Updates to the Indymedia Newswire
IMC UK | 16.02.2014 22:44 | Indymedia
The UK Indymedia Collective met this weekend in Wales. Amongst other things, we have agreed some changes to the newswire. The default view will now be the promoted newswire — articles that have been read and promoted by a member of the collective. This will mean that newly published articles won't immediately appear on the front page of the site but can be viewed by clicking through to the open newswire. We hope these changes will encourage people to post content that meets the editorial guidelines.
Indymedia posts on Twitter
Promoted articles and new features will now automatically be sent out as tweets from @ukindymedia.
Read the new guidelines
We are in the process of updating the static pages on the site, with a new version of the Privacy & Security Statement and updated Editorial Guidelines. Please read these documents before posting articles or comments to the site.
Donate to Indymedia
Monthly costs for maintaining the web site are in the region of £100 and existing donations do not at present cover this amount. In the face of attempted full spectrum domination by the corporate state, indymedia is one of the few non-corporate, independent, open places where people can publish their grassroots news to the wider activist community and the world. Please consider showing your solidarity with a one-off or regular donation to support Indymedia.
IMC UK
Comments
Hide the following 23 comments
interesting
17.02.2014 11:48
I see that the main change to the guidelines is that now a "promoted post" is anything that doesn't break the guidelines, whereas before it was a particularly good bit of grassroots reporting. In that sense it seems that switching to the default promoted newswire means a kind of (optional) pre-moderation.
Will be interested to see how it works out and what kind of stuff is promoted/hidden in practice.
anon
mixed message
17.02.2014 13:59
... but if the mods don't agree with it, they will consign it to an obscure limbo. There is a trick to see all the posts, but you have to dig for it because the editors would prefer you didn't know it. This arrangement gives them their cake - "we're open publishing" - and lets them eat it - "we have complete control of what actually appears on the site."
The future of Indymedia UK looks more dire than ever.
orilly?
something needed to happen...
18.02.2014 00:30
However it's been undermined by trolls and posts that just don't count as news...
It is still possible to have an open publishing platform which anyone can get involved in, while also having agreed guidelines and having moderators to check that people are sticking to those guidelines...because otherwise the whole point of the site, to be a source of news that people can check to get reliable information from, becomes undermined and it might as well become just another internet forum or comment thread...where trolls flourish in their natural habitat...or we might as well not bother at all to run anything at all...
Let's hope we get the best balance and indymedia becomes what we need it to become. We need less trolls, better interception of posts by trolls and less censorship of genuine posts even if politics are disagreed upon or facts cannot be checked right away. Also ideally less copies from mainstream media and other blogs...and more volunteers! ...it should be a source for INDEPENDENT NEWS and nothing else.
Still hoping, still typing...
R. (wasn't at the meeting and just do occasional indymedia related activism)
rossignol
Developments
18.02.2014 07:57
Marc
Complain, complain that's all you do.......
18.02.2014 10:58
And judging from his comment, neither are the standards of the comments.
It is easy to bitch as an anonymous poster to the site, and it takes rather more of an effort to write a substantive comment which gives examples and suggests alternatives. It takes even more effort to communicate with the moderators via the moderation list.
"We already have heavy handed moderation on a number of issues where the personal viewspoints of the mods outweigh the editorial guidelines"
We certainly have a large number of comments which are not news, and do not meet the editorial guidelines. Marc's being a case in point. Feel free to come back with specific examples of 'unfairly hidden' posts or comments. They are after all all available to read on the site. Maybe link to your emails to the moderation team where you drew their attention to them.
"now we have a pre-moderated newswire where only the 'approved' posts are on the usual front page"
Nope it's still open publishing. The change is that visitors to the site get to see the promoted news wire first, and that tweets are of promoted articles and of features.
The choices are there. One is to write promotable posts. Another is to change the default so you can read the posts not deemed promotable. Another is to join the collective and help keep the site running. Another is to feel badly done by and do nothing.
Reeda
two edges
18.02.2014 22:16
hes right
Aposto
19.02.2014 04:30
free
The future
19.02.2014 16:17
The events of the 'Arab Spring' and the London student riots show how left behind the IMC newswire was.
These recent changes will make very little difference
Down Town Boy
Why was this step taken, what is the benefit ?
19.02.2014 16:46
The newswire is not exactly overrun with high quality posts and reporting so to restrict the landing page to what will essentialy be a list of what the mods think is 'good' seems baffling.
When Indy started I remember the joy was seeing ALL the viewpoints, ALL the ideas, ALL the posts and over the years that became less and less common as the opinions and political viewpoints of mods frequently meant we saw what they liked. Now we are going to have a page that is a default of their likes, where is the democracy, inclusion and non-hierachical standpoint in that ?
It would be helpful if there could be a statement from the collective explaining the thinking behind this and what it is hoped will be achieved.
