This is the total misinformastion policy which we so disappreciate on indymedia: if NGO's, charities, trade unions and political parties swamp us with their non-news advertisement of course its getting hidden. This is a news resource. Not an advertising board.

Who the poster is does not matter. It matters what the content is. And as the "socialist parties" and lots of their "members" seem to be unable to write realistic reports wich have at least a vague resemblance and not just propaghanda about past events, they have to be expected to be hidden, especially if the news content is zero.

This applies to all other professional groups, too, no matter if its greenpeace or trade unions or any other lobying group. News reporting is welcome, for propaghanda and public relations, please contact the mainstream media, as the resources here are limited and indymedia has not the purpose to be a public relations outlet for lobbying groups.

Seen several comments about the newswire on the newswire.

As I assume people are coming to these discussions a new. The place to talk about it isn't the newswire but imc-uk-features e-mail list.  http://lists.indymedia.org/listinfo/imc-uk-features

Dear AB,
Look below this post. At the moment there is an article directly pasted from the BNP website, plus TWO articles together promoting the IWCA's mayoral election bid, and the money they have raised.

 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/04/289717.html = BNP
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/04/289705.html = IWCA mayoral promotion
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/04/289699.html = IWCA "" ""

These have been up since wednesday afternoon. (its now 10am on Thurs morning). Since these posts have appeared, a duplicate post of 'rising tide' has been hidden, so someone has been moderating. But no attention paid to these three well out of order posts. (The BNP are out of order by anyones standards, the IWCA by Indy's standards).

Yet postings about (the admittidly not brilliant) Respect coalition are removed straight away! This seems a bit over zealous, considering the crap that does not get hidden. (I get pissed off with the SWP, but its wrong to get so obsessed that you loose perspective!)

One example of the problem was the removal of the news from RMT trades union branches that they are turning to the galloway/swp 'respect' coalition. The fact that organised labour is detaching itself from bondage to the labour party in favour of something they think is more left wing (however flawed)is significant news to many of us! I won't join or support respect, but I think this is news that you wont get in the corporate media, and should not be supressed by radicals!
OK, just my opinion, but I think it reflects a significant proportion of the movement, who are neither anarchists nor part of a trotsyist party machine. Why not keep Indymedia broad!



PLEASE DON'T DRIVE US AWAY FROM INDYMEDIA. WE WANT TO HELP IT. !!!

The non hierarchical rule is not soooooooooooo contradictory. Come off it. Why not run your own site if you're so fucking bothered. They you can have as many hierarchical positions as you like, and order people around like the good little middle management /admin person you wanty to be.
Trade unions would be a lot better if they were not hierarchical ( leads them in to the danger of being stuck up the bosses behinds e.g T & G, Bill Morris ( Sorry Sir fucking William ), etc ). Look at the NGOs. On the whole, great for greenwash, great for picking up FAT PAYCHEQUES, great for jobs for middle England.
No genuine social change without getting rid of hierarchies.
This is not about reform.
The Nazi posters do get removed so dion't come out with that bollocks.
yes, this is a rant, but the issues remain the same, and quite frankll;y I am sick of the middle class reformist idiots that are more interested in getting a nice little career /earner (hippies take note as well ) than any GENUINE social change.

GGGRRRRR

I love Indymedia ( despite the profileration of trolls just recently )

Indymedia does not hide everything that is not anarchist - Indymedia has 1000's of posts a day on other areas and interests - It is an open newswire with some constraints that over the years have developed to keep the newswire vibrant and free from Trolls and Rascists. Something like 1 in 1000 posts gets hidden - the process is open for all to see and the administration of the network is done by a network of 100 people with wide ranging viws on the left.

Get on with reporting what is happening rather than raising side issues all the time.

bye

Well to be honest mate, indymedia being turned into a hierarchical organization, just ain't going to happen (praise be to all the wise ones). so forget that for starters.

If you want to volunteer for a hierarchical organization, if you wish to cow down (mooo!) to authority, go volunteer with the TA or BBC.

If you would rather judge people not on there individuality but on what there boss tells them to think and say, if you would rather not have open fair debate (which is what happens on the indymedia lists, praise be to zappa), go volunteer with the TA or BBC.

If you would rather be in a herd of cows (mooo!), being guided from one crisis to another, never being given the opportunity to form opinions of your own, or to speak freely, then go volunteer with the TA or BBC.

or just continue as you are.

un


(praise be to brother hicks)

why did indymedia pull the news wire down advertising GR 2004 conference last week? i would understand if the speakers just included swp members and sects but it did'nt. walden bello, salma yaqoob, david shayler,billy hayes,alessandro pellizzari are hardly swp-ers.

i reckon alot people would have been interested to hear such speakers especially given that the meetings were to discuss the issues of the day e.g french ban againstthe hijab, mI6 , imperialism, ESF ect

i know indymedia does not like GR, but unfortunately they are the only group to facilitate such good speakers. where else would people go.

what gives the people in indymedia the right to deny such information to people.

for fuck sake stop this blantant censorship. let the people decide.

ps i notice that IWCA is still up. i dont mind, but 1 rule for 1 then 1 rule for everybody, start practicing what u preach.

