Indymedia Moderation Meeting

by tomeile - sbu Thu Sep 29, 2011 14:24

A lot of anti zionist posters score good points against the zionist and islamophobic filth put up on this site by the likes of Fred ,Sean Og and Frank Adams . Surely the time has come to simply tell these people to clear off though . These people are racists . Indymedia ireland has a guideline saying that racist posts will be removed and that racist posters will be banned if they continue to post on indymedia . By not banning zionist trolls the editorial board is sending out a signal that islamophobia is not racism and that ,so long as you are polite , you can promote your racist/zionist ideology on indymedia ireland .

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Thu Sep 29, 2011 15:15

I'm not sure clasifying those you disagre with(and I'm no advocate of Zionism or anti-Muslim bigots)as 'filth' is over-distant from the Nazi designation of untermenschen as 'vermin'.

And I've read a few anti-Zionist rants that were over the edge into antisemitism, which ultimately feeds the Zionists who see all opposition as antisemitic.

If the editors/ facilitators can stay on top of the traffic, which is probably a moveable operation, it has to remain what they say above, a judgement call from case to case.

Having said that, I recognise the names above, and their less than honest styles, but we cant be just a self-reinforcing club of agreement all round. Lets leave that methodology to the mainstream Foxes. I prefer to se a ship fools and deluded ignorance, rather than a raft of filth.

Besides, they challenge us to refine our arguments and inform ourselves more thoroughly. If posts are just noise they usually get deleted, and policy seems to be to ban recidivists that fail to learn.

And racism is another word we should use carefully, Islamophobia means terror of Islam, a religion, and while it may have racist underpinnings its a simplification needs 'unpacking', to use the jargon. I find the excercise useful. Xenophobia is better umbrella term, meaning fear of the strange. And I'm naive enough to still think minds can be changed by rational argument. Even if the Freds and Franks wont listen, others may be reading who could be susceptible to their spurious noise unless its convincingly deconstructed and exposed in a public forum.

To close out arbitrarily seems a last resort at best. It can bring on circle-jerk syndrome.

by hello Thu Sep 29, 2011 17:48

and responding to complaints sent to your editorial list - the deafening silence shows nothing but contempt for your users

For example a section on the website where editorial actions can be openly queried - (not on a list, but on the website itself) - would at least demonstrate SOME nod in the direction of 'openness' and transparency.

The indy Ed team's complete unwillingness to engage with it's users is not an attitude that recommends itself to anyone interested in the open discussion of any issue.

There need be no compunction to reply to any and all queries or complaints, but fro experience I can tell anyone interested that Indy Ed's never reply - a website section devoted to this would at least show openly that the Ed's have no desire to interact with site users or to right any perceived wrongs when it comes to editorial moderation

by hello again Thu Sep 29, 2011 18:03

"Do you think any of our guidelines should be amended?
Do you have any suggestions how our moderation can be improved?"

The guidelines themselves are fine - but the mods need to stick to the guidelines themselves, and no go inventing new ones (as a certain Mod often seems to do) and show a greater commitment to fairness - for example,I have noticed certain mods tendency to obsessively seek out the merest transgression in order to delete a lengthy post with which they disagree, despite the supposed transgression being a mere sentence in a post containing many more points relevant to the discussion. When the offending sentence is removed and attempts are made to repost, the biased mod just deletes the new post even though their is nothing there that breaks the guidlines. Various other mods (Wageslave/Paula mainly) have the good sense to merely hide a sentence or two if they deem it to be transgressive.

It is my opinion the particular mod in question (the one most often favouring this 'tactic') acts in this way so as to merely have an excuse to remove the good points made, which do no break any of the guidelines, because they contradict some agenda he himself believes in and wishes to promote.

by wageslave Thu Sep 29, 2011 19:32

@ hello

We try to answer. many queries are answered. I'm sure many readers will attest to having received courteous helpful replies from indy volunteers. Unfortunately some queries are missed. :-(

This is far from ideal and it is not the way we want things to be either.
Its mostly because we don't have the resources to deal with all we have to do around here. Volunteers log on and spend what time they have alotted trying to weed out trolling posts, so there can at least be SOME sort of reasonable dialogue on the threads. Often basic formatting, spellchecking etc are required on articles submitted without due care.

Also a lot of time is spent reading around articles to see if they can be left up etc. A wide range of subjects are posted on here. Often you can't make any kind of fair decision to hide or not without at least trying to cross check a few facts first. You'd be a useless moderator if you didn't. This all takes time. And there are only a few volunteers working at present, each giving a few hours whenever they can, so somethings gotta give.

Accordingly since composing careful and polite emails can be rather daunting after a frazzling session of reading through trolling posts and misinformation and trying to decide whether facts are true or not,(!) and being abused for your troubles in the comments(!!!), you could sometimes be forgiven for looking at a list of email queries demanding attention and needing careful replies, feeling your head melting then logging off and reaching for the vaiium. It is left up to volunteers to address whatever posts they can on the email lists whenever they can. Given our volunteer level, a more structured approach is not currently feasible. However, it is definitely something that merits further discussion I agree.

Yes, sometimes posts to the list are missed. Of course if we had more volunteers we could do more. Its not as if we don't want to reply to everyone. But given current resources, we just can't always realistically do so in the time window required.

There is a way you could help us of course..... :-) be the change you want to see in the world and all that. Anyone can answer queries on the email list if they subscribe. Some things require moderators but many can be answered by normal list members. Helping us out on the lists is one way you can begin if you wish to become a moderator. As hello has pointed out, we obviously need more help around here!

rgds
wageslave (personal capacity)

by Sean Crudden - impero Thu Sep 29, 2011 20:04

Where exactly is the Teachers' Club? I might go but the Co Louth senior football championship takes place in Drogheda on Sunday afternoon.

by Medea Thu Sep 29, 2011 20:39

Most of the commenting and discussion around news stories from Indy now takes place on social media sites like Facebook.

While part of this is down to the growth of social media since 2002, part of it is also due to the heavy-handed implementation of Indys moderation policy in recent years.

Comments are routinely & falsely labelled as bbchat, while critical criticism by the left, of content posted by the left, is falsely labelled as trolling.

It's helped accelerate Inymedias slow decline over the last few years.

A lot of people who used to provide articles have up and left for other outlets as a result, such as WordPress blogs, where they can foster & grow a community who are actually encouraged to engage with their content.

Who can blame them?

by f Thu Sep 29, 2011 22:44

A lot of what is often termed "bb chat" or "not news" is actually part of the dynamic of the site.

I often leave small comments or questions - come back a day or two later and they've vanished. There's nothing racist, sexist etc about them, but they are "not news" or "asking questions" so they get hidden? This is nonsense. The comments are often the 'engine' of the site - chopping them down is unncessary. My comments on The Irish Times and the Guardian dont get anywhere near the same level of editing / censorship that they're subject to here. Its a bit of a sham to be claiming to be more independent than the mainstream media but being more restrictive on freedom of speech in your comments to your readers.

Also, echoing what has been said already - any time anyone expresses a view that isnt accordingly left wing it is labelled as "trolling" or "not factual" or the like and dumped. Why? Is the site actually independent, or is just left-wing? In the real world, in any pub, in any open media, the left in Ireland has to deal with criticism (if it cant tackle it then its trouble), because it's so small ... to deny that it exists or to always brush it away from the comments on imc.ie means that the "reality" portrayed here is miles from the truth.

I think a comment should remain unless it is openly sexist or racist.
Yes there will be trolls - look at politics.ie. But so what? Their traffic is through the roof - and the membership there is much more representative of Irish politics as a whole.
Do away with the "not news" or "bb chat" restriction - people use the site as a place to chat and spark off each other - open it up and embrace it.

IMC.ie has become a bit stale IMHO. It hasnt changed one bit in the last... what, five? ten? years... Time to adapt or die.
(A prime example of a site becoming crap - www.indymedia.org. Not updated since April. Lame.)

[I wont make the meeting - apologies]

by f Thu Sep 29, 2011 22:51

Also just to agree / back up another point made already.
All those links on the left to Blog Feeds.
Those writers should be writing for this site.
But they arent. Why?

I believe its because the site failed to adapt, and change what it saw as "news".
Its still completely built on the concept of some guy at a protest uploading his footage that mainstream TV didnt show. But since WTO 1999, social / web media exploded, but the imc model pretty much remained exactly the same.

Blogs arent "news", but they exploded, and bloggers went for their own thing instead of here, because IMC was seen as controlled by an editorial cabal, constantly clamping down on any commenting "chat" that actually drives the site and provides debate, analysis, and counter point (as well as aggro sometimes... but thats life...)

by wageslave Thu Sep 29, 2011 23:53

@tomeile

personally I don't want this issue to swamp the thread as there are many other issues to discuss too. It certainly does merit SOME discussion though. I think maybe it comes down to whether people want us to introduce a guideline whereby we hide a post if it is considered blasphemous.

Do they?

Islamophobia is literally "fear of Islam". Islam is a religion. There are no guidelines to hide posts which are discussing the tenets of a particular religion, whether derogatory or not. Rightly so IMHO

Ideas are just that, Ideas. You can change your ideas. However you can't easily change your skin colour or your birthplace or other such characteristics.

As far as freely discussing the logical merits of any particular religious ideas, its a level playing field. If you want to criticise the tenets of Christianity, or zoroastrianism, or for that matter Islam, from a conceptual point of view then you are free to do so in a free society and on this site if it's somehow newsworthy (subject to being polite while doing it and keeping to our guidelines)

If we hid posts on the basis of blasphemy then IMHO we would be little better than Fianna Fail and their stupid blasphemy law.

So Blasphemy = ok Racism/bigotry = not ok
And I believe its possible to tell the difference in most cases

Do readers really think we should hide posts if they are offensive to other people because they choose to hold a particular arbitrary set of religious ideas as sacred ?

It's a VERY slippery slope IMHO.
(Google "spanish inquisition" or "dark ages"!)

so, currently
"Islam sucks because it says xxxxxx" is probably ok if the quote is accurate (attacking an idea)
"muslims suck because xxxxxx" is not ok (an attack on people who happen to believe in Islam but also are often of arab descent, brown skinned, coming from certain specific countries etc)

Bigotry is bigotry and has no place on a site like this. I believe if we discern it we should try remove it from the conversation as best we can.

However, discerning true bigotry can sometimes be difficult when it is more subtle and this is not helped by the major religions penchant for deliberately trying to weave their creeds into everything from the law to the daily behaviour of people, muddying the idea of the person as distinct from a few particular ideas they may choose to hold.
This is somewhat calculated and insidious in my book. People may disagree with me somewhat on this.

As I say, just my 2c, I believe we should never ever have a blasphemy guideline. But I'm not indymedia. I just help out a bit.

rgds
wageslave (personal capacity)

by wageslave Fri Sep 30, 2011 04:03

I would largely agree with your points.

I have previously proposed that we run a bbs in parallel with the site where we could build community and facilitate more free chat among activists and spawning more participation without the main site itself being completely derailed. (do people think this is a good idea?)

The usual reason cited for not embracing this suggestion was lack of volunteers to do the extra work required. (any takers;-)

This BBS thing was IMHO a lost opportunity and I believe we have missed out on the whole community building dimension and as a result the site has indeed suffered.