?
Anti-Fascist Networks and internet security***
20.02.2014 08:02
It's 24/7 news that ALL e-mails and Facebook activity are read by the cops and secret police, and while there are serious problems with Indymedia, a worrying aspect of johnny-come-lately groups like London Anti-Fascists and Anti-Fascist Network etc is the way they took alot of information-sharing away a relatively secure space like Indymedia towards hopelessly insecure spaces like Facebook and London AF's e-mail list.
Even worse, the Anti-Fascist Network advocate black-bloc tactics, in the interests of "security", oblivious to the risk of black-bloc tactics leaving groups vulnerable to infiltration by agent provocateurs, and to the risk of this tactic visually marking-out activists for mass-arrest and police identification!
It sucks, it stinks, it isn't funny....
AFA
Serious message to the moderators
20.02.2014 08:35
Whatever the story with that specific case, we need media that reach OUT of the activist ghetto, not decisions that are based on deference to membership of that ghetto, but the Indy mods seem more interested in preserving activist counter-culture in its glorious isolation than in listening to (and, yes, compromising with) the outsiders who could help us KEEP the ground that activism's so spectacularly gained then often lost in recent years
The biggest problem however isn't with even the moderators' selective vision, but their total unwillingness to apply common-sense to weeding-out blatant incitement by undercover cops and right-wing trolls and troublemakers. The State knows perfectly well the easiest way to wreck activist movements is to ensure the public associate those movements with terrorism, and the trolls press the buttons like they're playing fucking pinball. For all their faults, non-pacifist (even anti-pacifist) groups like Class War and the Situationist International were spot-on in their total opposition to terrorism, and the mods cluelessness on this is so relentless some folk are beginning to ask if the infiltration of Indymedia isn't just a troll level?!
Anti-terror
Diversity of tactics and limited vision.
20.02.2014 11:02
Aah - is it this post you are referring to perhaps?
The one where counterfire got trashed in the comments?
or this one, which presumably you posted?
Mods aren't able to sit here 24/7 modding - and sometimes it seems a bad idea to hide something when the comments have already pointed out the problems.
"The biggest problem however isn't with even the moderators' selective vision, but their total unwillingness to apply common-sense to weeding-out blatant incitement by undercover cops and right-wing trolls and troublemakers."
Yes - so in your not so humble opinion, troublemakers should be weeded out of anarchism, which should instead focus on discussions with a parliamentary party, and should invest in stickers because they will save the world?
The corporate media has clearly decided not to report the actions by a group in Bristol who have claimed responsibility for a fair amount of property damage (which you term 'terrorism') and you would like us to behave like the corporate media (who have actually ended up reporting the stories because they have been reported on Indymedia)?
"Class War and the Situationist International were spot-on in their total opposition to terrorism"
Perhaps Class War was just being mindful of it's plans to field candidates in the next elections?
"the mods cluelessness on this is so relentless some folk are beginning to ask if the infiltration of Indymedia isn't just a troll level?! "
Yup - if we don't turn Indymedia into your rather authoritarian view of anarchism, we must be state assets?
What a spectacular ending to a 'serious message' that ended up being........
IMCista
so far looks good
20.02.2014 21:44
@
Try LOGIC next time
21.02.2014 13:46
Q1 - "Perhaps Class War was just being mindful of it's plans to field candidates in the next elections?"
A1 - No, Sherlock, if Class War was being mindful of it's plans to field candidates in the next election, CW probably wouldn't have published front-page images of Thatcher having her head cut open with a machete, now would they?! The actual reason (just one reason) CW and the SI opposed terrorism was because they had enough political experience and common-sense to be mindful of the long history of state agent-provocateurs inciting terrorism to destroy radical movements..... it was after-all SI activist Gianfranco Sanguinetti who wrote "On Terrorism and the State", you should read it
Q2 - "If we don't turn Indymedia into your rather authoritarian view of anarchism, we must be state assets?"
A2 - How the FUCK does the crime of pointing out (the factual observation) that Counterfire's Leninism is far more hierarchical and authoritarian than the views and practices of the Green Party show that your critics have a "rather authoritarian view of anarchism"?
@IMCista
Sorry, help me out here
21.02.2014 13:55
Thanks for making a point though - any point, no matter how inaccurate - about engagement with the Greens - but be careful, if you don't censor your own comment quick you might find yourselves actually debating the advantages and disadvantages of co-operating with the Greens (y'know, the Greens - a movement that isn't the total fucking catastrophe that UK anarchism is)
Either that or you could fall back on the Ketamine users and cop trolls from Conspiracy Cells of Fire, they'll save the world
Shear pin
Attacks in Bristol being "Not" reported by the corporate media -
21.02.2014 14:27
And yes of course the Conspiracy Cells bombing car-showrooms is terrorism
And of course such attacks take place for the same reason that undercover cop Bob Lambert planted the incendiary device in the Debenhams Store in Harrow in London
Stop being naive
Deep tread
100% confirmation in Deep tread links
21.02.2014 15:00
'Deep tread' headed his comment: 'Attacks in Bristol being "Not" reported by the corporate media -'
and linked to
which states:
"Meanwhile, an anarchist group has claimed responsibility for a fire which gutted a police firing range in north Somerset in the early hours of Tuesday.