Dear person called "Sick of arseholes that like to give orders and never get their hands dirty". Hi. Did your mum really name you that?
Please calm down.
Why did you throw so much angry abuse at me? I was only asking a reasonable question. Why are some IMC volunteers so rude, abusive and defensive when questioned about IMC policy?
Yes, we all put lots of time and energy into resisting the capitalist system. We do this for no money, or individual gain.
Do you know or care whom you are abusing? Do you realise we might have lots in common?
Who am I that dare ask questions? I'm not some MP or TU boss! This week I am mainly organising a protest against fascism and getting together a local social forum. Before this I was taking part in direct action against GM crops and a local military base.
I like indymedia, and value it for these reasons.
Me and my friends want to organise an activist news website for our region. We want to work without hierarchy. Some people from indymedia are comming to our next meeting to discuss a new IMC here. But we have questions about existing IMC policy and format.
Questions, thats all.
Some of us are unhappy about the guideline against reports of activism by groups which contain a hierarchy. We understand why people would want it. But we are worried that such a rule or guideline can only be applied inconsistently, and that it might limit the sort of networking and alliances we want to build amongst different sorts of activists in our area.
Hey thanks angry and self rightous IMC volunteer. You may have clarified a few things.
Now i'm off outta here into the sunshine to flypost.

The article below was hidden from Manc Indymedia about a month ago, using the 'hierarchy' guideline. I accept that I could have posted it elsewhere, but I put it up because I thought Indymedia users would be interested to read it. Bear in mind it is both LOCAL and ACTUAL NEWS which you couldn't have read elsewhere.

It does contain kind of pro-Trot sentiments, but I'm sure people are quite capable of reading through that (just as others would if I'd reported the same event with an anti-Trot spin - I mean when you ). After all, when Bush calls someone an 'enemy of freedom', 'evil-doer', etc., we don't automatically accept those characterisations (presumably).

Anyway, here's the article so judge for yourself whether readers of Manchester Indymedia should have been stopped from seeing it:

An alliance of anti-capitalists has captured four of the eight full-time positions on the Executive of the University of Manchester Union. Activists from Workers Power, SWP, SLP and the SP, as well as independent anti-capitalists, pooled their funds and their labour. We worked on each others campaign materials, and provided morale-boosting hot food and refreshments for the candidates campaigning from dawn till dusk on the three long days of polling. The ‘Socialist Kitchen’ set up outside the Union became quite an attraction!
Elected by a clear majority were: Kate Byron (independent anti-capitalist), Robin Burrett (SWP), and Carlos Orjuela (SLP). Rob Owen (SWP) came second to Benson Osawe for Academic Affairs Officer; however Osawe is expected to go to NUS as a national officer, vacating the post for Owen. Our biggest disappointment was the defeat of ISM veteran Chris West. Chris’s experience, patience and good humour played no small part in the success of the team as a whole; sadly he himself was defeated, although by a mere 35 votes (from a turnout of some three thousand). Also elected were Mamoon Yusaf and Tamanna Rahman, both of the Islamic Society, and Amelia Lee (a member of the Co-operative Party) to posts which we did not contest.
‘March separately, strike together’: working together on the elections proved to be a fine opportunity to deepening our understanding of each other, both politically and personally. Even better, the united left put the Labour and Tory students to rout. Not one of their candidates was elected, despite their having formed an unholy alliance, with a coordinated campaign against our ‘lunatic fringe’. Unfortunately for them, students preferred our strongly anti-fees, anti-war, anti-racist platform, and the tactics with which we proposed to implement it. Look forward to seeing a bolder Manchester Union when the new Executive take office in June.

Ana Key, what do you think? Reply to squatticus @ hotmail.com

...this whole ridiculous series of postings only serves to illustrate what a thoroughly elitist, isolationist and lifestylist pile a pish this website really is. Masquerading as an open and independent news resource, most postings are from lifestylist middle-class dropouts who would shit their (definitely non-collective) pants if a real revolutionary situation were ever to come about, threatening their class and race privilege interests: you don't want a revolution, you want a cool vegetarian lifestyle that partly absolves the guilt that you feel for your complicity in the obscene masquerade of gross capital. In short you've seen through the veneer, you don't like what you see, but you don't want to give up any of your privileges either so you involve yourself in reformist campaigns so that you can tell yourself that you're doing something. But you aren't; and your safe compassion only extends itself to the geographically remote or laboratory rats. Spare Change, geezer?

Respectfully yourn, Red Ted.

Even Red Ted must like indy enough to bother reading it. The rest of you enough to know what gets posted stays goes etc. So could you stop shouting from the outside and get involved please.

Join  http://lists.indymedia.org/listinfo/imc-uk-features
Take part in shaping consensus on the newswire. Add positive input into features.

