mailing list on the subject - I was briefly worried I'd get a severe telling off - but then I was saved by someone posting worse...

Thankfully, the italics came to the right conclusion, so it's all OK

I really should unsubscribe from the conversation to stop me getting so annoyed, but there's some stubborn part of me that doesn't want to leave it...

I know the feeling - but who knows: maybe we'll get a decent entry out of it all at the end - worth hoping for, eh?