And online post, signed from "Angry Foxes Cell in collaboration with ACAB," read: "The (under construction) Police Firearms Training Centre in Black Rock Quarry, Portishead, situated directly beneath the Avon and Somerset Police regional headquarters was our target on the night of 26th August, and we left it with flames licking high."
Which supports my claim.
link 3 notes: "A statement posted online by a group calling itself the Informal Anarchist Federation has claimed responsibility for the attack."
link 4 notes " On Wednesday the group posted a statement on the Indymedia Bristol website saying it had "struck two points on the railway routes into Bristol", adding that members had "lifted concrete slabs running alongside the tracks and burned out the signalling cables found in the trench underneath"."
Link 5 notes "A statement posted online by a group calling itself the Informal Anarchist Federation on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the attack."
Link 6 notes: "In a post on the Bristol Indymedia website, the group, called "Angry Foxes Cell", says it "used accelerant to burn the major electrical cables".
So, all of your links confirm that the corporate media only reported the stories after the claims had been made online.
In order to show that I "form strongly-held and aggressively-defended opinions without even stopping to think whether your views have anything to do with the actual facts", you needed to link to reports of the damage made before the online claims on Indymedia uk and Bristol.....
Moderators have noted that other attacks were not reported until after the online claims were made.
The specious argument being made here is that these online claims of responsibility are posted by "undercover cops and right-wing trolls and troublemakers"
when clearly the poster has no way of knowing this.
IMCista
On feeding the trolls
21.02.2014 15:05
Unless of course they'd like to use the publicly archived list set up for the purpose of discussing moderation issues, show which guidelines have been breached, and respond rather more politely.
IMCista
Some thoughts on the recent imposed changes to Indymedia UK.
22.02.2014 19:14
* Indymedia isn't a bulletin board so why the increased use of moderation?
* Who are these moderators and what are their personal, political and religious affiliations?
* Why isn't use being made of already existent IMC functions like the 'view all posts' function?
I really would appreciate some thoughtful answers to my questions.
Thank u
Old Timer
Yes, very much so.
23.02.2014 13:31
The open news-wire has always been a tool for those who have a problem with non-mainstream independent reporting and they have long used the open IMC news-wire to place disinformation on the IMC front page. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this content will be being placed by the common narkery especially when its time for them to think about justifying their existences at the end of the financial year. Knocking out a few incidents before April helps to keep the money coming in for the next year.
And then of course are the concern trolls. For the past five years every discussion about IMC's future has been smothered with comments criticising this and criticising that all done under cover of sham and dishonest concern. You have to be exceptionally dim-witted to be taken in by it.
There is one particular muppet who has been swearing blind for the last five years that IMC is about to go down any minute, yet here we all are!
The changes to the front page have simply removed the trolling from the front page and demoted it. This was always going to be a good idea because now it means that front page content has to observe the editorial guidelines. Feeble trolling doesn't do that so it gets dumped at the back somewhere out of sight where it belongs, demotivating the trolls and rendering their idiotic content into the digital bin bag.
You may not agree with some articles that are posted at IMC, but then again this is raw activism so why would you agree with everything posted?
What are you, a moron?
All in all a good decision and one that will take things forward in a way that Faceplant and Twatbeak are unable to. Any shit-head can use those tools for any reason they care to. Whatever they post, you can be sure that the narkery will be aware of it before anybody else. This is where IMC beats the crowd, you can post here anonymously without having to live in fear that you'll get a knock on the door from a nark who is protected in law from telling you how he knew who you were.
What's not to like?
Onwards and upwards.
Sir Ronald Batholemew of Nicaragua-on-Sea.
Old Timer
26.02.2014 18:23
Why not post up your home address and then we can send you our CVs? We don't respond to questions about ourselves when asked by random anonymous people on the internet.
Don't you follow the news?
And if, as a long term reader, you think moderation is being used more, then you really haven't been paying attention. The same people who were modding the wire for several years before the 'fork' are still doing so.
IMCista
Outreach
12.03.2014 10:43
Once we have a group of people interested we will set up a public meeting and training.
"Concerns about editorial guidelines or queries about moderation are dealt with on the imc-uk-moderation list. These issues are not dealt with through the newswire, and newswire posts or comments on these topics will be hidden."
IMCista
@IMCista
11.05.2014 20:24
Global Research isn't "news"
table manners