[New-imc] imc worcester (usa) [decision deadline April 27 , 18:00 GMT]

[gaba]

[castellano mas adelante]

Hello new-imc's folks
Here is all the information the people from worcester have been working
on. If no one objects something i will go pass all the things to
imc-process on the 27th. They are still discussing the imc-women's
proposal but i think is something they can continue doing while they go
through the processs... 

The form they sent:
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/new-imc/2003-July/004158.html


The information is in the wiki:
http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Local/ImcWorcester

About the imc-women's proposal, they are discussing it now. 

Supporting Groups 
Studio H- supporting social change through the arts. Worcester Global
Action Network (WoGAN?) WPI’s Justice Worcester Artist Group Worcester
State College communication department Radical Cheerleaders Worcester
Worcester Peace Works Earn-A-Bike Pleasant Street Neighborhood Network
Center Worcester Computer Collective

Mission Statement 
We are a grassroots, community-based collective striving to provide
universal access to news media without corporate filtering. This is a
progressive outlet commited to amplifying the voices of everyday people
and especially those working for justice and equality in central mass
and around the world


Editorial Policy 

1. Explanation

The Worcester IMC website newswire is an open publishing system, and its
use for both posting and reading messages is available to anyone on the
Internet. The newswire is primarily intended for the posting and
discussion of news, opinions, ideas and experiences that relate to
current events and news, particularly that of interest to people in the
greater Worcester area. The Newswire is especially intended to be
available and useful to peoples, ideas and news that are overlooked or
systematically excluded from the dominant media. These are necessarily
broad categories of postings that include a wide diversity of
approaches, however there are types of posts and posting behaviors that
are not included.

The newswire is a virtual commons that the IMC intends to be open fairly
and equally to all who would want to use it. As a commons, there are
basic ground rules that allow the commons to be fairly available and
useful to as many people as possible. The principle guiding these rules
is that the IMC discourages postings that compromise the availability
and usefulness of the newswire as a commons and the IMC reserves the
right to hide or remove such postings.

When considering posts containing speech that may be unacceptable and
detrimental to the newswire's status as a commons, the IMC Steering
Group should keep in mind principles of free speech which advocate for
using more speech to counter unacceptable speech. This principle must be
balanced against the real harm that speech can do both to individuals
and to the usefulness of the newswire itself, with an attempt to gauge
if more speech can actually counter any real harm done.

In all considerations it must be recognized that the IMC newswire is
only one amongst many hundreds or thousands open posting forums
available on the Internet, and therefore the IMC cannot fully silence
any voice on the Internet. Commensurately, it must also be recognized
that the IMC newswire's strength is its openness, and the significant
hiding of posts will weaken its use and goals.

The IMC Active software that runs the newswire has a feature allowing
posts to be hidden from view on the newswire without being deleted from
the system. These hidden posts can still be viewed through the "story
administration" page that may be easily linked to. The IMC Active
software does not provide a provision for deleting posts, however it
does provide for the editing and deleting of text within a post, and
such changes are permanent.

In most cases where posts are deemed as unacceptable they should be
hidden from view on the newswire, with an explanation for the hiding
attached to the post. Posts should only be edited or deleted in the few
cases outlined below in which their appearance anywhere on the site
threatens the financial or legal status of the IMC.

II. Guidelines for Editing and Deleting Posts

Guidelines for Hiding Posts:

The following are types of situations and posts which may be hidden by
the IMC Steering Group, along with guidelines for determining what
should be hidden.

‑Duplicate Posts ‑ if a single post is duplicated during a relatively
short time period, all duplicate posts may be hidden. In determining
duplicate posts it should be understood that it may be appropriate to
repost information in order to bring information to the attention of
website visitors after a reasonable amount of time has elapsed since it
was first posted.

‑Threats and Intimidation‑the IMC newswire is not intended to be a forum
for primarily publicizing hate nor for making direct threats against
individuals, groups or classes of people. The IMC recognizes that such
speech can be harmful in and of itself and may create at atmosphere in
which physical action becomes more likely. In any post under
consideration the threatening speech should be weighed against other
ideas or expression in the post. If the majority of the post nonetheless
is intended to contribute to discourse or debate, then the issue of
hiding it should be considered very carefully.

‑Flooding or Spamming of Posts ‑ this is when a single individual posts
multiple times in a short period in a manner that indicates that the
poster's purpose is to flood the newswire or push other posts off the
ftont page of the IMC website, which typically only contains ten to
twenty of the most recent posts. This type of posting behavior can only
truly be identified after several occurrences, and depends heavily on
the amount of volume of posts. It can be difficult to stop because
posters can change screen names at a whim. Therefore the utmost care
must be taken to make sure that only posts that are made by a known
"sparnmer" are hidden.

‑Off‑Topic Posts ‑ this is perhaps the most difficult category of
inappropriate posts to judge, since the IMC Newswire intends to be a
forum that is open to a broad range of topics and ideas. Nonetheless
there are posts that are baldly and clearly inappropriate, whose purpose
seems clearly to be other than informing, educating or adding to a
public discourse. In the worst cases their appearance on the IMC
Newswire may indeed discourage other visitors from using the site.
Isolated posts are typically not problematic, and so the problem of
off‑topic posts is usually related to flooding or sparnming. Therefore
the frequency of off‑topic posts of a particular type should be
considered when deciding whether to hide them.

