Editorial policy discussion

good idea.
What do you think about the idea of a counsel that would coordinate the editorial process and provide a editorial policy that had clearly stated guidelines (Portland) with examples of the particular 'problems' involved* and re-mediations to stated troll tactics, into a workable code?

*
The riech Has run out of ides, you know, all they can do is repeat the same things that have worked in the recent past and/or copy our tactics, always in a reactionary mode. Think about it.. This should be a no brainer.

Well, one important consideration is that there have never been a large group of volunteers showing up at meetings, willing to commit to daily management and editorial work. A substantial group larger than 4-7 is required if there is going to be a time-intensive process of holding meetings regarding editorial vision. I have seen one or two editors at indybay sacrificing hours of their time as the only staff for the weekend to check in frequently and weed out spam attacks, and abusive content.
While back in 2000, many of us had envisioned a nonedited newswire model where everyone was respectful, the nature of the medium permits people who in some cases could have schizophrenia, and many who are politically opposed to indymedia, to easily abuse the site and make it unusable for the majority who know how to share the space. Additionally, both indybay and sf.indy are now on the news.google crawl which brings in many readers. This is essential, and there are several topics for which indybay has been at the top of the news.google list. But google does not link to argumentative blogs and political forums where there is no news content, and just dirt throwing. So the editors are required to keep the center column, and Local and Global columns filled with news.
Personally, I couldn't commit to a daily role, and have always been a contributor of articles. This is perhaps as it should be, because indymedia is optimally a newswire with independently written articles, where the focus is on journalism rather than on the small co-op of website facilitators who keep the server up. Because this is time intensive, it is very difficult to live up to the ideal in the 'global' section, and I think that cross-posted articles from other independent sites are acceptable rather than having an unactive newswire.

All the potential power of this board and others, in a sea of people, lacking in labor resources. Distance rather than any other criteria seems to be the limiting factor as ( I may be wrong ) far as editing maintenance concerns are involved?

IMC loses lots of volunteers due to heavy handed censorial tactics and snide namecalling personal attacks, often conducted by people with better access to administrative passwords and connections within the technical and operational support volunteers. Despite its claim to being open and independent most of the IMCs operate in a manner similar to sectarian cliques from the old stalinist and trotskyist factions. People with differing opinions on narrow issues are arbitrarily labeled as trolls and tossed off the sites. Many committed antiglobalists believe these things and the problem only worsens over time. THe fact that anarchist symbolism and rhetoric is employed does not change the inherently censorious and authoritarian nature of real IMC practice. There is about a 50 50 chance that this criticism will be either deleted or replied to with a juvenile and scorchingly polemic rhetorical device that will avoid address the substance of my critique. Immeasurable damage has been done to the left and continues to be done as IMC administrators abuse the editorial policies, and themention of Portland as some kind of exemplar is quite laughable as for several years seasoned activists have been quitting the Portland collective in droves. OK any betters out there? Even odds I get flamed on this.,..

the major factor is trust, I guess, in the editorial process...and the ones who collaborate to select .

I've tried to publish a few critiques of George Galloway, not because I'm a right winger but because I reject his Stalinism and apologetics for dictatorships and jihadists. I believe the anti-war movement should reject this guy and there are many other leftists who agree with me

I believe that volunteers at Indybay have every right to decide what does and doesn't go on their site. However I'm not sure of why exactly they've censored these posts. I'm wondering why? what criteria was breached? what is the criteria, in terms of content?

why was this piece censored, a critique of the idiotic ramblings of Kristen Anderberg.

http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/11/1784512.php

why was this piece censored, a critique of the idiotic ramblings of Kristen Anderberg.

http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/11/1784512.php

"IMC loses lots of volunteers due to heavy handed censorial tactics and snide namecalling personal attacks"

IMCs may lose readers for this reason but there never have been any such issues that have come up between editors or people who have come to meetings. While some stuff may get hidden that shouldnt, there are a small enough number of people doing the hiding that policy cant be that exact when much of the goal is just to keep things civil and with hundreds of comments to deal with a day and little time for editors with fulltime jobs the usualy feeling is that just trying to keep flamewars off the site is better than nothing.

