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

The basic rulez :

Let's see what DOES work, in my opinion of course...


The basic rulez :

1. No swearing(no spitting) - Fine with me. Used to be the same in "the old days."

2. No breach of copyright in the official entries - Fine with me. After all, the BBC is responsible for those entries. And they always had to be approved anyway.

3. Infringement of free speech on the forums and in personal entries - Forget it ! If someone decides to broach a sensitive subject just to see what kind of input he/she gets, then this person should be allowed to make a mistake. No doubt his/her fellow-researchers will step in and take a stand against anything that goes too far. It has been that way until now so why should that change ?


Laying the responsibility where it belongs.

WhatEver is going on at h2g2 about moderation/censorship : I do not blame the Towers ! They did a hell of a job and should be complimented on the fact that they kept the h2g2-ship floating. And neither do I think that they knew in advance that this was going to be such a big sensitive issue. So my comments on censorship at hg2 are aimed directly at the BBC, not the people who do the dirty work at the moment.


Censorship vs. moderation.

Moderation, to me, implies a mediator(between two or more parties). It does not mean judging people's work without a dialogue.
Having said that, it may be that the moderators have to pick up steam before they can really discuss refused entries etcetera. Just like it used to be in the past. We may be getting emails in the future stating that : "Your subjectline says that it's about R2D2 but the article is about robots in general". Good, fine, great. But we are talking officially submitted h2g2-articles here, not entries and posts.

Censorship means applying arbitrary rules to initial input.
I deliberately used the word censorship instead of moderation because my third comment above is definitely about censorship. Telling people what they can and what they cannot talk about is plain, simple and obvious censorship.


The difference between The Towers and the BBC.

So I am not against moderation, moderation is fine. I am against censorship. Who in his right mind would want to write an entry about Amnesty International if the rulez of h2g2 itself are at the least ambiguous ?

The towers are now looking into a question I asked them regarding this subject. Thank you for that Abi. But it doesn't mean that we should shut up until we get a reply. What it means is that the towers understand our objections. That's great, but it does not mean that the matter is resolved yet.

Why Why Why do I write these things ?

And one final thing : I know I am pretty p*ssed off about this. That is because I feel personally involved this time. If I didn't care about h2g2 I would not be here...

TM.

Hi!

I'm a little concerned over this matter too - but not enough to become involved directly. I'll wait a few weeks to see which way the wind is blowing first...

However...

Have you tried writing to someone at the BBC? Starting a petition? If you think about it, h2g2 is now under the umbrella of the BBC right? So presumably the person to talk to would be whoever is in charge of overseeing the Guide whilst at the same time protecting the interests of the BBC - the person directly above Mark Moxon.