[New-imc] Re: Membership application

[blue.pi]

Hi boud, hi all, 

here is our reedited editorial policy. I hope it makes things clear now. As 
to what happens, when we can't reach consensus: Well, then we will just have 
a f2f-meeting as stated in our decision making policy. 

Editorial Policy IMC Beirut 

Indymedia Beirut will not accept any articles which make racist or sexist 
allegations. 

Should an article be racist and/or sexist or overtly offensive, IMC Beirut’s 
editorial group retains the right to hide it. 

Upon the discovery of an article posted on IMC Beirut which could be racist 
or sexist, a member from the editorial group will tag the article. This 
alerts all readers that the article may contain a violation of our editorial 
policy, and begins an open debate on the article, which lasts for three 
days. At the end of the three days, a decision will be made by the editorial 
group (based on consensus) to either hide or leave the article in question. 

Any comment to an article deemed racist, sexist or overtly offensive may be 
removed immidiatly. The discussion about which articles or comments fall 
under this definition is an ongoing process within the editorial collective. 


boud writes: 

> hi IMC Beirut,
>    Great to see your membership criteria! i think it's
> OK for blue pi to propose you for internal new-imc
> approval, but i do have one non-trivial request
> for clarification.  
> 
> But first i should express my congratulations on your 
> answer to m. - it's a very creative way of dealing
> with a politically sensitive issue, and i don't see
> how anyone can object. (i'm only representing myself
> with this opinion, of course...!) 
> 
> Here are my clarification requests: 
> 
> On Sun, 2 Feb 2003, semk imb wrote: 
> 
>> e. Editorial policy: 
>> 
>> Indymedia Beirut will not accept any articles which
>> make racist or sexist allegations.
>> Should an article be racist and/or sexist or overtly
>> offensive, IMC Beirut’s editorial group retains the
>> right to remove it. Any comment to an article deemed
>> racist, sexist or overtly offensive may be removed
>> without discussion.
>> Upon the discovery of an article posted on IMC Beirut
>> which could be racist or sexist, a member from the
>> editorial group will tag the article. This alerts all
>> readers that the article may contain a violation of
>> our editorial policy, and begins an open debate on the
>> article, which lasts for three days. At the end of the
>> three days, a decision will be made by the editorial
>> group (based on consensus) to either remove or leave
>> the article in question.
> 
> (1) Do you mean "remove" or "hide"? 
> 
> Most Indymedia collectives choose only to *hide*
> unacceptable articles, so that the reader can still
> find these if he/she wishes. The danger of removing
> articles is that it's difficult for anyone to judge
> the validity of the censorship decision. 
> 
> There are practical ways of making it clear that hidden
> articles are considered unacceptable, by not only shifting
> the link to a "hidden" list, but also doing something so
> that anyone accessing the article cannot avoid being aware
> of the problem, e.g. 
> 
> * adding a standard disclaimer (a few sentences)  - IMC Poland 
> 
> * adding a tag of a certain colour (IMC Nice talked
> about this, i haven't checked if they really do it...) 
> 
> * adding <strike>...</strike> around the content of
> the hidden article - try this on an html file and
> you'll see the effect. It's... striking! In some sense
> it really does *hide* the article, since it becomes
> quite difficult to read, but anyone who really wants
> to read it can copy it locally and just remove the
> <strike> tags, without being able to claim that the
> IMC approved the article. 
> 
> 
> We don't have a formally agreed upon definition of
> open publishing, but i would think that many indymedia
> people might be uncomfortable if you really removed
> articles rather than just making them more difficult
> to access. 
> 
> Of course, the decision is a local one.  
> 
> But it would be good to clarify this. Have you really 
> decided in favour of removal and against hiding, or is
> this just a language problem? Could you consider something
> like filtering all hidden articles/comments by adding
>  <strike> ... </strike> around them? 
> 
>  
> 
> (2) 
> Does your editorial policy mean that: 
> 
> - an article judged as racist and/or sexist can be tagged
> and discussed for 3 days, and then either "removed" or kept 
> 
> - a comment judged as racist and/or sexist or overtly 
> offensive can be "removed" immediately without discussion  ? 
> 
> This seems to say nothing about what to do when there
> is no consensus on whether a comment is racist, sexist
> or overtly offensive. 
> 
> However, my main question is just to clarify the meaning:
> did i read it correctly?  
> 
> i'm sure you're quite capable of modifying the
> editorial policy as a function of how the site (and
> editorial decisions) runs in practice... The important thing
> is that you have decided a clear policy to start with; if it
> doesn't work, you can change it. 
> 
> 
> solidarity
> boud 
> 
> 
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> Imc-beirut at lists.indymedia.org
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