I have been posting on indybay since I have been repeatedly censored, blocked, villified and smeared, and now banned from meetings by "consensus" of the editorial committee of Santa Cruz Indymedia. As a writer and activist, I vigorously support Indymedia as a "People's Media" where we do not have to go thru a government or corportate filter, or have to pony up lots of bucks before we can share our message with the public at large.

As such, I agree with removing purely commercial postings, rants where personal attacks are made, or postings that are way off topic.

However, too often I find a politically correct straightjacket where any violation shows "lack of solidarity" or suddenly one is type cast as a "right-wing fanatic" or some other such label stuck on another person in order to discount anything they say.

Indybay is much less guilty of this than Santa Cruz Indymedia is at the current time. Here is what one of my supporters had to say about what SC IMC is doing and has done to me. Although this is about my case, I am not the only one who has fallen victim to this kind of censorship, group-think/witch hunt mentality. I hope this is a cautionary tale for those at Indybay who are struggling with enforcement of their editorial process. --- Becky Johnson

SC Indymedia!

Shame on you, SC Indymedia for censoring and banning
Becky Johnson. That is shameful, esp. since you are
'supposed' to be on the side of free speech.
SHAMEY SHAMEY SHAMEY SHAMEY SHAMEY ON YOU! is all that comes to mind.

Please come to your senses and treat Becky with all of
the consideration and respect she deserves as a human
being exercising her right to discuss an issue openly
and honestly from her point of view.

This is hopefully not a collective response from SC
Indymedia, but if so, you not only should reinstate
Becky Johnson's RIGHTS, YESTERDAY - but you should
write a public apology to her AND the community stating
that this kind of censorship behavior will not be
repeated in the future.

We may not agree with what someone has to say but we
should be willing to defend their right to say it.
That's free speech. If we all agreed, it would be a
very boring planet!

REINSTATE Becky Johnson's right to WRITE!
We MUST rise above the fray!
We must agree to disagree!

peace with justice for all,
Abridging my civil liberties is an 'act of terrorism'!
There's a terrorist behind every BUSH!

john vance, editor
jvance [at] riseup.net
Peoples Bark News Berkeley
pbnberkeley-subscribe [at] lists.riseup.net
http://lists.riseup.net/www/arc/pbnberkeley (archives)

A First Amendment Center
PO Box 2647
San Marcos, ca 92079
Website: http://www.freezepeach.info (or)
http://www.angelfire.cm/biz2/thefirstamendment

What was/is their beef, anyway?
I don't see this posted.
Perhaps a sample... to Judge for ourselves.

Did you get kicked out of the SC group or perhaps FRSC not because of your disagreement about Israel but because you gave personal info on people in the community to Horrowitz's Discover The Network ( http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/ ) site? I only heard that second hand but if so, it's pretty understandable why they wouldnt want you to be part of their group.

In terms of people with different politics from most of the network joining an Indymedia, I think thats a complicated question. There seem to be basic things everyone agrees with who work on the Indymedia sites and there would be issues that could make the site nonfunctional if some of the arguments that can take place on the site ended up in meetings. If someone who was leftwing on other issues but strongly antiabortion joined an indymedia it would cause a lot of problems when coverage needs to take place on abortion rights issues. In terms of Israel, I could see people with a lot of different views being able to work within the collectives but not someone who has so much hate for Palestinian activists when ISM related protests need coverage.

Some of the stuff at the following link at the bottom of this comment looks like it was hidden as part of whole threads being hidden to get rid of flamewars but there are comments that would make it really understandable why a collective would be uneasy with you being a member:

http://www.indybay.org/news/hidden.php?id=1782363#1782558
seems to blame rioting in France on Islam which is a bit racist (especially when I cant find a single link on Google to an antisemitic attack having been part of the recent rioting that was mainly focused on police brutality and economic problems in immigrant communities)

and

http://www.indybay.org/news/hidden.php?id=1774598#1774684
contains some weird stuff on Islam that reminds me of antiSemitic conspiracy theories converted to being about Muslims. Looking at the thread though it looks like it too was hidden as part of an entire flamewar thread getting hidden rather than due to specifics of the comment.