So far this post and discussion has been left on the wire - despite being contrary to guidelines (which pretty much shows how they work). However, if it just degenerates into the usual set of six million trolling comments I for one will support it going.

Join in!

...well, thanks for having the decency to post a reply; this is very rare other than the "you red tossar"-type semi-literate drivel that emanates from the likes of Schnews and whatnot. In fact, the insular code-word that got me raving enough to post this time around was "trolls"; what the fuck is that all about? Some midget who lives under a bridge in Hornsey? Or a smag LOTR reference maybe...

those who hold the future etc., Red Ted.

If the SWP are involved it's hierarchical therefore banned.

If not (IWCA, Worker Communist Party of Iraq, BNP etc) then it's free speech and okay.

Simple!

I think anna and squaticus make some interesting points about IMC-UK.

It really is up to each indymedia centre to decide how strictly they want to apply this whole 'hierarchy' thing.

At  http://bristol.indymedia.org we aren't so strict on this as IMC-UK...This was discussed at our last open meeting and the consensus seemed to be that it was acceptable to have news from hierarichal parties/organisations so long as it wasn't BLATANT party propaganda or that they tried to monopolise the newswire.

indymedia is an imporatnt resource for all shades of the left, and alot of these announcemnts from some of these old left groups wouldn't see the light of day otherwise.

Personally I think that people can make their own minds up about whats useful to them. IMHO the less hands off imc moderators can be the better.

judgementalism, infighting, slagging everyone else off, being abusive, generalising about lots of people you don't know, treating Indymedia as a professional organisation with one 'party' line, etc etc - these are all really helpful things in discussions on Indymedia, and a good use of all our time challenging them - (sarky) sigh....

I know Indymedia is a news resource, not a bulletin board, but the fact that this 'thread' has got so many replies shows that the users of Indymedia DO care about how it is run, what is censored or not etc, I think.

Surely what is most important is that we can all tap into this brilliant resource and read about what everyone else is doing, network, swap ideas etc. We may not agree with everything that is said, but at least we are communicating - not isolated and alienated which is how our rulers would like to keep us.

The excellent article above (the one that wasn't allowed to be posted to ?Manchester Indymedia) shows that if we work together despite our differences then we can begin to make concrete gains. It would be brilliant if Indymedia facilitated this process.

No one wants to see Indymedia flooded with adverts for the political parties that have access to the mainstream media. But censoring news from organisations you don't like (eg Respect) smacks of an authoritarian approach, not a non-hierarchical one.

PS - I didn't know about the discussion list about how Indymedia is run. Thanks for telling me about it, I'm off there now.

I have no problem with the IWCA news being covered on Indymedia; they fit the bill of
a grassroots political initiative perfectly. Respect do not. Neither, in fact, do the
Greens (and I'm a Green Party member). The IWCA having a space on the newswire is
perfectly rational; they are not the same kind of 'political party' as other groups.

Matt

The spirit of saying "not a noticeboard" is pretty damn simple...

It was meant to protect against political parties and similar effectively spamming indymedia with their press releases, campaign messages, appeals for supports in elections etc etc etc

BUT the spirit of it was NOT to prevent any and every post about political parties and similar.

Examples:

I would think it's ok to have posts about the Respect Coalition, even if it comes from the Respect Coalition... But not too many of them... ie not abusing the open publishing model by turning the indymedia site into a notice board.

There's also a difference between reporting an event or a campaign and quite a lot of political party propaganda which is designed to make people join the party etc etc

Another example, information about tomorrows Globalise Resistance conference was posted and some wondered if it should be hidden, but people argued no - this is a significant event and is not abusing the indymedia newswire by treating it as a noticeboard.

So there needs to be a balance.

But of course with balances there are always swings one way and another.

I'd say currently Indymedia has swung a little too far one way, and needs to correct itself.

There have been some good comments here and some good debate on the email lists, so I hope that a process of self-correction is underway, and that the balance will swing back a little in the opposite direction.

The important point is that there are mechanisms for this to occur, and people have been engaging in the debate :-)

good debate, thanks to ana key to start it (very clearly in solidarity), thanks to ekes to refer people to imc-uk-features.

Yes, guidelines are not "rules", can't be because imc is so dynamic, with new people bringing in their ideas all the time.

Agree with ab that it's the contents that count, but then imc is run by a range of people with very diverse backgrounds, so the consensus about quality is as dynamic as the guidelines themselves.

In the past, people have joined the features list simply by pointing out urls that should be hidden in their oppinion - and after some time of constructive collaboration, became moderators themselves.

Somebody said in this thread: "this is what i want to read on indy", this sounds like a good yardstick for hiding. I certainly don't want to read the press releases of SWP or Globalise Resistance on the newswire, I can read their outlets if i'm interested. But if someone reports about interesting debates, without being streamlined by the policies of these groups, allowing for contradictions, i don't see why it should be hidden.

There is a consensus in imc uk to hide BNP posts whenever they come up on the newswire, and I am sure that imc-uk-features would appreciate to be pointed to them if one slips through.