IMCuk is under attack. Every day items which break the above editorial guidlines pass through the timeline. Conspiracy theories, blog pastes, cut and pastes from news sites, rants, book reviews, repeated news, repeated posts, even songs, all of these are clogging up the timeline. Indymedia is possibly the greatest positive media achievement of our times, but personally im wanting to check it out less and less these days because of all the above. I think that if indymedia continues on the way it is going now, it will be an aborted or fully hijacked project within a few years. That will be a tragedy that doesn’t need to happen. For me something needs to be done.

I propose a couple of things, here posted for discussion.

1) We set up an indymedia forum, for people to discuss things broader than simply news. Perhaps if people want to discuss the truth behind 911 or the Yorkshire Ripper, things which have no bearing on recent peoples struggles, they could do so here. Also, it could include a section for blogs, book reviews, etc.

2) If the idea of having a separate section on indymedia is unappealing, then perhaps we change the Newswire to not simply highlight important news, but to have separate tabs to choose between news, opinion, reviews, songs, etc. Maybe even an "alternative truth" section or whatever those ufo folk like to call themselves.

3) If not one of the above or another drastic change, then perhaps we take a stricter approach to the above mentioned posts. More than simply hiding the text of posts which breach the guidelines, we take them off of the newswire entirely, leaving them perhaps inside a temporary bin that will empty itself after a bit and can be appealed from, where the appealer would have to state why his entry does fit within the guidelines.

Those are simply some suggestions. And yes I would be interested in trying to help out with this process. Also, yes i completely see the irony behind me writing a piece for the newswire about the problems of non news on indymedia, but perhaps that testifies to the fact that indymedia is lacking a decent method of discussion.