>much of the goal is just to keep things civil and with hundreds of comments to deal with a day and little time for editors with fulltime jobs the usualy feeling is that just trying to keep flamewars off the site is better than nothing.<

Those of you who are complaining about your posts getting hidden need to hear this. In my experience, posts only get hidden when someone is apparently deranged, posting highly inflammatory material, clearly attempting to disrupt the site, or engaging in a personal attack on someone. The one exception to this is views that are extremely right wing in nature (overt white supremacy, freepers, etc.) Next to Usenet, the IMC network is one of the most open, uncensored forms of mass media that is out there; and in terms of news coverage, it's pretty much the most open. If anything, most IMCs in the US could stand to be slightly more filtered rather than less -- but to do this requires a commitment of time from more than a handful of people, which as with most activist projects, is not the case.

Also, could you please stop acting as if your blocks have been taken away if your post has been hidden? The internet is a very large place, and for considerably less effort than the editors of this site put in, you can promote your own writing at a minimum of expense and overhead. (The unjustly slagged Kristin Anderberg's site is an example of this, and no, I don't want to argue about her work, spare me.) You can even post a link to the hidden post on your own blog *for free,* where you can even comment to your heart's content about how "oppressed" you are by the nefarious overlords at indybay. Imagine that.

For those of us who have to deal with real issues of oppression, it's kind of insulting to hear you incessantly complain about what amounts to a minor inconvenience, at best.

Shame on John Vance for being such a ding a ling? Indybay volunteers do the work for this site-- so they get to decide what goes up here. I'm glad they edit out a lot of the garbage on here. What I'm wondering is what is within the content criteria of acceptable posting?

Becky Johnson post on the French riots was racist but I personally wouldn't censor it. We should just destroy her argument. On the other hand the overposting about Israel and Palestine I'd like to see a more heavy handed approach from Indybay editors.

"On the other hand the overposting about Israel and Palestine I'd like to see a more heavy handed approach from Indybay editors."

Out of curiousity can you provide links to things you think should be hidden and things that shouldnt? Are you talking about posts or just comments? Obviously no policy would include hiding all Israel/Palestine posts but there are subsets that do violate policy which include comments that involve racist statements about Palestintians, overuse of the word terrorist, articles reposted more than one time, debate about history that is unrelated to the posts on which the comments happened, comments that combine arguments with personal attacks...

" Becky Johnson post on the French riots was racist but I personally wouldn't censor it. "

Since you do want less discussion of Israel and Palestine I dont know how that would work. You might want to keep a thread focused but that comment would have quickly turned the thread into a comparison of antiSemitism by French Muslisms to mainstream racism by the French against Muslims which would then have turned into an Israel/Palestine debate. With only a few editors to moderate keeping a thread on topic is close to impossible and the introduction of antiSemitism to a post not relating to antiSemitism or Israel/Palestine would seem like the start of the thing you are saying you want to prevent.

"I've tried to publish a few critiques of George Galloway, not because I'm a right winger but because I reject his Stalinism and apologetics for dictatorships and jihadists. I believe the anti-war movement should reject this guy and there are many other leftists who agree with me"

I'm guessing the posts were hidden for various reasons, if you can provide the links it would be easier to respond.

I can guess why some were hidden. A few mainly consist of accusations against Galloway and are clearly reposted from a corporate source (since there are ...s included) but no link or reference is provided to where the story came from. Since stuff from FrontPage magazine accusing activists of lots of things get spammed to the site all the time, a post accusing an antiwar figure of something that looks like a corporate report and doesnt have a link has a good chance of getting hidden (even if by mistake).
When those types of things appear as comments on event announcements on the front page they stand an even greater change of getting hidden. When a bunch of those things come in, chances are some will get hidden merely because they look like duplicate posts (there were a bunch of posts consisting of Galloway quotes that got hidden but they didnt all get hidden).