On the other side, if you read through the stuff we actually hide, you will start to understand the level of trolling and misinformation we have to deal with on a daily basis on this site. If we left all that stuff up as well as what we already leave up then the main indymedia.ie site would decline a lot quicker I can tell you!

I dare you to spend an hour or two reading through the hidden posts. Then by all means come back and offer more of your thoughts about leaving it all up without at least trying to prune some of the worst stuff.

To balance some of the "censorship" criticism I have to point out that in fact indymedia actually deletes nothing. Yes, you heard me correctly!

All offending posts are merely "hidden from view" and can be read here:
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-ireland-newswire/
its a little clunky but you can view hides by thread.

Furthermore all decisions to hide posts are traceable to the individual moderator responsible for the decision to hide a post (see header in any hidden post)., If you are suitably motivated, any such decision can be questioned and reversed. You just need to make a good case and persuade 2 moderators to reverse the decision of the original moderator to hide the post.
to do this you need to subscribe to the list
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-ireland...swire
this is just one of several such lists relating to irish site function. more here:
http://lists.indymedia.org/

In practice this moderation process, while considerably fairer and more transparent and accountable than many / most corporate internet sites, is definitely in practice much too slow. But reversals can and do happen with reasonable regularity.

If you have any ideas how this process could be improved that are equally as fair without requiring more volunteers that don't currently exist then we're certainly interested to hear them!

Anyway, In that sense it is somewhat unfair to say we censor anything. If you want the whole unabridged version of any thread then all you have to do is combine your thread with a visit to
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-ireland-newswire/
and you get everything. warts and all. Some of it certainly ain't pretty you'll agree, but it's all there.

I work here so I don't want to be a dog at the door. And I certainly don't want to stymie any criticism which IMHO is most welcome (and thanks for taking the time)

And no, I'm not saying things are perfect at all. Far from it. I'm Just trying to help people see the actual process before they jump in too quickly to criticise without a full understanding.

Personally I'm all for a lot of change regarding moderation. In fact since we're always understaffed, I'd much prefer if the community stopped abusing us ad nauseaum for doing it wrong and instead just did it themselves using a voting / points system and I have even proposed such a system. Maybe some of those ideas will bubble up for discussion at the meeting. I don't know.

Another major point in its favour is that indymedia is not owned or directly controlled by any large faceless company or corporation. it does not work for profit and does not take advertising. Many stories have come to light about social networking sites and their corporate links to government, or wikileaks accounts being suspended etc. Indymedia is independent. Surely that counts for something. More so I would have thought these days.

Sure it has a bit of a left leaning flavour but thats mainly because if you aren't being paid off or don't work for a particular political party and you work for free and have some ETHICS then you almost inevitably end up seeing the unfairness of our economic and social structures from that viewpoint.

I'm sorry about that. Of course there's always the vibrant community at politics.ie ;-)

Joking aside, the points about community building and writer drift are well taken and merit serious discussion IMHO.

rgds
wageslave(personal capacity(!!)

by wageslave Fri Sep 30, 2011 04:21

I found a google street map link here. The prominent little red blob points to where the teachers club is.
you can scroll around it, get your bearings then print it out if you need to. That should help get you there.

http://entertainment.ie/venue-information/Teacher's-Club/33579.htm

cheers
wageslave

by f Fri Sep 30, 2011 09:11

Thanks for your responses wageslave (late night posting on the internet is bad for your brain though!)

One other thing that Indymedia editors need to get over:

That argument about a comment merely being "hidden", and "not deleted" is another defence that really doesnt stand up any more. The main, front end of the site is where the interaction and comment occurs.

To say that the comment "hasnt actually been deleted as such" or the like is total pedantry.
If a comment is hidden from the comment 'feed' below an article then it is as good as deleted.
Having it buried in a massive list archive, where the comment is listed by ID number, is as good as deleting it.

Once it is removed from imc.ie front end, it is deleted.

Your idea of a vbulletin style forum is a good one - dragging indymedia kicking and screaming into the mid 2000's :-)
I jest / poke fun.
It would be a good idea, its just a shame it didnt happen years ago.

by wageslave Fri Sep 30, 2011 11:50

fair enough f. I guess I'm used to mooching around in the archive so I don't see it as being quite as bad as you say but I can certainly see how it might be frustrating for less frequent users. Points noted. Again thanks for your comments. Ditto everyone else who has commented thus far. Please Keep 'em coming!

rgds
wageslave(personal capacity)

by Terence (personal capacity) Fri Sep 30, 2011 12:07

Thanks for everyone who has provided feedback and I think many of the points are valid.

I would also like to know what people see as both the good and the bad of Indymedia. The feedback has identified many of our bad points and failings but I am assuming that those who have taken the trouble to write must also have some notion of what they would like Indymedia to be doing or how it should operate in terms of trying to be more democractic and transparent. Clearly people do see something about Indymedia that they like or at least has potential to do and what it could become in terms of its impact.

On the point about keeping with the times or not, it does seem that all the Indymedia have not really progressed too far. However I think to some degree that is related to trying to adhere to the original principles which perhaps time has bypassed a bit. Technically too the advance has been very glacial and this is related to resources available whereas the commercial world has an almost bottomless pit of money to get whatever they need.

by Medea Fri Sep 30, 2011 13:23

I would also like to know what people see as both the good and the bad of Indymedia ....() Technically too the advance has been very glacial and this is related to resources available whereas the commercial world has an almost bottomless pit of money to get whatever they need.

This is probably veering off topic, but while Oscailt was great for its time, it's become outdated.

This isn't a criticism of the developers, but larger communities around other GPL content management systems ( which are 'free' both in monetary and licensing terms) which have allowed them to progress at a greater rate. In terms of comments, things like threaded comments and 'subscribe to comments' email notifications have helped create, build, grow & sustain an active usership.

Even the basic reading experience on Indymedia is quite unpleasant - huge blocks of text with an enormous line-length (width) is incredibly off-putting.

Publishers lack adequate abilities to make their content easily scannable by breaking up text with large headers (H2s & H3s), or control over where exactly images or video appear within their content. Basic functionality such as including hyperlinks within the article body to other relevant content is also sorely lacking.

Would changing these technical aspects make any significant difference to Indymedias fortunes at this point? - probably not, unfortunately. A lot of people have already moved to greener pastures which provide better publisher, reader & commenter experience.

Ultimately it comes down to the people who create the content - a lot of whom seem to have abandoned Indymedia, as the outlets for Independent journalism and opinion pieces have fragmented. Even the political organisations who used to regurgitate their content here seem to have gone quite.

If there's a protest happening/breaking news, I go to twitter for updates & the latest images. If I want opinion pieces, I go to sites like Cedar Lounge. If I want to comment on something that's happening in the news, I'll probably do it on Facebook.

In that environment, I'm not sure what Indymedias role is, or how it could make itself relevant again. Considering the role Indymedia used to have, it's disappointing to watch its slow decline. I doubt that there are any easy answers about how to rejuvenate it.

by tomeile Fri Sep 30, 2011 14:20

Commercial sites have access to money it's true , but indymedia had something far more important than money when it started out ten years ago in the goodwill of left-wing anti-corporate campaigners dedicated to the concept of collective open publishing . Today the creative skills of people who are prepared tp volunteer their time as content contributors to the site is seen by the Indymedia Ireland collective as less important than the technical skills of moderators – some six or seven unelected individuals who are accountable to nobody but themselves. Outsiders are not encouraged to join the collective nor given a vote in its decision making process . This welcome but tardy announcement of what has been a long-planned moderation meeting is the first open call for outside imput that I have seen in many years.

The failure of indymedia to act collectively in the gathering and production of news has led to its becoming an opinion site rather than a news site .The Latest Opinion section serves as a sort of Top Of the Pops for blow-hards encouraging the type of good-natured tit-for-tat banter that regularly goes on for instance between the likes of Opus Diablos and Frank Adams . Every so often a moderator will decide that BB chat is going on, do a bit of cropping and then it starts all over again.. I made the point about islamophobia because I think it goes to the heart of the seemingly bizzare editorial decisions that have driven people away fro the site. In the absence of an anti Islamophobe policy ,the BB excuse is used against zionists and Islamophobes whenever they get the better of Opus (before Opus it was Michael Y) and everything starts to look a bit embarrassing . This BB excuse for banning the Zionists is a double-edge sword that can be used by moderators with an opposing point of view to unfairly hide the posts of genuine contributors to the site - Declan Cullen is presently getting this treatment .

Editors have lost sight of the fact that Indymedia Ireland is supposed to be a news site. As an example of this : at a recent demo called against the church-organized Rally to Life march in Dublin in June I saw three moderators present . And yet no report appeared on the site the next day other than one taken from other news outlets by a non-editor . The editors had clearly not met before the march to discuss how the rally could be covered on Indymedia Ireland . The corporate media does act collectively even if the product of the collaboration is at the disposal of the right-wing. A newspaper for instance would have journalists ,photographers , sub- editors , editors , technical people etc working together to turn out a story .At the moment indymedia ireland is the disjointed work of usually well-meaning individuals . This can never match the professionalism of the corporate press for news coverage.

by wageslave Fri Sep 30, 2011 23:03

Tom. thanks for your post.

I'd like to address just one aspect you allluded to here

There is a common misconception about the indymedia editors. i.e. That we are a bunch of journalists and writers going around looking for and writing stories to put up on our lefty anarchist stalinist site. (assuming its possible to be all those at once! ;-)

Wrong. We generally don't write the stories here. Mostly we just work to try to maintain a facility so the public can write the news. As just a small group of part time volunteers, we don't even remotely have the resources to compete directly with a "proper" corporate news site. We're not even writers by profession. But with proper active participation from the general public, this could be a really good site.

Its completely up to the public to make an "open publishing" site work. If we aren't getting any articles then the site won't be any good. If good people get out there and start writing about stuff they care about then the site will be good.

People often criticise us and say things like "why don't you write an article about this" or "indymedia is shite because you didn't write about xxxx wheras {insert corporate news site} did"

Those people are missing the point. Indymedia will only work if YOU the public get out there and write about what YOU care about and stop being passive expecting someone else always to do your thinking and represent your views adequately. Be the change you want to see in the world. Write the article you think should be up on this site.

As a small loose group of volunteers, we work against the odds to try to maintain an open platform available here for people to do just that but If the public don't get up off their backsides and participate then this site just can't logically work.

So, lets put this notion to bed once and for all. To clarify:

WE DON'T WRITE THE STORIES, THE PUBLIC DO! ;-)

If you think a story should be written then YOU SHOULD WRITE IT!

We'll give you a place to post it here with minimal hurdles, we'll keep it available on the internet for the public to read and reference and we'll do our best to minimise any abuses in the comments while trying to stay fair to everyone as best we can.

rgds
wageslave(personal capacity)

by Sean Crudden Fri Sep 30, 2011 23:47

Hi Wageslave

That last line or two you wrote just about sums it up. It seems to me to be a very good recipe. Don't underestimate it and don't get discouraged. However watching the site over the past 5 or 6 years it is clearly apparent that some moderators have special gifts for facilitating the site and encouraging people to write. Something analogous to the way some newspaper editors are palpably better than others.

by wageslave Sat Oct 01, 2011 00:07

" Today the creative skills of people who are prepared tp volunteer their time as content contributors to the site is seen by the Indymedia Ireland collective as less important than the technical skills of moderators – some six or seven unelected individuals who are accountable to nobody but themselves. Outsiders are not encouraged to join the collective nor given a vote in its decision making process ."

