To th Editors: Put the comment section back up

The site is less useful and interesting without the comments section.

There are still comments, or at least "add a comment" links, on every single newswire post. Find a post that interests you and see if it has comments. Now you can look at posts on regional pages as well as topic pages.

PS- Israel/Palestine flamewars are never going to solve the problems in the Middle East, nor are they news. Remember, this is a news website.

Many times the comments section was used to clarify or correct something within the context of the article. It was actually quite useful. Its still there, but harder to use.

Flamewars are not the problem. The problem is that this website both claims to support Palestinians and also permits the Zionists to post their racist propaganda. That's incoherent at best. At worst, it's outright collaboration with racist aggressors.

it's just that the sheer volume of zionist posts (as well as complaints about us being zionist in spite of the fact that we have a PALESTINE page, not an ISRAEL page!) overwhelms us VOLUNTEERS who have lives outside of this website!

Go back to your own site, nessie.

The idea behind open publishing is that readers are smart enough to read everything with a grain of salt. While really offensive stuff may get hidden and flamewars and trolls (people who post all the time and try to dominate every discussion) can make it so real content gets overwhelmed, content you disgaree with is only threatening if you are unsure of your beliefs. It's good this site hides most right wing posts since it keeps the overall focus of the site that of a progressive/radical news site but a right-wing post you can argue with should be seen as an opportunity to debate and show people the counterarguments they will need in their everyday lives (where many people are right-wing). The real politically bad things are incoherent left-wing posts since those can let the right-wing point to them and use straw man style arguments.

idea: "The idea behind open publishing is that readers are smart enough to read everything with a grain of salt. "

Exactly. It's a belief that people don't have to be spoon-fed and can make up their own minds, rather than having media corporations do it for them. Anything less than that is just an attempt supplant the corporate orthodoxy with another orthodoxy.

Incidentally, In nessie world, it's mostly "the Zionists" who left SF-IMC. However, a quick check will show that pretty much everyone left SF-IMC, Zionist or not, in light of nessie's well-known -- uh -- nessie-ism.

@%<

The problem with the original Indymedia idea of open publishing was that it was a lot like Usenet and open posting discussion sites; when there is no moderation every thread gets filled with ads and arguments between small groups of peoplle who wont let other participate.

Indymedia was never meant to be a discussion board and was intended as a place for people to post news that may not get out otherwise (letting activists cover themselves and get their message out directly rather than relying on the mainstream media).

The same problem caused by the latest comments page here exists on most unregistered discussion sites that cant afford to hire moderators. Even sites that do screen entry quickly sink into mostly one liners with little depth...

Look at:

open discussion:
http://www.craigslist.org/pol/

membership only political discussion:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/
http://www.infoshop.org/forums/phpBB2/

The answer isnt to screen posts or posters but to highlight good content based on a a mixture of politics and quality. Too much moderation results in a boring site read by only a limited audience but leaving things too open also can make a site pointless to look at too since real news can get overwhelmed by personal attacks, hate speach and other such things which drive readers away.

How about clear guidelines on what is acceptable behavior:

1). no threats, racist/sexist comments, no pointless banter (ie"great post", "stupid post"), no personal insults
2). no commercial content
3). whatever else the collective agrees is unacceptable

With clear guidelines (1st offense- warning, 2nd offense, 24 hour blocking)

Even the most rabid of posters should be able to keep it civil if they know what is at stake.
Editing dissenting opinions weakens this site- mature "give and take" in the comments section invigorates it and makes for a more interesting read.

how does one find it?

How we feel about our beliefs is irrelevant because:

(1.) News is not about beliefs, ours or anybody else's, either. News is about verifiable facts.

(2.) It is immoral to publish racist propaganda.

(3.) Only fools empower their enemies. Only their enemies encourage them to be so foolish.

...the editors/collective that runs thsi site has decided they don't want any continuing discussion on issues. If they wanted to stop it just on Israel/Palestine they could ban comments on postings that mention certain words. But's let's not cry over spilled ink. Someone (i might help, altho i don't wsnt to be teh elad poerson on this) or soemones might create a good Bay Area radical open publishing commentary sight, that would be an addittion to the news sites that already exist.

As for SF indymedia, its a joke. It's probably the only thing i can agree with Gehrig on. I mean they can't even get their calendar to wsork (it's been down for months or maybe even years.) Even Nessie (God bless his soul) knows thsi is true. Why do you think he hangs around posting stuff and commenting on Indybay all the time.

Figuring out how to find threads like this is a good question? We only removed the latest comments page as an expirement and need your feedback.
When we made the site changes we did add a link to the front page to make it easy to discuss the changes.

Try this thread:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/12/1789457_comment.php
if you want one with an easier to find link (its off the "new region section" link at the top of the center column).

One thing that open publishing and the comments section are about (including the easy way of finding those comments thru the latest comments feature) is correcting people's misquoting you or misunderstanding you. A case in point: Nessie, I never said you don't belong here. I beelive, of course, you and all others who have something real and pertinent to say belong here. I was just stating why you were here (that the sight you work on has deteriorated so much that it's become irrelevant and unusable.) In fact i think your commments are worthy and good (most of the time, and one reason i would want to have the latest comments section here in order to locate them.

The baiting goes both ways: This particular thread of fraudulent and disproved quotes crops up regularly. Its meant to mislead and enflame, and it works. And its not from the side you'd expect.

http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/12/1792261.php

The beauty of the comments section was that it provided checks and balances to the articles. If something was a known fraud/hoax, the readers would point it out, and the editors would be spared the burden.

Its much more difficult to use the comment section now. There was a reason that people all over the country came to Indybay (and no one went to SF Indymedia, even locals). It was the vibrant give and take and debate. At its worst, the intellectual quality of the debate was far better than any usenet. At its best, it had glimmers of brilliance. It's rapidly declining into mediocracy now. We've already got that in our other IMC site...lets go for something different here.

It's the mind-cops who miss it most

tomorrow it will probably be further back a page, then the next day... forget it.

And you wouldn't even know the discussion existed unless you went looking for it.

It would be cool if the indybay folks could find a way to host discussions and not throw out the baby with the bathwater.

The new look is really nice, btw.

carry on a discussion, is it?

Discussion that's not informed by an understanding of every instance of injustice in every corner of the bay is really a luxury. Those who would complain about the how boring indymedia has become don't understand this elemental factoid.

Discussion that's not informed by an understanding of every instance of injustice in every corner of the bay is really a luxury. Those who would complain about the how boring indymedia has become don't understand this elemental factoid.