As for specific posts

Something like
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/11/1781030.php
doesnt really provide details of what its saying and doesnt make clear that its not just equating Muslim voters with fascists (which would be racist)
lest you think this seems one sided note that
http://www.indybay.org/news/hidden.php?id=1772709#1773499
is hidden too
(Id put something like http://www.indybay.org/news/hidden.php?id=1766418#1766796 into the same category as to why its hidden)

There are plenty of antiGalloway things that are not hidden (some of which probably should have been) that are not that different from what is hidden (so perhaps you should just see whats hidden as being hidden because they are duplicates).
These include
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/09/1767408.php
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/10/1777052.php
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/09/1768348.php
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/09/1767569.php
and
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/09/1766777.php

Becky is a racist. Racists have no rights.

I had respect for Portland more than a year ago, but Portland continues a rather fast decline into the world of targeted censorship and hero-worship. Effective criticism of some writers is intentionally surpressed. The rule of thumb seems to be that any comment or article exposing false statements by anarcho-feminists never see the light of day. Let's take Anderberg for an example. She is permitted to publish outright falsehoods which are easily refuted and no one is permitted to expose those outright falsehoods. It makes we wonder whether she is part of their collective.

Portland also deletes articles simply for being sourced from "mainstream" press, which includes, in their twisted way of viewing the world, other alternative websites.

um, I don't mind if there are people who represent either side of the Israel conflict, although I wish we could make a separate section because it seems to make up 80% of the activity on the website, and I think it drives away people interested in local topics.

By the way, is it true regarding contributing to the 'Discover the Network' list? That was such an atrocious database. Someone I know in Berkeley got on it entirely for involvement in a palestine group, while they initially or still skipped all the major leftist intellectuals on the faculty, and people like the guy running Dailykos - which is much bigger than indymedia. Giving stuff to that guy is far worse than expressing a nationalist position. Leftist germans support israel.

". Effective criticism of some writers is intentionally surpressed."

In the case you are referring to I would bet its the tone of the post rather than the contents. Anderberg isnt exactly a well known public figure so a post directed at showing how horrible she is might just be hidden as being a personal attack (Whereas if the post was a comment on a specific article or a response to a specific article dealing with that article's contents it would seem like less of a personal attack).

Now http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/11/1784512.php is hidden on this site too and that could be because its an attack on another Indymedia with little reference as to why that Indymedia hid the post in question, but it also does seem like a personal attack. I would bet a post titled "Steven Black's Selfish Hate-Fest Against Kirsten Anderberg" would get hidden too.

Sorry, Mods The auto- blocking of IP's is censorship. Its not editing. Many if not all of the Israel supporters that post here regularly are auto-blocked. That means no posting. Its is clearly not a content based decision.
And what happens are more and more outrageousanti- Israel posting occurs. No quality control, no content control.
I'd like to know the collective's policy on IP blocking? Its happening more and more frequently, and it doesn't bode well for this site.

"(Whereas if the post was a comment on a specific article or a response to a specific article dealing with that article's contents it would seem like less of a personal attack"

The article you pointed out is exactly a comment on a specific article and a response to a specific article. The article you pointed out is a defense of a person subject to a personal attack by Anderberg. This demonstrates Portland's double standard, it does not refute it.

That's a patent absurdity. This site is saturated with pro-Israel filth.

'um' said: "[Becky] gave personal info on people in the community to Horrowitz's Discover The Network ( http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/ ) site."

Oh wow, too rich. Yeah Beck, I always said you were a spook

'anon' said: "Becky Johnson post on the French riots was racist but I personally wouldn't censor it. We should just destroy her argument."

That's my feeling also. In a Darwinian debate environment, faulty positions will self-destruct on their own, and watching it happen is very educational

I do sympathize with the mods, though, believe it or not. They have been exceptionally patient. I can understand why they throw water on out-of-control threads. I'm also sure they resorted to IP blocking because this place was getting like a forest fire. Yes, I was part of that, I know, I'm sorry. My contrition doesn't make me feel less duty-bound to incinerate bullshit, though.

'cp' said: "I think [the Israel wars] drive away people interested in local topics."