Tom, you made some valid observations in your post but I'd like to address these particular points you made above.

Emphatically we do NOT value the "technical skills of moderators" (whatever that is supposed to mean??) over content creators. We are mere facilitators. Content creators ARE the site and define the site. We play a small but important role but without content there IS no site and we are nothing.

regarding the exclusivity, my own recruitment is a case in point. I knew nobody in the collective. I was just a regular joe participant on the site. One who took it upon myself to try and be helpful, answering simple queries on the lists and flagging offending posts. Over time I presume it was seen that my judgement was not too terrible and that I showed a consistent interest in helping out. So I was given a trial period and having not caused any major upset for that period, I was made an official moderator. I believe if others cared to do the same then they would also be given the same opportunity. We always need more volunteers. Many sites work on a similar "trust built over time" principle in moderator recruitment.

My existence as a moderator here belies your statement about exclusivity and outsiders. I was a complete outsider. I believe I speak for everyone in the collective when I say we would love to have more volunteers here to help out. However we also have to be a little careful given the nature of the site and what it publishes. I think the "trust over time" process is a reasonable compromise in recruiting to sensitive positions.

There is a clear process to becoming a moderator. It is outlined here:
https://www.indymedia.ie/HowToJoin

its pretty much the process I followed.

I do think however, as moderators we have withdrawn too much and not interacted enough with the public over the last few years. I think there were valid reasons why this happened including the fact that some members received a lot of very harmful harassment and abuse on a very personal level. This distancing has allowed suspicion and mistrust and harmful notions to arise as to our "agenda" etc.

Your post does indicate that perhaps we really need to interact more with people on the site and try to rectify some of those wrong perceptions before further harm results. More public participation is an important part of building more trust. I agree. Point taken

by Des Bartle Sat Oct 01, 2011 02:42

There have been a lot of dour comments on this thread, and some posters may have reasons to be dour. As an occasional visitor to the Indymedia Ireland threads I'd like to say that the site sometimes stimulates me to post comments agreeing or disagreeing with contents. The editors and moderators are all unpaid volunteers and I hope they are reasonably satisfied with the level of news stories and other contributions. I hope the site continually receives financial donations to meet the recurrent expenses.

One way to gauge the social impact of indymedia would be to study statistics on the number of 'hits' per year on the site, and the number of comments posted on threads. If you could publish such data, and possibly comparative data for Indymedia in other European countries, readers could draw objective conclusions about the worth of the site.

Indymedia Ireland survives as a going concern. It is remarkable as a voluntary not-for-profit enterprise that seeks to serve Irish society. Keep going all of you concerned. I think you ought to celebrate with informal staff parties a couple of times each year.

by wageslave Sat Oct 01, 2011 06:44

Thanks Sean, Des
Its reassuring to have some positive comments as well as the constructive criticism. And may I take this opportunity once again to personally thank everyone who has donated to help keep the site afloat. You've all been very kind and without your help, the site could not exist either.

rgds
wageslave (personal capacity)

by Sharon. - Individual. Sat Oct 01, 2011 11:53

Hi !

" Its completely up to the public to make an "open publishing" site work. If we aren't getting any articles then the site won't be any good. If good people get out there and start writing about stuff they care about then the site will be good.......Indymedia will only work if YOU the public get out there and write about what YOU care about and stop being passive expecting someone else always to do your thinking and represent your views adequately. Be the change you want to see in the world. Write the article you think should be up on this site.........
To clarify:
WE DON'T WRITE THE STORIES, THE PUBLIC DO! ;-)
If you think a story should be written then YOU SHOULD WRITE IT!
We'll give you a place to post it here with minimal hurdles, we'll keep it available on the internet for the public to read and reference and we'll do our best to minimise any abuses in the comments while trying to stay fair to everyone as best we can.
rgds
wageslave(personal capacity) "

Well said !
An example of the above can be seen here -
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/94845
- an on-going 'story' concerning a group of low-paid workers who have been practically abandoned by their employer and their trade union. 'Indymedia' have been good enough to give me a platform to highlight same - for almost two years now - a facility which the two local newspapers will not extend (the employer concerned has deep pockets and advertises on a regular basis with both newspapers) and , whilst the issue has not yet been resolved , both the employer and the union concerned are aware that their actions are being monitored.

'Indymedia' and those that regulate it have their faults , and I have had my disagreements with them over the years but , overall , my experience here has been positive - and the platform offered has been invaluable.
Long may it last !
Thanks,
Sharon.

by wageslave Sat Oct 01, 2011 19:13

Thanks Sharon You are too kind. And may I say I personally think you have been a great regular contributor of material to this site over the years. Always courteous no matter what and actively promoting events and providing interesting information that the public may not get elsewhere. Thats really what it's all about and Its good people like yourself that make this site worthwhile to work on. Best of luck

rgds
wageslave (personal capacity)

by tomeile Sat Oct 01, 2011 19:23

Event notices such as the one that Sharon linked to above are fine , and indymedia does a good job by allowing activists publicize their meetings , marches etc. One person from a group can easily post an event notice , press release, opinions without any problem.

But Indymedia is- or should primirally be - a news site .Creating a news article is a different matter to posting a notice . Anybody who has ever worked in the media will tell you that reporting news stories accurately involves cooperation and collaboration across a range of skills.

Indymedia began over ten years ago with the mass anti-globalization movement in Seatle .The new site was never intended to be simply a tabla rasa where « members of the public » could rattle on about whatever they liked , with a band of remote ,non-contributing editors who had no connection to the people who were posting to the site . It started off as an organising tool of committed, involved , left wing political activists whose collective aim was to expose the corporate agenda of the WTO and counter the lies of the corporate media . To those ends activists set up an Indymedia Center which helped coordinate written , video , audio , film medias.

Indymedia Ireland doesn't take on any of that cordinating work .I hope that tomorrow's meeting will look to changing that situation . There should in my opinion be regular meetings of those wanting to collaborate in bringing out news stories for the site , with ad hoc as well as more formal indymedia user groups set up to cover the news : industrial reporting , reports from communities , reports of council meetings, demonstrations etc.

I would like most of all to see indymedia outreaching to communities and workplaces . The principal of "making the news and reporting it "is a good rallying cry, but in my opinion the concept leaves out in the cold many many people in Ireland with important things to report , who have writing difficulties or who do not feel confidant enough to write a news report. A local reporting group could offer such people a sub-editing service for indymedia ireland articles.College departments with journalism courses might be approached to help out.

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Sun Oct 02, 2011 14:42

A little off topic but I'll try to answer.

In light of the mark stone affair, the degree of paid clandestine activity of state actors against legitimate protesters is a legitimate source of worry.

We don't store any IP information at indymedia.ie. If they take down / infiltrate our server, they'll get nothing useful about our contributors that they don't already have.

We do have a facility to temporarily turn on IP logging for a short period to unmask trolls or sock puppets but it's off by default and when occasionally it does need to be turned on, all logs are securely flushed by an automatic process after the requested time. The logging request itself is logged of course, and use of the facility is flagged to all other editors and is not really encouraged!. Using this limited facility would be a very noticeable and very hit and miss kind of monitoring process!! Encrypting this IP traffic would not add much extra security. What if the cop was the guy managing the encrypted IPs? It still comes down to other editors noticing suspicious use patterns. And we are all made very aware of each others use of the IP monitor facility by the system.

There is really very little useful extra data available to anyone by becoming an editor here that cannot be gotten elsewhere by easier means. Most of our activities are reflected by automated posts to the internal email lists. These can be joined and monitored by anyone. The idea that a person working on the site could be compromised is assumed and the protection method is ultimately "it doesn't actually matter much". (Although in order to become an editor , your activity on the site over a suitable period of time IS monitored by other editors.)

dynamic IP addresses can be cycled easily if anyone is worried about posting here. Also wipe all your cookies. In fact, doing both frequently is always a good idea anyway when using the internet. I also recommend using HTTPS to access this (and other) site/s for extra security rather than HTTP
i.e. https://www.indymedia.ie/ The site certificate will trigger a warning because we made it ourselves so the government can't decrypt your https traffic by asking a corporate certificate vendor for our cert.(thus maybe with a LOT of technical hassle, piece together what articles you are reading here)

The fact is, If they want to get you, they won't do so through indymedia editors. They'll do it through your facebook/google/your ISP and your mobile provider, all of whom retain long term info about your surfing habits and all of your emails / texts and also track you insidiously around the internet through cookies, spyware, gps or signal triangulation and other methods.. (we've had posts about all this on indy before. check out http://www.digitalrights.ie/ for more info)

Becoming a moderator on Indymedia by comparison is a pretty useless way for the powers that be to get information on you and they would have to do a lot of annoying moderation work to get it.

Essentially, if one of the editors is currently a policeman then I'd like to say "thanks a lot for subsidising indymedia" to whoever employs them!! ;-)

We retain no information on you Tom. Except what you voluntarily post on the threads yourself and anyone can read that. I presume "tomeile" is not your real name! ;-)

Are you thinking of joining us? If so go to the link I provided previously and read about the procedure. Basically just start helping out on the lists and on the site. We don't really mind, even if you ARE a cop! we're an equal opportunities employer. Pay really sucks though! ;-)

Say hello to the sergeant for me, tell him I've found out nothing he didn't already know and ask him when I can stop having to give all my available free time to reading stuff written by these lefty anarchist hippies, and hiding stuff the boys write. I want my truncheon and my old life back! ;-)

by Seán Ryan Sun Oct 02, 2011 16:04

I couldn't attend today's meeting so here's my two cents.

Folks who are temporarily or permanently banned have their IP addresses logged and published on the internal Indymedia lists.

Moderators who hide posts for 'playing the player' frequently 'play the player' themselves when describing the reason for the hide - hypocrisy and a double standard. The guidelines apparently don't apply to mods and for that matter, the guidelines that do apply to mods are frequently ignored: mods modding threads that they're participating in and the three month rule, whereby an inactive mod is considered to have resigned - to name but two.

Folks who come to the attention of the mods, on the internal list, for whatever reason, end up on perpetual moderation on the lists themselves, whereby their postings are not published. Seldom if ever, is a reason for this given, much less published.

Indymedia is a valuable and an historical archive. At the start of Indymedia's downward spiral into decline and irrelevance a few years back, Chekov the then leader of the clique, headed up a program to ensure that Indymedia only published quality and well written material. In other words if you had a poor level of literacy, you weren't welcome on Indymedia (Get yourself a blog!). Chekov promised, upon his resignation to work on new software and a formula to facilitate this. He then up and disappeared and for the most part, hasn't been seen since.

Because the moderators were cliquish, though not so much these days, and the fact that contributors, who were once allowed to vote on issues, were marginalised, Indymedia became a classic example of a 'them and us' loggerhead. This has not been resolved despite some new mods, who are for the most part, pretty easy going, having been brought into the fold. The mod pool is so small these days and silly internal spats so intense, that there is no clique as such. But there's no new blood!

The constant excuse pedalled for ignoring requests and issues on the list is that the mods are volunteers. It's a great excuse that allows one to ignore anything one wants to ignore. It never seems to dawn that all contributors are volunteers. The once vibrant lists that drove the project have become slow and sparse, showing that the project is in terminal decline. This is a real pity!