‑Commercial Solicitation ‑ the Newswire is not intended to be used for
commercial purposes, therefore commercial solicitations and
advertisements for commercial products should be hidden.

Guidelines for Editing and Deleting Posts The following types of posts
may be edited or have text deleted by the IMC Steering Group.

‑Illegal Speech ‑ very few kinds of speech are considered illegal in the
US, however those that are must be dealt with seriously. One example of
such speech is a threat against the US president. The appearance of such
speech on the IMC website can bring unwanted and unnecessary scrutiny
and harassment from police and the government. Any conceivable benefit
or contribution such speech might make is far outweighed by the threat
it presents to the health and existence of the IMC.

‑Direct Threats ‑‑ These constitute direct threats on specific people or
small, easily identifiable groups of people. The purpose behind editing
or deleting such posts is to not feed into the violence threatened.
(Note: Direct threats posted to the Newswire may be actionable under the
IMC Website Abuse Abatementpolicy in order to ensure the safety and
welfare of the IMC, its volunteers, members and users)

III. Procedures for Deleting/Hiding Articles

Definition of active editors

The active editors are chosen by the editorial collective. The editorial
collective trusts the active editors to internalize the values of the
group and to act according to these values. They should be somebody who
goes to meetings regularly, and can read the website regularly (once a
day). It's not good for any one person to be an active editor for too
long, and it's the editorial collective's responsibility to make sure
this doesn't happen.

PROBLEMS REQUIRING IMMEDIATE ACTION

A. (spam/advertising, duplicate posts, off topic/no news) 1an active
editor identifies a posting as a problem and immediately hides it 2.the
editor appends a signed comment to the hidden article explaining why it
was hidden 3.the editor addresses and explanatory letter to the author
(if e‑mail provided), and sends it first to the editorial collective.
4.if no objections are raised by the collective within 24 hours, the
explanatory letter is forwarded to the author.

B. (illegal speech/direct threats/infringement of privacy) 1. an active
edito6identifies a posting as a problem and immediately deletes/edits
it. 2. the editor appends a signed comment to the hidden article
explaining why it was deleted/edited 3. the editor addresses and
explanatory letter to the author (if e‑mail provided), and sends it
first to the editorial collective. 4. if no objections are raised by the
collective within 24 hours, the explanatory letter is forwarded to the
author. 5. if a member of the editorial group wishes to reinstate the
posting s/he proposes it to the editorial collective. If this proposal
is not blocked within 24 hours the post will be reinstated.

C. Postings that create concerns but are not in the categories requiring
immediate action (more general threats and intimidation) 1. an active
editor identifies a posting as a problem and alerts the editorial
collective, recommending that the post be hidden or removed. 2. at least
two additional editors must concur with the first editor's judgment. And
none express disagreement, or 24 hours must pass without any editor
expressing disagreement. 3. the editor hides or removes the posting. 4.
the editor appends a signed comment to the posting explaining why it was
hidden. 5. the editor sends the author an explanatory letter (if e‑mail
provided), also forwarding it to the editorial collective.

UNANTICIPATED PROBLEMS

This Category recognizes the evolutionary nature of our editorial policy
and that future postings may contain unforeseen problems requiring
editors to intervene and then further refine our policy. In such
instances, the editors use the following process:

Lan active editor carefully articulates specific reasons why the
editorial should be changed to address the problem in question. 2. at
least two additional editors must concur with the first editor's
judgment and none may express disagreement or 24 hours must pass without
any editor expressing disagreement 3.the new restriction becomes,
provisionally, past of the editorial policy. As soon as possible, the
editorial collective should critically discuss the provisional policy
change, deciding whether and how to alter the written policy. 4.Online
policy documents are altered to reflect changes in policy.

IV. Creation of Features Column

Feature articles can be selected from the newswire by anyone in the
editorial collective, or they can be written by members of the editorial
collective. Anyone in the editorial collective who wants to post an
article to the features column first sends it to the list. If nobody
objects within 24 hours the article goes to the features column.



[english above]

Aqui esta toda la informacion que la gente de worcester ha estado
trabajando. Si nadie tiene ninguna objecion podemos pasar todos los
datos a imc-process el 27 de enero. Aun queda para ell at s la discusion de
los puntos planteados en la propuesta de imc-women pero lo estan
haciendo. Creo que esta bien.

La informacion esta en el wiki:
http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Local/ImcWorcester

Introduccion

Somos un colectivo basado en la comunidad, el pueblo, esforzandose en
proveer acceso universal a las noticias sin filtros corporativos. Este
es un objetivo progresista comprometido en ampliar las voces de la gente
de todos los dias y especialmente aquell at s que trabajan para la justicia
e igualdad en massachusetts central y en todo el mundo

Politica Editorial
Esta aun siendo traducida al castellano

Estan realizando la discusion sobre las preguntas de la propuesta de
imc-women


Otros mensajes desde integrantes del colectivo imc-worcester:

En New-imc
->
some answers:
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/new-imc/2004-April/005018.html
->a presentation
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/new-imc/2004-April/005029.html

--
gaba <gaba at riseup.net>
indymedia new-imc