Quoted from the original IMC London article @  http://london.indymedia.org/articles/1541:

"While some people thought of Indymedia as a valuable resource, other people let us know that people in their movements basically refused to use it, due to the moderation problems already mentioned and the general craziness of some of the stuff in the open newswires. Their feedback was that if you're trying to organize people who could potentially lose their jobs or their homes due to their involvement in your movement, pointing them to a news source which has conspiracy theories, unmoderated slander, and so forth is not a way to make them more comfortable about the risks they're running.

Moderation problems and also the extremely low quality of comments in general were singled out as a huge turnoff. Groups get slandered on Indymedia with no moderator response and obviously people get extremely pissed off [note: this was in reference to some crazy guy who publishes outrageous articles about people in an international anarchist group on a U.S. Indymedia site and the moderators either don't respond to their complaints or just aren't there]."

IMC UK moderators are to be applauded for their vigilant efforts in hiding articles and removing comments that are abusive and slanderous, particularly towards persons within various allied movements and parties, and sometimes outside of them as well. Likely the biggest problem faced by various IMCs around the globe is the issue of personal slander and attack which harms the growth and legitimacy of IMC as an alternative to the mainstream press. Moderators must also be applauded for their vigilance in removing spam whenever it rears its ugly head.

While it is my opinion that the quality of articles has been on a steady rise and will continue to rise, there has also been a steady rise in local infighting, vicious personal attacks against activists (most notably, the recent slander against Tamsin Omond) and others; eccentric and often insane conspiracy theories; articles about protests without going into proper detail; using IMC as a springboard for abusive behaviour against groups and/or individuals; and many other related problems.

Such low-quality and non-substantive articles and comments not only harm the reputation of IMC UK, but also create unnecessary labour for moderators whose lives are busy enough as they are. They also detract from the genuinely pressing and substantial articles.

Let's hope people start growing up and using IMC UK for what it was intended, not for their own personal insanities and vanities. Cheers!