Yeah, I'm a negative bastard! I can live with it. But I'm not beyond seeing a way out of this. The "I'm a volunteer" shite must go. Mods should do regular cycles and have responsibility to ensure that all reasonable queries are answered. The volunteer aspect could fuel mods to put their names into empty slots on the roster. Regular contributors should be invited to join the collective and be given an equal vote on all issues. Whether they wish to go on to become mods, is neither here nor there.

Finally, a lot of material is quite poorly written. I never argued that this wasn't the case, some of my own contributions most certainly included. I argued at the time that the solution to this was not to turf these writers out, but for mods to edit material, to tidy it up and to make it more readable. Despite the intent to rid itself of the lesser writers, it never really materialised beyond what fuelled the dilemma to begin with. Things have improved somewhat with the addition of the ability to edit one's work for a short while after publication. Unfortunately, if the skills don't exist to edit in the first place, this new and welcome feature won't solve the problem. To me, Indymedia has become like a stale marriage. Nothing new happens and folks push each others buttons out of boredom. And on and on this goes until a vital project suffers heat death.

by Sharon. - Individual. Sun Oct 02, 2011 22:03

Hi !

" Many thanks Sharon
by wageslave Sat Oct 01, 2011 19:13
Thanks Sharon You are too kind. And may I say I personally think you have been a great regular contributor of material to this site over the years. Always courteous no matter what and actively promoting events and providing interesting information that the public may not get elsewhere. Thats really what it's all about and Its good people like yourself that make this site worthwhile to work on. Best of luck
rgds
wageslave (personal capacity)"

Thank You for that - appreciated !
Some others that contribute obviously view 'Indymedia' differently than I do : I think it's due to on-going censorship of the Irish Republican point-of-view elsewhere that I am grateful to have a venue like this to notify readers about up-coming events and , if they want, enter into a discussion with them and/or others re same.
At the risk of sounding 'shallow' , this Site offers a welcome mix between 'Notice Board' and 'Discussion Venue' and I , for one , am happy enough with that !
Thanks,
Sharon.

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Mon Oct 03, 2011 00:50

Sean

Thanks for your post.
I think you make some insightful comments about a few of the problems that still exist in our moderator culture and the 3 month rule, email list moderation accountability etc. I would agree with many of them unfortunately. And I don't have the answers. Though I think we have made some progress for the better, we still do have the remnants of a somewhat unhealthy culture here and further changes are definitely needed to that culture if the project is to survive and have any hope of future growth.

Yes you are right and I forgot to mention that there are still a few banned posters on an internal list who do have an IP address associated with them if banned on the basis of their IP address. However currently bans now only last for a short period of time and must be renewed again if necessary. I believe there is still a little cultural inertia in this particular area and it's problematic but I'm personally trying to work on it. ;-)

Currently only a very few people are on a permanent ban at this stage I think. They are mostly vestigial and date from before the recent changes to the ban length maximum limits. They have long since cycled their IP addresses I expect!. A clearout is in order here in the near future I expect.

A point that is also significant, perhaps more so, is that when a ban occurs (and I think it happens less often these days), an email is sent to the list containing the IP address. This was indeed a security oversight and to his credit, terence has, as of now taken it upon himself to rectify this once and for all. He says that It should no longer happen as of now. So something concrete and positive has already come of this topic being discussed. Thanks again for bringing it up.

(Actually the obvious fact is that indymedia can't really ban anyone from posting!)

Regarding the "im a volunteer" stuff, it IS genuine.
The fact is, there are 7 officially active moderators of which 3-4 would be regular at any one time. I'd estimate These 3-4 would log in for maybe an hour or so maybe every second day on average. So that makes about 2 hours per day of time available to do everything necessary on the site. Get real if you think we can do all everyone thinks we should be doing in that time. We can barely keep on top of removing the worst excesses of the trolls!

As for cycling mods, well, only if someone donates a few decent bikes I think! ;-)
Seriously though, if a few more join then personally I'll be happy to step down from this largely thankless task to make way for them if they consider i'm in their way and if we have enough other folks on board to afford that luxury. But the sad fact is lots of people think we should be doing x, y and z but in all the time I have been here (several years), barely even a handful (3 i think) of people have even expressed an interest in becoming moderators to do all this stuff and of those handful, so far none have followed up on their initial query despite receiving an enthusiastic email reply welcoming their interest and telling them about what the job entails. (and its usually a really nice welcoming email. I know this because I have actually composed it once or twice!). The real problem, and not just on indymedia, is lack of participation.

Increasingly, everyone seems to expect other people to do everything for them these days. write their articles, run their country, fight their ethical battles etc. I think maybe a certain passivity and inertia has seeped deeply into people's bones in the last few years. This site has suffered as a result of some of its own issues but also because of these and other changes in society at large. I think also to some extent people were deceived by the illusions of the celtic tiger and the idea of a site like this full of activists and anarchists became somewhat "unfashionable". But the world continued to work as it always did and now its ugly reality is again beginning to dawn on people.

With a few notable exceptions, FF, FG privatisers, warmongers and EU/IMF/Banking financial terrorists have been getting things largely all their own way for the last while. I do hope the wall street protests and the example of Egypt, Spain etc eventually start to inspire and wake people up over here some time soon. There is a lot of shit coming down the line. Indymedia needs to be available in case its services are required.

On a practical note, perhaps you might even consider being more helpful and active around here yourself Sean? There is plenty more that could be done as a member on the lists and on the site to spread the work around a little. Its easy to be negative. Surely your long experience with the site should not be let go to waste?. Your efforts would certainly be most welcome at this time.

Meanwhile, thanks again for your insightful comments

rgds
wageslave

by Seán Ryan Mon Oct 03, 2011 04:11

I take your point about the "I'm a volunteer." There just aren't enough hours in the day. I truly get that!

But it still leaves a massive problem, without an end in sight. Good relations are the key to growth. If mods are too few in number to go beyond the general, but essential, cleaning and disinfecting, then the building of bridges cannot happen and it's just a matter of time until the site dies as the mods get burnt out, one by one.

Maybe there's a solution. And you've already pointed to it. A forum! With a bit of restructuring of how the site works, things could become a lot more efficient, with a lot of the burden taken from yourselves. I'd see it as follows:

i. Set up the main site so that no comments can be posted on the articles.
ii. Have the forum split into two main categories: (a). A general forum for chat not necessarily related to content on the newswire. Here, contributors could get to know each other, you get to know them and the sniffing out of new articles, etc. could happen. (b). A forum directly connected to the newswire. When an article is published, it also starts a new thread on this forum, where contributors could engage in chat about the article and possibly introduce new material. From this forum, authors and mods could copy worthwhile comments and add them as comments into the article in the newswire.

The guidelines etc. would need a major overhaul, but overall, modding would become much easier, the quality of material on the newswire would improve dramatically and not descent into bickering with gems well hidden in the shite, and most importantly, Indymedia.ie would once again become the trendsetter by becoming a hub of communication that would also facilitate revitalising the mod pool.

As for myself participating in the lists - lmao, I can only imagine the flurry of emails that you probably got following that suggestion! The collective disassociated itself from myself around the time you were becoming a mod. My relationship with the collective has never been an easy one. I reckon my participation might cause more trouble than any good it might accomplish.

I know that being a mod on Indy can be hard and unthankful. When I was asked (a long time back) if I wanted to be a mod I answered that I didn't. I figured that I was a better writer than a potential moderator and that being both would take from my credibility as a writer on the site who was capable of defending what he wrote without having to resort to moderating troublesome folk who might otherwise rebut my material. Sometimes I regret that decision. But mostly, I think I did the right thing. Moderating, for the most part, is extremely thankless. And for every "you guys are brilliant" letter you'll get there'll be a thousand or more screaming for your head. It's pretty hard to ignore this, but if you've a clean conscience (and I'm not for a moment suggesting that you don't), then it's better to realise it's not personal, or at least treat it that way...

Anyhow, there's not much point in me taking up space with melodrama :) so I'll leave it at that. Good luck and keep the faith!

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Mon Oct 03, 2011 05:59

Sean

nobody has sent me any negative emails about this. You were just being candid and you made some useful observations and some good points that need to be considered. This thread was not set up as window dressing but as an attempt to get some genuine feedback. And we are not going to shy away from it.
Keep it coming.

Maybe the time is ripe to mend some fences around here. The fact is things HAVE changed somewhat from the old days. The behaviour of this collective is qualitatively not the same as it was. I think that should be becoming clear by now.

As you observed yourself, there are no longer really any cliques. I think the people currently here are open to change. And I don't think we can afford any longer the luxury of holding grudges or perpetuating old feuds with people who at the end of the day want pretty much the same things to happen in society. As long as the opposition (us) is fighting with itself the right have a free rein to consolidate their power and make their money while destroying our living and working standards, environment and civil liberties.

The issues people fell out over in the past pale compared to the huge issues facing us all today. The wall street protests are an indication that maybe people are ready to stand up for themselves again. So Instead of fighting among ourselves we need to put that energy into trying to find ways of working together again.

The BBS does seem to be a good practical idea. Several people have already suggested this independently. I would like to see this idea looked at very seriously.

we really need to work at building up our community again.

all the best
wageslave

by Laurence Mon Oct 03, 2011 17:34

Attended a poorly supported meeting last night and found the five Indymedia people there open and welcoming.

It was a very frank and yet congenial constructive discussion.

Some of the points made below where made at the meeting and some were not. Indy, despite its current difficulties is in my opinion far too important to be allowed to drift into oblivion.

Indymedia is mainstream media in the sense that it sees its role as influencing public opinion. A 15 minute review of the database will prove this beyond shadow of doubt to any reasonable person.

Indymedia editing policy is capricious and dishonest, editors often use pretexts to censor with impunity opinions which they don't approve.

Pretexts used include “Unsubstantiated” , “bumping the thread”, “bbchat” , “trolling” , “derailing the thread”, and the old favourite “abuse” as well as many many more besides.

The Indymedia troll is a demonic character. He is everywhere, he is devious he is cunning. He causes obstruction and problems, and needs to be removed from the sight of men and women lest he infest them with his contagion. He is Al-quada and the Bernstein all round into one.

Any profound criticism of the heroes or talk which is outside the filters requires a turning on of the editorial spotlight, and then by Gob he better not put a word out of place! If he/she does we trash the comment as quick as you can say Jack Robinson.

Strident debate is not allowed, it disrupts the comfort zones of the heroes, discussing things that should not be discussed in public, taking elephants out of rooms.

Indymedia editors seem to believe that a core function of the site is to be a promotion vehicle for left wing campaigns or a solidarity vehicle for left wing campaigns. Indymedia editors cant deal with “flak” any more than the Irish Times guys can can. The flak comes from different people that is all.

Indymedia is an isolated bunch with no real access or connection with the outside world. This is one core problem. Indymedias problems are structural , they cant be solved by cosmetic fixes , technical or otherwise.

The project requires a fundemantal reappraisal and relaunch. Other than that it will stay where it is, on death row.

It's is unfortunatly an example of mission drift and at the moment anyway of failure, but that can change.

The indymedia which was set up bears no relation to the Indymedia we have now.

Certain editors have political affiliations with organisations who never practise open publishing and who have a record of showing contempt for the whole concept.

This would not matter if the record showed that the editors in question where prepared to follow the ethos and founding principles of of the project, but the record shows that that's far from being the case. The editors in question ignore that ethos and instead enthusiastically filter content to meet the norms of the propaganda model of news.

