[Seattle-editorial] editorial policy thoughts continued..

Thu Oct 9 20:51:37 PDT 2003

Folks,

While transparency is important, this is not an excuse to cause people to
work dangerously. As a Member, I expect access to any information I need to
asses our adherence to our own policies. That does not necessarily extend to
non-members.

Using a pseudonym is a tradition in American publishing that is as old as
the republic, the Federalist papers being the consummate example. We should
not mind this.

As for trolls on the editorial list, IMHO it is always ok for Ed. Collective
Members to make decisions off line, or on cc lists, and then come back to
the public list with a decision. Again, as a Member, I reserve the right to
be a party to what went into the decision, but my trust in Ed. Members and
my respect for their valuable time would cause me to avoid asking 99% of the
time.

The ed. list is moderated, or I'd be getting SPAM from it. Hate can be
culled from it. Also, e-mail identities of posters can and should be hidden
if security is of concern to any Member. The issue I have with e-mail lists
being avoided is that the historical record, and the ability of good folks
to learn from our processes, is degraded as we limit information that can be
of archival quality.

Hey, in this world, if your not mad as hell, your not paying attention. And
as activists, if your not exhausted, get up earlier.

Peace,

Joseph

-----Original Message-----
From: seattle-editorial-bounces at lists.indymedia.org
[mailto:seattle-editorial-bounces at lists.indymedia.org]On Behalf Of
Gentry Lange
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2003 5:52 PM
To: Jason Reep; editorial
Subject: RE: [Seattle-editorial] editorial policy thoughts continued..

Ok here goes...It's gonna take some time here for me to get through all the
reasons the current policy is flawed.

4 Main Current Policy Items for Hides:

1 To provide an unmoderated, open-publishing newswire in accordance with
established IMC policies and philosophy.
2 To maintain the newswire and website as a community space, and a safe
environment for users, especially members of disempowered or marginalized
groups.
3 To acknowledge that speech has the power to cause injury, but that
instances of injurious speech should also be seen as opportunities for
insurrectionary response.
4 To preserve the quality of the website as a useful media resource.

Problems with current policy:

1. No-content posts. "Newswire posts which contain no information at all, or
which contain no discernable ideas"

No-content, should be changed to "non-news", no discernable ideas is not a
well defined statement. Words alone represent "ideas" and therefor this
stupulation is not at all clear. I've said this several times, and no one
responds. Additionally, it brings the policy in line with principle #4,
maintaining a useful media resource. People's dumb hippie dippy poetry is
not news, and is not useful. Also people's crap about "The pest has a name"
and other "non-news" items could easily be included. Currently, the
"no-content" rule is amibiguous and almost useless as worded.

2. Editors don't respond in a timely manner. Or no-one responds at all.
Maybe "back in the day of the IMC", when the policy worked, there were
enough people to take on the SPAM attacks, and hate mongers.. but today
there are very few people actively engaged in monitoring the newswire. To
that end, even though a clear violation exists, they are hard to deal with
because the person simply posts more and more frequently, because they only
have to overwhelm one, or maybe two, people.

For instance, I posted 4 Feature Proposals last night, and only Judy
responded. I've often gotten no response from anyone at all to many emails
to this list.

3. In taking on hate mongers, I am not willing to post my reasons, my name,
or crap to a publicly searchable email list. I already get people emailing
me "eat shit and die" or "Americans love to eat crap, you fucking American"
for posting my stories... you think I want to have people search for "Gentry
Lange" on the Internet and fire bomb my house. Because as it stands, the
currently policy states I have to post both my reasons, and sign my name in
editing something, but you can "post anonymously". So in otherwords, to edit
I have to make myself vunerable, while the hate mongers can post
anonymously. This policy is fucked. And I am unwilling to make myself
vulnerable to attack for being a "volunteer".

4. If this policy makes it so easy to hide posts, why aren't you Jason,
actively hiding posts and emailing the list? I'll take a guess... because
it's a pain in the ass. It takes longer to hide posts, than to post, then
you have to email the group, and then someone will take you personally to
task for what you did, or didn't do. If you were hiding posts, actively
submitting stories, and generally involved with the editorial in the way you
say others should be, then maybe I'd say your policy is clear, easy to
follow, and easy to use. But I think the reality is that no one on this
list, other than myself, Nathaniel, and sometimes Judy even touches the
"hide" policy.

5. Very few people read the IMC's newswire for Seattle News. Why would they,
it's a bunch of hate filled rants, from both liberals, and rightwingers, who
tell eachother to fuck off all the time. This is pathetic. Poetry, rants,
crap. Very little news. I read Portland's site, and the conversations seem
intelligent, dignified, and enlightening, I read Seattle's and it's like
everyone simply pisses all over the site.

6. If the policy was working, this conversation wouldn't come up all the
time. Name all the active editorial members working on the site? Umm...
yeah, that's right... pretty close to zero. And back a year ago, maybe there
were 3 people, then Jonathan, and well 3 and 1, those numbers are pretty
close to 0 as well. Jonathan wrote almost 90% of the stories for one whole
year... this does not a working heatlhy "collective" make. It is a broken
model.

7. "Newswire. The section of the Seattle IMC website consisting of posts
(text articles, photographs, audio or video) published by independent
journalists. Newswire posts appear on the right column of the front page as
soon as they are submitted, and remain archived on the site forever. The
newswire can be searched."

	--Ok most of the posters to the site are not Independent Journalists,
rather some are. The comments are in fact overrun by Trolls who simply rip
people to shreds and call them names for posting stories.

8. There's people complaining on the site constantly, progressives who call
the site a Joke. People come to meetings to tell us we are fucked in the
head... again progressives who are tired of the shit that is allowed to
remain on the site.

9. There's no list of active editors, there's no clear policy for becoming
an active member. What's the criteria for being an active editorial member?
I don't know, and I've been around for coming on 2 years now.

That's it for now... I am forgetting a few things. But basically, I think
the policy as is doesn't clarify many issues, and opens editors to attack. I
will respond with additional comments as they come to me.

Also, I know there's others who agree with me... please don't just email me,
email the list. Otherwise it makes me look like I'm the only one who thinks
that the policy is not working as it exists (thanks to Judy).

Gentry

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