I wish The Captain would put back his page Criticising indymedia as: 'Indymediocre'
Capt. I guess you removed it for fear of offending London Indymdia types - what a shame because there certainly were elements of truth to the allegations you made - namely that Indymedia is dominated by combination of Middle Class egotists and Spooks
If they can't take a bit of parody and criticism then they're no better than the mainstream media.

Anton

... on the margins of loonyness (apparrently) ... and perhaps am morphing into a troll ...

... so be it.

... sometimes I will use a different computer and name to post some truths that are unpallatable and beyond the PC fringe.

Just a theory, but this amounts to conspiracy - yes?

Luv yer CW.

Yes. Questioning everything is sometimes idiotic but often enlightening. Contrarian comments lead to chatter and consenus-terrorism but help define issues. Being able to delete your own messages helps idiots like me and the wire.
The guidelines ban Repeated, Non-news, Discrimination, Inaccurate, Advertising, Hierarchy, Disruptive or Reposts. When a (non)news story or comment is hidden it would be informative and useful to add which of the guidelines the comment was in breach of.

It would be useful to be able to post under already comments because it would keep critical comments off the main page, if such follow on comments were automatically hidden then they wouldn't require policing and would be more participatory. It's a waste of hard-disk space from IM's point of view perhaps, but not a waste of bandwidth or IM volunteers time beyond the setup.

Still, CWs comment has stood the test of time so credit to IM for that.



 http://www.nls.uk/broadsides/broadside.cfm/id/16569/transcript/1
The Prophet then rose, and said he hoped the would have compassion on Miriam, who was a plain country woman, and was unused to speak in public. At this time there was a large crowd in the street endeavouring to get admittance, and when a brick-bat made its entrance through a window he exclaimed, "The devil and all his angels ate striving against us, the Lord who is with us is greater than they." He stated that he got all his knowledge in visions and that he had been in hell last week, and amongst other worthies he saw a late celebrated statesman sitting reading the Corn Bill in his hand, In Daniel it is said the reign of the beast is for 1260 years, which he said makes the year 1809 the time when the witnesses rose (that is the Radicals) and those who were beheaded at Glasgow and Stirling were witnesses, and sealed the testimony with their blood. Their bodies are to lie for three years and a half, and counting from April 1809, that time ends in November first, between the 20th and 30th of which he affirms that British Babylon will be completely overthrown; and that not only this nation, but all nations shall drink deep of the cup of God's indignation." He says that it has appeared before him, that Glasgow will either turn like Nineveh, or be laid in ruins like Sodom, a warning to future generations.

WE now have very serious problem with censorship on Indymedia UK.

Anything critical of Muslim fundamentalists, or which exposes the truth, gets hidden.

eg

Freedom of speech v Muslim fundamentalism

 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/02/333794.html

Islamic fundamentalists stirring up hatred

 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/02/333349.html

It would appear that free speach on Indymedia UK is now only available for those who are aplogists for Muslim fundamentalists.

Keith I've always found a top way of getting articles get hidden by saying things like:

"Muslims complain that they and their religion are not treated with respect, that they are stereotyped and caricatured as hate-filled suicide bombers. But who is to blame, a handful of Danish cartoonists or the public face of Islam, hate-filled mobs taking to the streets?"

Yer those awful Muslims and their public face - would that be the one in the mainstream media that Indymedia tries so hard to counter?

The corportate media is right it's them that's the problem...

"Islamic extremists are stirring up racial tensions and religious hatred in the hope of a bloodbath to further their own aims of Islamic domination."

Most of what you write is actually true - and reported to a greater or lesser extent in the corportate media. But its the conclusions and collusion with the negative sterotyped images portrayed and fed by the corporate media that really get your articles hidden.

Both Keiths hidden posts are opinion or comment, not news. To post here you have to have at least a morsel of news or else you should expect to be hidden, that's the guidelines and even I can see which one Keith breaks twice. Once someone else has posted a news article, we are free to comment upon it. I'm guessing Keith might have got away with either of those as comments when the cartoons were first linked to here, I got away with a Lego Auchswitz post after all but after that there was a surge of cartoon opinion, you should've checked the open newswire and posted under one of the first posts even if it wasn't visible on the mainpage by the time you'd got angry.

They cut virtually all George Galloway - Big Brother ridicule, which was a wasted opportunity in my book. 'One of the leaders of the peace movement'...All forums were the same on that, like the cartoons there was a tsunami of opinion, and forums thrive on pith.

There was informative posts recently deleted critical of the Cuban state, from a self confessed Florida exile. I disgree with his opinion but I bet any of us could outargue him with facts if we had the chance, but his continual reposts mean he is always hidden. Once he is hidden his assertions can't be rebutted but stay searchable. I think that was the point of cws original post.

Someone called David Moore posted some arguments for hating Islam recently, none of those comments were deleted. He was beaten in argument with other posters and so said goodbye - only for his farewell to be censored. It seems overly irrational, random, personal, self-defeating, and many of the obvious deletions are no better.

Some of the IMers seem to regard any comments as negative, which discourages participation especially from new-comers. Comments may be a parasitical distraction but they are another media that feeds back into the wire in a number of different ways (hits, actions, additions, history, disinformation). Negative or contrarian comments should be encouraged by anyone who wishes for more disobedience imo.

Apart from slapping about all the IM folk for their failures maybe a better solution is wiki comments to contributed news.

There are other suggestions for websites that pass-through here that noone ever acts on. You'd think if IM readers were really middle-class then a few of us could code a website.

A recent poster told us how to log flights over the UK. We could trace torture flights or predict impending wars with simple technology and mass participation reporting sightings to a single website. Unfortunately I feel I am too committed to an even worthier project and it seems everyone else is too, or too lazy.