The simple notion, common to any organisation that all members must adhere to the aims and objectives and ethos of that organisation seem to have been abandoned.

Instead of being a jealous advocate of the aims and objectives for which it was founded, it seeks to defend the interests of external organisations. Doing so has left in no-mans land. It abandoned it highly successful open model and drifted into the main stream model. It is now a little bit of both, but is good at neither and is abandoned by supporters of both.

by peter Tue Oct 04, 2011 00:48

Your stated guidelines are fair. They are also very sensible. They are also totally ignored by your moderators.

Your real policy is that everything that disagrees with the political sensibilities of the people who control Indymedia is ruthlessly excised. Given that this is the consistent practice of all your moderators leads to the inescapable conclusion that censorship, not on your stated guidelines, but on political content is a conscious decision imposed by the people who controle this website. It is a policy which is a million miles away from the liberal and radical ethos of Indymedia.org - which presumably doesn't realize that its Irish offshoot has fallen into the hands of a rigid and reactionary illiberal orthodoxy. The situation has become so bad that the censored comment on certain topics (The Mayo pipeline comes to mind) hugely outweighs what is allowed appear.



Indymedia needs to grow up. It also needs to have the integrety to either abide by its own guidelines, or have the guts to openly replace them with the ugly and censorious policy which it really operates.

Thank you.

Peter Morehan

by wageslave Tue Oct 04, 2011 12:22

I would like to publicly dissociate myself from some of the decisions and actions of some other moderators on this particular thread.

rgds
wageslave

by pat c Tue Oct 04, 2011 12:34

It was agreed that guidelines would be loosened. No vote was take on what this meant. Three mods said that abuse should be hidden right away. So far two mods have disagreed with your interpretation of what was decided.

I should not have to deal with generalised abuse and I won't.

If anyone wants to cite specific actions and criticise those then I would be happy to engage in debate.

Remember: don't feed the trolls.

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Tue Oct 04, 2011 13:27

This thread started out as a constructive attempt to openly seek candid observations about what was wrong and right about moderation policy on this site and suggestions as to how we could improve on the current scenario. It was going well for a while and we were getting some good constructive. feedback

Perhaps we can try to go back to doing that? this current nonsense is not constructive. Tomeile, Pat.

It is clear to me and everyone else that neither of you have the best interests of this site as your first priority if you are willing to engage in the kind of behaviour you are both engaging in here.

Tomeile: No more needling please. You are completely devaluing anything constructive you may have had to say thus far by doing this.

Pat: I would like to politely request that you agree not to moderate on this thread any further. If there are any serious transgressions then I'm sure one of the other moderators will agree to act.

Now please everybody, lets put the good of this site before any further pettiness and try to resume this discussion like adults.

Thank you

wageslave (personal capacity)

by pat c Tue Oct 04, 2011 13:33

I don't have to accept generalised abuse and I certainly don't have to accept homophobic abuse.

I have made it clear that I will debate specific actions as a mod that anyone disagrees with.

Wage Slave your view of how this thread should be run was not accepted by the other mods.

You are not in a position to tell any mod what to do.

At the moment you are just giving comfort to the troll who refuses to cite specific actions that hye disagrees with.

His actions are trolling, pure and simple.

by I am NOT 'tomelie' Tue Oct 04, 2011 13:45

hard though it may be for some people to believe there are several people complaining about the attitude of the censor concerned

That he had to lock the thread in order to stifle criticism says it all really - that he also invented a claim that he has been subject to 'homophobic abuse' is but one example of the lengths this individual will go to in order to silence those he disagrees with.

In the past month alone I have seen this individual delete links to
1) Scientific papers from threads about Global Warming
2) Factual News reports from threads about libya

these are just 2 examples of the many many times he has ignored the site rules in order to censor evidence which contradicts his preferred narrative on these two subjects. There are many many other example, far too numerous to mention

If Indymedia refuses to rein in this individual then the site is effectively off limits to anyone with an understanding of what is meant by the words "ethgics" "honesty" "fairness" and "open discussion"

by pat c Tue Oct 04, 2011 13:48

Please identify the hidden comments so that I can either defend my actions or admit that you were right.

by pat c Tue Oct 04, 2011 13:50

I accept that you didn't post the homophobic remarks. That was likely someone who has a noted aversion to Peter Tatchell.

by @pat c Tue Oct 04, 2011 13:53

Pat I'm not going to go digging back through hundreds of comments and deletions just so you can now pretend that you have stuck to the site rules when deleting things here - lot's of people know you haven't - you know it yourself

by @Pat C Tue Oct 04, 2011 13:55

when you continue deleting comments such as the last one you deleted

That the irony of this escapes you is obvious, and a source of amusement to many I'm sure

by pat c Tue Oct 04, 2011 14:04

How can I respond if you wont give specific examples?

But looking at Nato slaughtering in Tripoli thread
https://www.indymedia.ie/article/100382

I hid comments there because a vid was posted from an anti-semitic site. I hid comments because the same person was posting as FFS and TRO and backing each other up. I hid comments because a poster was being smeared as an imperialist on no evidence whatsoever.

I will respond to any further specific examples you wish to raise.

by tsk tsk Tue Oct 04, 2011 14:10

I have briefly reviewed every comment you have deleted in this thread in the past 2 days and can see no 'homophobic abuse' in ANY of them - could you please quote the specific 'homophobic abuse' and title, date-of-posting and author of the comment please - because I cannot see it anywhere.

Or did you just invent the claim of 'homophobic abuse' so as to delete a comment from someone you do not like?

Because that is exactly what it looks like

by pat c Tue Oct 04, 2011 14:10

I cant find the thread you mean.

Is it this? The story was hidden as conspiracy.

Prince Philip, the WWF and the Benedictine conspiracy

international / miscellaneous / opinion/analysis Sunday February 27, 2011 18:48 by Erasmus
Beyond the very real problem of stupidity and ignorance, most of us fail recognizing the crux of the matter respecting the real motives that brings our contemporaries, including many youth, to drop the idea of progress. That motive is not the result of ignorance, but of a powerful comeback, dissimulated behind a green mask, of a pseudo-spirituality of a feudal nature

by pat c Tue Oct 04, 2011 14:14

It was hidden by Terence, posted by Indymedia get a solicitor.

by wageslave Tue Oct 04, 2011 14:29

Clearly we are unlikely to get anything else constructive out of this thread at this time

I'd like to thank those of you who participated and actually made honest attempts to highlight problems and make constructive suggestions.

I will make whatever efforts I can to have those observations and points discussed and hopefully addressed.

all the best
wageslave

[ thread has been temporarily suspended by wageslave until further notice ]

by wageslave Wed Oct 05, 2011 06:37

[thread now reopened for further constructive commentary.]
Please try to play nice ok?
Moderation is loosened but there are limits.

by peter Wed Oct 05, 2011 21:21

Having had my previous contribution censored in complete disregard of Indymedia's own published guidelines, I again participate in the hope that a free debate will be allowed this time.

1. Indymedia is of no value as a voice for anyone unless it has honesty and integrety. Publishing guidelines (Which in themselves are perfectly fair and reasonable) and then blatently and consistently ignoring those guidelines is to disrespect your contributors and undermine your own integrety. Indymedia contributors are not fools. The obvious fact that Indymedia disregards its own published guidelines is a thread which ran through the many constructive contributions to this debate before it was summarily closed. In an self-ironic and Orwellian exercise, most of the constructive contributions that made this point were then excised from the record. So much for inviting constructive debate and "loosening" the thread. How can Indymedia claim respect when it appears to have so little self-respect for its own stated values?

2. Indymedia censorship is becoming evermore paranoid and excessive. It is no exaggeration to say that almost anything that offends the political orthodoxy of the people who control Indymedia.ie will be censored. Respectful and constructive comment which even questions the analysis and methods of the groups Indymedia promotes is always excised. I would hope that this debate will lead to a less paranoid and restrictive policy, and a more healthy and adult, exchange of views.

3. A constant thread through the debate is lack of consistency in moderation. The general feeling is that while all the moderators display excessive zeal for their task, some are completely out of control.

4. If Indymedia really considers that its function is to promote the views of a narrow orthodoxy rather than radical debate, it should at least have the honesty and integrety to amend its guidelines to express the policy it actually applies. People who want lively, honest, debate about radical social, political, and economic issues could then go elsewhere for participative exchange of views.

A closing thought made respectfully and constructively:- Indymedia participates in the realm of political power. Its purpose is to provide a forum for challenging orthodoxies and entrenched power-structures which militate against wider and more democratic ideas of freedom. However, it is freedom of expresssion which enables all orthodoxies to be challenged. Now, ask yourself, if by some great event the people whom Indymedia.ie has allowed moderate this site found themselves in a position of power, would you trust them to protect freedom of expression given their record? This is a very relevant question when you consider how reluctant people in liberal democracies are to vote for radical leftwing candidates. Is it because they believe that their basic freedoms might be even less secure with such people in power?

I look forward to a healthy and constructive debate, and hopfully a more honest and liberal moderation regime. Indymedia owes it to itself and its constituency.

Yours respectfully,

Peter Morahan

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Wed Oct 05, 2011 22:13

Peter

Thank you for taking the time to post. Again, some good points that need to be considered. Believe it or not some of us here are thinking along similar lines about what you say. We do have too much power and an individual moderator can sometimes overdo it and there is little others can do about it if it happens except watch on in horror. Ironically this thread is a bit of a case in point.

However it is not fair to tar us all with the same brush. The fact is we are not all in agreement at all about things that happen around here.

Anyway I won't say too much more except that changes may be afoot to lessen the powers of individual moderators here. This can only be an improvement on the current situation IMHO.

Ideas to improve the current situation that have been suggested(ahem!) include multi vote hiding and regular confidence voting on moderators.

multi vote hiding means that no one moderator can hide posts unilaterally. Moderator confidence Voting means a moderator has to be seen to be doing a consistently fair job by others or they stand to automatically lose the power to hide posts.

Anyone any thoughts on this approach?

thanks again for your post peter. sorry the first one was not allowed (wasn't me!)

rgds
wageslave

by Contrarian Thu Oct 06, 2011 00:13

Firstly, can I say that I actually like this site. I totally support the idea of alternative, independent media and it can only be to the benefit of society as a whole to have as wide and diverse range of opinions as possible given a platform and exposure that cannot always be found in commercial and/or state-owned media. I am not opposed to commercial or state-owned media per se, but I believe there can and should be a space for an alternative. I am not of the ultra left or anarchist persuasion but neither am I a raving right winger. Among the “normal” population at large I’d be centre or even slightly left of centre. I would vote Labour but not ULA. I am an active trade union member and have been for many years. I would regard myself as a Social Democrat and would admire societies such as Sweden and Finland. I believe that capitalism with appropriate controls and regulation is the best way of optimizing the greater good. I believe that on balance the US has been a force for good in the world. Without it all of Europe from the 1940’s onwards would have been firmly in the grip of either a Nazi or a Stalinist dictatorship. I am on balance a supporter of Israel, though I can readily accept both it and the US are far from perfect. Neither are they the villains complained of so loudly here.

I also appreciate that you guys are volunteers and that editing a site such as this and removing the crud is a time consuming task. Because of this, I have carefully studied the site guidelines and I always try to make sure my posts conform to them. Despite this, I find that a considerable number of my posts do get deleted.