I've seen this objection before, and I just don't get it. Maybe someone can splain to me. Correct me if I'm wrong but space limitations don't seem to figure into it at all. There is room for incredible amounts of text here. The local coverage is the same as it would be otherwise, is not diminished in the least by heavy activity in the Israel/Palestine posts, and people can navigate to the one easily without opening the other. If the issue here is huge comment threads, I have a really simple solution for people who don't like them. Again, the most legitimate factor here, I think, is how much BS the mods can tolerate. Nobody else really has to deal with it, and objections from other parties seem to me either busybodyish or motivated in an ulterior way (see the post 'blocking of IPs')

The problem part about Indy is, in my opinion, one of filtering rather than censure.
Some spook shops are indeed very busy nowa days with the increased funding they receive (%$#&^@#!!!) from the DHS to 'sub contractors ' .as well as your usual invited (by above ) mix of psychopaths.In my opinion.
:>)
We need volunteers who believe in the process enough to be trusted to perform task sharing along ( damnit ) guidelines that are formulated to allow discussion along lines of fact checkable information and away from clear propaganda, disinformation, slander, security failures and other real problems open to this board.

How about a readership citizen who has paid for one vote with volunteer work or $ ( or food items, etc ) who could then allow a vote on IP blocking
by having a format page to fill with a password acquired (see above under 'volunteer work' ) and refreshed as determined?
The money aspect for a vote ( Indy citizen) is something that would require thought because that's something the enemy already has too much of. But it could be restricted to IP and passwords and while the enemy could buy the one vote, ( per terminal) they also would have to contribute resources AND work through the code.
What cha think?

" How about a readership citizen who has paid for one vote with volunteer work or $"

Having ones power to control information be tied to money or even availability seems to get rid of much of the point of Indymedias.

As for hiding all "enemy propaganda", I would worry that this mindset represents a good part of the failure of the radical left to ever gain traction since one has to know how to effectively engage with people with opposing ideas to ever build a movement. Even if an issue seems clear cut it's likely not clear cut to people who are new to exploring political ideas and many people who become radicals do start out as rightwingers if they grew up in rightwing environments.

Most of the righwing spam that gets on these sites seems to be cases of someone posting a link to a rightwing discussion site and a bunch of people comming over at once. The constant Israel/Palestine debates are a little strange but truthfully each side is its own greatest enemy. Borderline antiSemitic comments alienate people from Palestinian causes and racist posts for Israel only make people less sympathetic towards people who support Israel. With the issue polarized as such and the only people reading likely to be those commenting (with the comments only really findable by regular site users) its strange people find so much offense in seeing opinions they disagree with. While racism is offensive to most people I think most of the offense in the case of the Israel-Palestine debate is feigned; a clearly antiSemitic comment hurts the Palestinian cause and helps those who want to get people to not focus on the Palestinian plight and a clearly racist comment by a supporter of Israel probably helps convince people that there is real justice in the Palestinian cause.

Becky Johnson of Dafka; Live and Uncensored!
http://santacruz.indymedia.org/newswire/display/17903/index.php

On June 12, 2005, I had the displeasure of speaking with Becky Johnson.

In this interview, Becky Johnson discusses her relationship to Dafka, Lee Kaplan, FrontPageMag and David Horowitz. We also explore Becky Johnson's participation in maintaining the accuracy of David Horowitz's "Guide To The Political Left." Specifically, Becky Johnson feels it is her role as a "journalist" to ensure that David Horowitz's list has accurate information about people in Santa Cruz who have been vocal in their opposition to specific policies and procedures of the Israeli Government.

(27:13 minutes / 9.4 MB)
http://images.indymedia.org/imc/santacruz/audio/10/beckyjohnson_6-12-05.mp3

http://images.indymedia.org/imc/santacruz/image/1/large/becky_johnson_dafka.jpg
(becky_johnson [at] sbcglobal.net is the contact for Dafka at UC Santa Cruz)

This is 27:13 minutes of unedited audio from June 12, 2005 on Pacific Ave. The time was about 5:30pm

I don't appreciate having my comments censored on Indymedia when my views are not racially biased, motivated, hateful, or discriminatory.
I was born on Castro Street in San Francisco and I take great pride in the freedom of political expression engaged in by the citizens of my birthplace and I take offense when some bastard Israeli thief of Palestinian land can leverage SF Indymedia to censor my articulate comments.