I am well aware that my posts, and my political views, do not conform to the general consensus viewpoint on Indymedia, particularly relating to Israel and the USA. However, holding and expressing dissenting political views is hardly a valid reason for having my posts deleted. I try to post well-written, well-reasoned comments that challenge the general consensus and show that there is another way of looking at things. I adhere to the posting guidelines, I am invariably polite and respectful of other posters (although the same courtesy is not generally returned) and I don't "play the man." I only ask that the editorial guidelines are applied consistently to my posts as to other posts.

As I said above, I do try to conform to the posting guidelines - in fact because I know my posts seem to come in for particular scrutiny, I bend over backwards to try to conform. But the deletions continue. Often for the flimsiest reasons and for reasons that blatantly are not applied to other posters who express opinions more in tune with the general consensus. I'm simply looking for basic fairness and an equality of standards in applying the posting guidelines. All too often, my posts (and others that don't conform to the anti-US, anti-Israel consensus) get deleted with reasons such as "troll", "zionist trolling", "Israeli propaganda" "BB chat", "derailing thread", “unsubstantiated assertion” etc., etc. Or most bizarrely of all, "not news or info" - after all, comments are comments and surely are not expected to be either news or info! However, the "not news or info" reason, which appears nowhere in the posting guidelines, seems to be used as a catch-all excuse by moderators to delete viewpoints of which they do not approve.

Clearly, there are written editorial guidelines and then there are the unwritten ones. The unwritten ones are discoverable by carefully examining the record of deletions. They are even more starkly apparent when one examines the editorial list. Some basic reading between the lines is necessary.

The unwritten rules say that any pro-US or, even worse, pro-Israel comments are unwelcome. Other unwelcome posts are anything remotely critical of Shell-to-Sea or anything supportive of the moderate left (ie the Labour party, Trade Unions, ICTU) It appears that the list of unwelcome comments has recently been joined by anything remotely questioning the AGW hypothesis.

The unwritten rules state that unwelcome comments are subject to different (and of course far stricter) standards of moderation than comments that conform to the Indy consensus.

(An interesting exception to the above is criticism of the stalinist or authoritarian hard left. Surprisingly, this is ok. Very severe criticism is "allowed" and blatant off the ball playing the man raises not an editorial eyebrow even though it clearly breaks editorial guidelines. Presumably this reflects the anarchist/WSM influence on Indymedia.)

The Indy collective does not encourage engagement around the issue of moderation. (Apart of course from this thread itself and even then, well, we know what happened yesterday!) In normal circumstances no editorial comment of any sort is tolerated on the newswire itself. Then there is the editorial list. At first glance, this looks promising. The Publishing Guide on the Indymedia site itself suggests that involvement in the editorial list is welcome: "Anybody can take part in discussions about editorial policy..." Sounds great. The reality is somewhat different. First of all, the process of joining the list is clunky and not terribly user-friendly. This ensures that those dissenters who make it as far as the list are few and far between. Those who do make it that far often tend to be a little frustrated at the treatment their comments have received and may be a little, ah, intemperate in their postings on the editorial list. (A good example of this was the Act for Palestine thread) Thus they can easily be dismissed as cranks. Those dissenters who avoid this trap encounter some standard tactics in response. (I can give you chapter and verse - I've had it all) They can get a dismissive response that ignores the issues raised. They will be told that the moderators are volunteers who don't have time to deal with complaints. Their motives will be questioned. They will be accused of not acting in the interests of the site. If they persist they are labelled right wing propagandists, zionist hasbara merchants, US apologists or even undercover cops! If they still persist and continue to question the collective decisions they may be entirely ignored. Or told to stop wasting the collective’s time. Or threatened with a “list ban” whatever that is.

Occasionally, a moderator on the editorial list expresses some slight unease about the level of censorship. Sometimes the link is even made between the ever-increasing level of censorship and the declining userbase of Indymedia. When this happens, there is invariably a swift response from the rest of the collective and any tentative signs of dissent from the party line is stamped out. In a very collective, non-hierarchical way, of course. Curious, how the instinct to exercise control wins out over openness and encouragement of free and open debate every time. Seems to be a blind spot of those who self-describe as left wing.

I therefore welcome the current initiative to solicit views on the moderation of Indymedia. I think there are three basic options open for future direction.

1. Actually implement the existing guidelines in a fair and impartial manner
2. Amend the official guidelines to reflect current moderating practice ie no pro-US, pro-Israel, anti Shell-to-Sea or anti-AGW hypothesis comments allowed.
3. Continue the current system whereby mods ignore the guidelines and censor or allow posts based on their own political beliefs.

The choice seems obvious, does it not?

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Thu Oct 06, 2011 01:41

contrarian

Thanks for your post. Some worthwhile observations

I'm not saying you have done so here, but several posters on this site try to turn many threads into pro or anti zionist tit for tat.

I would like to state clearly now in advance that if this kind of "monkey business" starts to happen with this particular thread, I will have little option but to give up in despair and lock the thread again.
Fair warning?

This thread is not about pushing a particular viewpoint but getting public feedback on the general moderation issues on the site.

Contrarian, I think you have restrained yourself here somewhat and been fairly polite and constructive so thanks for that. I'll consider your points, some of which are very valid.

Your post brings up a difficult area which I would like some feedback from site users/readers/posters about. What to do about deliberate propaganda and underhand rhetoric from people who, over time we know exactly what they are up to.

Indymedia has a certain class of posters we refer to as hasbara and astroturfing (false grass roots support). These people exist widely on the internet as paid or unpaid volunteers to press particular viewpoints on prominent internet sites. They are quite systematic about it too. A recent revelation as to the true depth of funding for "information warfare" by the guardian newspaper is quite unsettling.

The approach is to use underhand rhetorical tricks to win arguments, muddy the waters and persuade ill equipped readers to become unsure on ethical questions that they really should be more sure about.

It's dishonest in the extreme. However our guidelines do not allow for this kind of clever ideologically driven systematic kind of poster. Threads relating to Israel are particularly prone to these kind of posters. It is a fact that software was developed by Israel to help mobilise and organise an army of people like this and allegedly a handbook of techniques was even published on the internet to facilitate the process of systematic rhetorical persuasion or derailing on internet fora when views against the interests of Israel were expressed.

How can we deal with this kind of poster on a site like this? Well, if the public respond robustly to the rhetoric, refute it adequately and do not drown in the reams of not quite right assertions etc , and are not drawn by subsequent ad hominem designed to derail further rational discussion then we ideally do not need to intervene at all. However if they don't then we face a dilemma. Do we leave it up when it is clearly propaganda and we don't actually have the resources to write a refutation ourselves?

It seems to me that leaving such dishonest material up makes us nothing more than an unpaid repeater of propaganda, designed to undermine the rights of disadvataged people such as the palestinians.

Do people have any good suggestions as to how a site like this should deal with this kind of behaviour other than occasionally hiding it. Its a difficult issue.

We have a "no platform" for fascists. Should we adopt a "no platform" approach for other organised propagandists or should we just leave this kind of insidious propaganda up to do its dirty work convincing people of untruths and helping to further the aims of people like zionists who do not care about the human rights of others in their pursuit of their own selfish ends?

This is the dilemma of "free speech"
Those more organised and with more resources tend to hijack and dominate the available resources that are used to speak and persuade. Should people like us just stand by and let them or should we "regulate" the speech so such people have no such advantages here? And what happens if we just stand back. Is the result truly free speech?

Personally I don't wish to volunteer my time to provide a free platform to repeat right wing propaganda from people who already have more than their fair share of media at their disposal.

How would other people suggest we approach this issue?

*contrarian, sorry if I went off on a bit of a tangent. I have read your post and will of course consider your points along with all the others. thanks again for taking the time to post

by W. Finnerty Thu Oct 06, 2011 07:20

Why not provide facilities for the moderators to publicly express their concerns about articles and comments which they genuinely feel the public needs to be warned about? That way, the public could be alerted to all the perceived worries of the moderators, and, at the same time, be allowed to read the related article or comment so that they can judge for themselves whether the moderators concerns are justified or not.

When articles and comments are completely deleted (frequently with vague associated comments such as "bb chat, or "trying to bump old thread", then it is often completely impossible for site visitors to judge whether the actions of the moderators were responsible and reasonable, or not: for the very simple reason that site visitors have no easy access to the deleted article or comment the moderator is referring to.

I believe that very last thing the vast majority of us all want, is to have moderators arrogantly doing all of our thinking for us: when many of us believe we are perfectly capable of using our own brains, on our own behalf, for ourselves.

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Thu Oct 06, 2011 09:34

Hi William

Thanks for your post. Thats an interesting suggestion. A bit like wikipedia where they tack on a moderator comment saying why they have a problem with the comment but leaving it there. Hmm... ok. That might be good for the posts we think are full of propaganda yes.

Open personal abuse is not allowed on wikipedia at all of course. We attract quite a lot of that here. Other IMC sites have taken the position of allowing everything even the abuse and have suffered from a bad signal to noise ratio.

Perhaps we could replace an abusive comment with a direct link to the comment in the archive which can just be clicked on if anyone actually wants to read it. This would make finding the abusive post trivial but would still remove it from the newswire so it's not derailing the discussion and making people hot under the collar (sometimes the objective!)

How does that sound?

by W. Finnerty Thu Oct 06, 2011 13:49

Reply to "wageslave" at Thu Oct 06, 2011 09:34

"Perhaps we could replace an abusive comment with a direct link to the comment in the archive which can just be clicked on if anyone actually wants to read it."

Yes.

And in addition (perhaps?), to have some simple facility for the moderators to "tag" the link so that it gave an indication to potential viewers of the extent of the "revulsion", "disapproval", (or whatever?) they feel -- on a scale of 1 to 10 say -- and with the 10 "tag" (say) indicating the very "worst of the worst" in terms of moderator and/or site policy disapproval.

Though the "signal/noise ratio" at the site might get very bad for a while (I suspect), I also think it's possible that a), many of the abusers might soon grow tired of dishing out their abuse, and b), that many of the statistically more normal site users might grow bored of reading it: even sooner hopefully than the abusers grow tired of writing it?

by peter Thu Oct 06, 2011 14:33

With reference to your comments about "propaganda" postings:

There may well be concerted postings in relation to certain issues - the Israel-Palestine conflict is one you mentioned. There may even be others. However, there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that in relation to most of the threads and issues (In particular, domestic Irish issues) covered by Indymedia.ie there is any such any such concerted "rightwing" activity.

I would also question the use of the word "fascist" as a determinant of anything. Fascist (or fascism) nowdays is more often than not a term of abuse to lable people with whom we disagree. It is a term which is used by people (often with extreme views themselves) on the right and left. "Islamofascism" is the mot du jour (pardon my French) of a certain unpleasant faction in Europe and the US. In Indymedia it is just another empty pretext like "troll" and "sockpuppet" to censor comment with which the moderator disagrees. I come from a generation which only too well remembers the "no free speech for fascists" which was the banner under which a group of Maoists tried to hi-jack the Union of Students of Ireland and exclude all opinion which this small clique objected too. All it accomplished in the end was the division and destruction of USI. I am all for excluding comment that uses abusive personalized language or whose purpose is to demonize, but comment that argues a different position and a different interpretation of facts should never be censored. The way of dealing with this comment is counter-argument - not censorship. Remember, Indymedia is itself, in essence, a counter-argument to the establishment narrative.

This contributor frequently participates in a right-wing US blog called "The optimisticconservative's blog". My contributions are adversarial and highly critical of the political standpoint of this blog (Run by a former US military intelligence officer called JE Dyer). However, I have never ever had my comment censored. I certainly have had my arguments strongly contested by other bloggers on the site, and by JED herself. It is ironic that the right wing seems more liberal and progressive when it comes to freedom of expression.

Finally, your moderators need to get themselves a sense of humour. They have no tolerance of irony or ridicule when it comes to themselves. They seem an oversensitive, uptight, self-important, and (pardon again) up their own asses, bunch. Tell them to lighten up. Everybody needs to have their pomposity pricked now and again - otherwise they lose touch with reality.

Best regards,

Peter

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Thu Oct 06, 2011 15:17

But the bit about '..the right wing seems more liberal and progressive..' might be due to their domination of the debate in an age when a few news agencies and PR megas feed the daily 'debate' into a corporate media pared to the bone in cut-throat competition that leaves little space for investigative or extended examination of issues, and when advertising revenue is used as a lever to ensure compliance with rightist policies. As someone who has spent a lot of ink trying to get disinformation countered in press and beyond I can see why they can be tolerant...within THEIR bounds.

A perfect example is the imbecile level of debate on our current presidential X-factor show, at a time when economic panic is sending the right scurrying everywhere but towards recognition that their SYSTEM is broke, broken and brokered out; and that it might not be a lousy idea to actually FIX the mess by changing paradigm. Distinctly not a runner in their organs of pravda. You can moralise about McG's history, but not NATO's wars and our collaboration through Shannon.
And if you do get one point inserted, the barrage of 'balanced' equality(witness the double-standards on Israel v Palestine, often visibly accompanied by increases in advertising from Israeli tourism at critical times). Polite lies trump analysis every time. The right must pay heed to its own propaganda of 'freedom', but the treatment of all enemies of market totalitarianism as pariahs and terrorists, and the blatant lies flowing fluently round their escalating wars indicates it is simnply a result of their total complacency and sense of unshakeable dominance. They have thoroughly colonised the minds of the the public as surely as their exemplars in Rome did until recently, through 'education', disinfotainment, advertising and the 'natural order' of social-darwinian competion at every level.
A few pet liberals to sweeten the Myres, Krauthammers et al do not a balanced debate constitute. nor are they too worried about blogs, the captive audience still takes it programming through TV.
When it comes to fascism as a blunt instrument to bludgeon rather than refute, I agree, but that does not mean that we should forget Aneurin Bevan's remark that fascism is nothing new in human affairs, it is the general run of things, the future refusing to be born. i.e. reaction from, rather than evolution with. Ultimately it is driven by fear rationalisedf, rather than rationality applied. And it does not need a swastika to flourish, as is the common presumption, it runs quite well under all flags.

by peter Thu Oct 06, 2011 15:43

Hi, Opus Diablos,

I unfortunately must disagree. Your ideas are completely disrespectful of ordinary people. They are redolent of the ideas of the Ancien Regime whereby it was taken as a given that ordinary people couldn't be trusted not to abuse liberty. This is a constant of all authoritarian ideologies - leftwing and rightwing.

I have already made the point that one of the reasons why people mostly refuse to vote for radical leftwing (or rightwing) candidates is not because they are too thick and uneducated to understand what is good for them, but because such people might allow them even less liberty than the current shower. The behaviour of the Indymedia moderators is mightily supportive of such an argument. Do you really believe that if the people who currently moderate Indymedia got into positions of power that they would suddenly do a volte-face and become paragons of freedom of expression? You must be joking!

If you have a good argument it doesn't need to be protected by censorship.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Thu Oct 06, 2011 16:25

you disagree with a point i didn't make.

My point is that elision or deletion is not the only from of censorship. Drowning a debate in noise is effective.

You now accuse me of saying people are too thick and uneducated...when I said they are indoctrinated, a different state. They are also overworked and time-constrained. Nor is actual intelligence evenly distributed in any population, any more than all those who have a trace of it use it wisely. I think I have a fair perspective on the capabilities of the mythical 'ordinary people'. Perhaps you have a more rose-tinted view. They are often as devious as the showers they elect. I usually presume the best until evidence indicates otherwise. It often does.

as for indy's moderators, vis a vis me, they are in a position of power, and exercise it regulary. I comment here because while i sometimes disagree with their decisions i find them generally fair, not authoritarian. In fact your passionate conviction of your own infallibility smacks as more authoritarian than their moderate moderation.

your belligernt respone indicates a preference for your 'good argument' over a disinterested examination of facts.

'..redolent of the ideas of the Ancien Regime... and authoritarian ideologies..??Your response is redolent of self-infatuated provocateur's trolling. Or perhaps you live on a planet where propaganda is no longer a social factor. Do send us the co-ordinates.

by Contrarian Thu Oct 06, 2011 17:42

I'm not surprised you find the mods to be "generally fair, not authoritarian." And that they are "moderate" in their moderation. After all, they appear to largely share your anti-US, anti-Israel worldview! Why would they censor you? It is not difficult to be in favour of freedom of speech for those with whom you agree. The real challange is to accept freedom of speech for those with whom you radically disagree.

by Richard Barrett Thu Oct 06, 2011 20:23 dickbarrett at eircom dot net 087 6643510

I have repeatedly had all my comments excised from this comments board, and I all my attempts to contact Indymedia peole have been ignored.

I am on the left wing of the Labour Party. I am anti-zionist and i am anti-privatisation.

Why are my comments not allowed up?

Can someone, anyone, please email me about this?

by @ Richard Thu Oct 06, 2011 22:20

I think you answered yourself there, you're a sticky, no one is interested in your opinion.

by peter Thu Oct 06, 2011 23:28

Oh dear, Opus,

You make my point so well.

Don't you think It shows a slight lack of insight when the author of a piece bandying about such terms as "imbecile", "blatant lies", and "colonized minds" (and written with such self-important apoplectic indignation that he feels it neccessary to emphasise what he obviously considers the really really important bits in capital letters) to label anyone "belligerent".

Come now, Opus. Calm down. We all have our viewpoints, me, you, and all the other contributors here. Your argument would be equally well made with a bit of humour and less of the over-heated language. However, I defend utterly your right to air your opinions, and would hope that some over-enthusiastic moderator doesn't censor you.

The final point you make contains a grain of truth. Fascism (as a term loosely used for authoritarian repression) has wrapped itself in many flags - including, sadly, some red ones. All these flag-wrappers have many things in common - suppression of freedom of expression, in particular.

Again, I say with the utmost respect to everyone here - It is the strength of your argument that matters - not your ability to suppress the arguments of others. Let some light and fresh air into Indymedia.

Best regards,

Peter Morahan

by wageslave Fri Oct 07, 2011 06:27

Guys, lets keep on topic. we're making some progress here.
More suggestions, observations etc. Less derailing personal back and forth ok?

thanks
wageslave

by Richard Barrett Fri Oct 07, 2011 10:15 dickbarrett at eircom dot net 087 6643510

Can someone please let me know why all my comments are being taken down? I posted one about 16.30 yesterday and when I came back this morning it was gone.

by W. Finnerty. Fri Oct 07, 2011 10:56

It seems to me that parts of the April 27th 1961 John F Kennedy Speech are still very relevant to the general debate which is the subject of this Indymedia Article.

Two short excerpts from the speech in question follow:

"I want to talk about our common responsibilities in the face of a common danger."

"Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed - and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian law-maker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy."

It often appears to me that much (though certainly not all) censorship is born of a desire -- of one kind or another ("good" or "bad" as so labelled) -- to "shrink from controversy", and, as such, it is (in reality) a sign of great and dangerous weakness: and not of strength (as many would try to have us all believe).

For anybody interested, the full text of the April 27th 1961 John F Kennedy Speech can be viewed at the following www link:
http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/detail/3677

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Fri Oct 07, 2011 12:25

to distortion of my stance by contrarian and peter(apologies to wageslave, I'll be as brief as possible).

If you take the trouble to read my first comment at the top of the thread you'll find I argue AGAINST censoring, except as a last resort, rather than the pro-censorship you ascribe. I'll leave your motives for others to assess or speculate on.

Anti-US, anti Israel is a distortion of my opposition to the policies of both governments, as i said, a tarbrush. I've lived and worked in the US, have friends and family there. If I oppose British foreign policy it does not make me anti-British. I oppose Irish collaboration with NATO's resource wars, so do tell me I'm anti-Irish while your at it.
Can I assume you are pro-Cast Lead style hi-tech war on imprisoned civilian populations, pro-serial invasions of sovereign states for corporate imperial ends, pro-torture and kidnap, pro-subversion of elected governments as in Latin America and beyond? I said I'd remain brief, so wont push too much at you.

If I appreciate the moderation of the site, its in relation to a tightly controlled corporate media consensus where this exchange is unlikely to see the light of day. Not in relation to your, or anyone else's, ideal.
Finally, the ad hominem diversionary tactic inclines me to think there is a less than objective or constructive dimension to your intention. That, again, I am happy to leave to any reader to judge.

by Laurence Fri Oct 07, 2011 17:37

Message: 3
Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2011 00:17:30 -0500 (CDT)
From: [email protected]
Subject: [imc-irl-newswire] hide comment 284433 performed by wageslave
To: [email protected]
Message-ID: [email protected]

Oscailt 3.5 Automatic Notification
Date : Friday, Oct 7 2011, 6:17am
Action : hide comment 284433 performed by wageslave
Reason : playing the player bumping old thread. divide and conquer crap is not what we need right now.

Wageslave

I'd appreciate an answer to the following questions if you don’t mind, in the spirit of openness and transparency, since after all this is the reason why the thread was set up.

Because we need to see the post to discuss and review Indymedia editorial policies could you post it here on this thread so people can read it? Its difficult for most readers to see the censored post because they have to subscribe to the list.

1 Where is the "playing the player" in this post exactly?

2 Is "bumping the thread" mentioned in the editorial guidelines?

3 Can criteria not mentioned in the guidelines criteria for hiding articles?

4 In your statement " divide and conquer crap is not what we need right now." Who are "we"

by peter Fri Oct 07, 2011 19:49

To Opus:

"Some of my best friends are Americans" too. I even know a Jewish person. Whhat that has to do with anything, I can't imagine.

And as from where I'm coming from: I am approaching bus-pass age. A lot of water has passed under my particular bridge. I have long come to the conclusion that censorship per se is a bad thing whether exercised by the right, left, or centre. People don't need to be protected from the free exchange of ideas. If you are to make that argument, it leads to the logical implication that not every adult should be allowed vote. I would make one exception. People who use bad language or personal abuse should have their comment removed, whether or not the moderator is agreeable to the sentiments of the commentator. But censorship of content or opinion. Never!

I understand that the controllers of Indymedia are concerned that they might be providing a platform for right-wing views. So what! I'n my experience, such views are easily demolished by logical counter-argument. In any case, the Indymedia insiders have an altogether over-important opinion of Indymedia as an opinion-former. It is an interesting forum for debate and exchange of views. That is all it is. To think that Indymedia (or any right-wing or left-wing blog) has ever made anyone with strong views change their mind on anything is to totally lose ones grip on reality.

Best regards,

peter

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Fri Oct 07, 2011 20:03

I'll ask that you not put misquotes of my statements in inverted commas.

secondly. Maybe you have too tight a grip on your 'reality'.

mine's just an opinion.

Finally
stop ascribing and attributing straw arguments. My statement on censorship remains posted, last time i looked. Is it too left wing, or what?
I know a dogmatic pursuit of consistency can be a vice, but a little is a potential asset.

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Sat Oct 08, 2011 02:09

Laurence said:
"Wageslave
I'd appreciate an answer to the following questions if you don’t mind, in the spirit of openness and transparency, since after all this is the reason why the thread was set up.
Because we need to see the post to discuss and review Indymedia editorial policies could you post it here on this thread so people can read it? Its difficult for most readers to see the censored post because they have to subscribe to the list.
1 Where is the "playing the player" in this post exactly?
2 Is "bumping the thread" mentioned in the editorial guidelines?
3 Can criteria not mentioned in the guidelines criteria for hiding articles?
4 In your statement " divide and conquer crap is not what we need right now." Who are "we""

Sorry folks, I've been away. Plenty of attempts to derail this thread in my absence it seems. I'm sorry to see that
because it only makes the argument against opening up the site more and reducing moderation powers.

Laurence.
I'll answer this, although it was not the intention of this thread to rake through every questionable editorial decision ever made and nit pick them. If it turns into that then we will just get bogged down and it's not really why this thread is here.

If you feel an editor such as myself should not have the power to hide a post like I did in this case then deal with the general question and make suggestions as to other ways we could moderate the site without unilateral hides being possible for instance, or maybe suggest ways we could better keep our moderators honest.

Currently we have a list to deal with individual gripes like this one. I welcome you to post your argument for unhiding this particular post to that list and the other moderators will make a decision as to whether I was incorrect to hide it. That is currently how we do that. Until things change in the future, thats the current procedure. I would ask that you adhere to it. After this post, I will not address any specific hides here as the likely result of that will be derailing of the thread into bickering and bunfights.

Now back to your post.
Its seems to me that this might be an excuse to try to get that particular post republished.I won't do that. As I said, a mechanism currently exists to address such a grievance. Make use of it. This thread is not for that purpose.

That said however I will provide a direct link to it. The post is here if anyone wishes to read it.
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-ireland-newswi....html

The thread in question was called "Why do you hate the SWP please add to the list..."
I mean, c'mon!
Its really just an excuse for a sectarian flamefest which should probably never have been allowed to stay up in the first place. Part of the divide and conquer of the left strategy. "Post some flame bait, crack open a beer and watch the lefty infighting"

The last post on the thread was july30th 2002

We have an unwritten guideline that if a thread is dead and a post is added to it long after the original conversation has ended then that is termed "bumping old thread" and we generally hide it.

This is a sensible guideline and has been in regular use and in light of this post, I agree, it should be formalised and written into the guidelines. It's just nobody who had access to the file ever actually got around to actually doing it.

Anyway, this guideline, although not written to the list, has been in use for quite a long time. It certainly applies in this case.

Often such a post is overlooked if it is a constructive post and relates in some way to a recent news item. Attacking the SWP has been done here ad nauseaum, and has caused bitter fights and divisions. and in these days of occupy wall street and occupy dame street, I made a judgement call on this post that it was divisive at a time when we(the people) need unity of purpose to take on the financial and political institutions.

So I hid it. Some may disagree with my decision. If you do then take it to our lists. Such decisions are often reversed, albeit a little slowly.

As stated at the beginning of this thread, any hide is just a judgement call. In this case, I weighed the fact that it was bumping an ancient and IMHO unconstructive flamebait thread from 2002 and the net result would be people fighting about the SWP again, when right now we need unity on the left for the occupy dame street stuff.

The balance for me was tipped towards hiding the comment for its breach of the "bumping old thread" unwritten guideline

To answer your questions specifically

(1)you are attacking a person or group of people rather than a view they are expressing without substantiating what you say adequately IMHO. That is playing the player. In this case, the SWP.

(2)You are correct in pointing out that the guideline in question is not written and this is something that should be rectified. But "bumping old thread" is a guideline in use here for a long time.

(3)In general no but "bumping old thread" is a guideline that exists and has been in use for a long time. You are correct that we should formalise it and write it up. We will. Thanks for highlighting this

(4) The "we" is the community at large. It was the OPINION of the moderator that divisive attacks on the SWP at this time would only serve to reignite the infighting on the left at a tme when we need unity to fight the banksters etc. The comment at the end is a personal opinion and not a guideline.

You might have a case for arguing against my use of "playing the player" guideline. However the "bumping old thread" guideline is clearly true in this case. And the comment is definitely divisive and unconstructive.

I hope that clarifies things somewhat Laurence. If you still think I was wrong to hide the post then I welcome you to post your case for unhiding it to our moderation list and it will receive due consideration by the other moderators and if at least 2 of them agree with you then I will be most happy to unhide the post for you.

rgds
wageslave

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Sat Oct 08, 2011 07:46

William (Finnerty)

thanks again for taking the time and posting constructively. The tagging idea (maybe a colour code of some kind) and the notion of a "moderator revulsion index" is interesting.

rgds
wageslave

by peter Sat Oct 08, 2011 10:47

The problem isn't the guidelines but the manner in which they are applied that is at the bottom of all the criticism. The guidelines are standard for most political blogs. The problem is that Indymedia promotes is a particular narrow orthodoxy. The application of the guidelines in relation to comment which supports that orthodoxy is utterly and completely inconsistent from the application of the guidelines when it comes to non-kosher comment. Abusiveness, irrelevancy, even total incoherence, are given a completely different latitude when it comes to kosher comment. This is almost being too uncritical. The bottom line is that the guidelines are ignored and uncomfortable contributions are ruthlessly censored on exotic pretexts which everyone knows are nonsense.

If Indymedia insists on censoring on theacceptability of comment to its prejudices it should have the honesty and integrety to say so in its guidelines rather than inventing juvenile pretexts for trying (unsuccessfully, as it appears) to justift its censorship.

This would be the honest thing to do - even though it is a million miles from the radical ethos of Indymedia.org

Peter

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Sat Oct 08, 2011 12:20

I dont want to go ad hominem, but my last reply to you indicates my considered opinion on your qualifications for lecturing on such topics.

You ol' paragon, you.

by Tom Sat Oct 08, 2011 13:39

So said an indymedia editor when excusing a hide last year.

The criticisms on this thread of the delete devices at the disposable of indymedia ireland editors are misplaced . People seem to think that without such excuses as BB , troll, abuse etc. for hiding posts editors don't approve of , the site would be more democratic. The truth is that these elastic devices serve as essential control tools for moderators as they walk the thin blue line , keeping the peace between extremists of the left and right alike – protecting the « general public » from the trolls . It helps to think of these control devices as the contents of the duty belts that police officers wear under their stab vests :pepper spray, handcuff , flexible baton etc.

by peter Sat Oct 08, 2011 18:04

Hi OD,

Go ad-hominium all you fancy. But how would you expect anyone to tell the difference?

Hi, Tom,

Thank you for that jem. I never knew that Indymedia was such an admirer of policing with pepper-spray etc.

More constructively, I would hope that the people who seem to control Indymedia.ie become more adult and honest in their application of their own guidelines. Some of the comment on this thread has given us outsiders a revealing insight into the rival egos within Indymedia. It would be a pity if it was these rivalries rather than a genuine examination of conscience that led to the opening of this thread. A clear choice faces your moderators. My spies tell me that there is alarm within the cognoscenti that Indymedia is in fatal decline. The choice is between openness and vibrancy, or the fatal embrace of a grey and narrow orthodoxy.

Be brave.

Best regards, and thank you all.

Peter

by watching this space Sat Oct 08, 2011 20:43

The reason why some people do better in publishing their pieces is how well they know they know the editor/contributor, etc. So if your piece is published like opus it's likely that you had relations with a former editor. C'est la vie and all that...

by occasional comment poster Sun Oct 09, 2011 02:20

Many comments get hidden and the moderator concerned lists a brief reason, such as 'trolling' or 'playing the player not the ball' or 'pesky pete at it again'.

I don't know how many News items get hidden, except that 'petitions' are hidden as a matter of editorial policy. I've also noticed that 'conspiracy loons' get their fantastic reports hidden. Some conspiracy theories are very funny while others are so straight-faced that I sometimes worry about the posters' state of mind.

I'd guess that the need to moderate off-the-cuff individual comments is more pressing for this site because of defamation laws. I'd guess that people with strong political ideologies are more prone to ad-hominen commenting, making moderation necessary to prevent poltiical discussions from deteriorating into character assassination exercises.

May I suggest that moderation of comments still be a priority in order to protect the site from libel actions, and to maintain some standards of personal decency where discussions are concerned?

Some people who post comments many times appear to me to be obsessive, mad-at-the-world, very frustrated politically, very cranky and generally not enjoying life's simple pleasures. Maybe some individuals are so misanthropical that the only way they can be in the company of others is to mix antisocially in cyberspace.

If only half a dozen people turned up for the recently organized discussion about site moderation then there is need to organize another meeting and to buttonhole people you know to turn up and give the site proprietors and voluntary moderators some representative feedback. I get the impression that most of those we have heard/read so far are the dominant loudest voices.

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Sun Oct 09, 2011 08:11

Thanks for your comments Occasional poster.
A lot of negativity creeping in. Appreciate the attempt to bring a little balance.

Its probably true that those that have commented are the loudest but not necessarily representative. I include myself in this.

Its true, The proportion of actual articles that are hidden is actually fairly low. Its mostly just abusive comments. and unconstructive trolling that get hidden, most of which nobody could reasonably defend. They simply add nothing but noise, unpleasant diversion and needless abuse to any thread commentary. But there is a definite grey area which presents problems. That is, comments hidden allegedly through moderator bias or politics, which is partly why we would like to make some changes to improve things, and partly why we are asking for public feedback.

This thread is a genuine honest effort to get such feedback. If a very few people just use it just to put the boot in then it's a lost opportunity for everyone else to have an input into moderation policy on this site going forward.

Peter, I think this thread cuts both ways. It may tell you something negative about the moderators but I think it also gives an insight into the kind of ridiculous abuse that people regularly post.

Moderation policy is not just the decisions of a few people in a vacuum. It's also largely a response to the kind of material that gets posted here on a regular basis, much of which is abusive. If most of the posts we got were more adult and, well, POLITE in nature then the argument for strong moderation is considerably weakened.

I think this thread highlights somewhat what happens when we even attempt to loosen comment moderation around here. A few individuals just take it as an opportunity to attack individual moderators. Then those Moderators get annoyed at personal attacks. (We're not robots you know!). Posts are hidden and so the circle goes around. It seems people behave in this medium in ways they would not dream of doing face to face.

We'd really like to explore ways we can break this kind of cycle and we genuinely want suggestions as to how we should go about this. We have a few good ones so far. Thanks again to those who have tried to be constructive instead of just taking cheap shots.

Some of the better thoughts so far :

(1)reduce individual moderator power. A multi vote hide for example. Maybe even a purely community based vote hiding system for comments.

(2)a confidence system in moderators which allows them to be relieved of duty if too biased or not doing a good job. Currently thats a necessary safeguard that is just not there.

(3)replace hidden posts with a link directly to the hidden post in the archive so it can be accessed easily rather than the current cumbersome method

(4)tagging of posts with a moderator "revulsion index" or comment to indicate levels of rhetorical sophistry, propaganda or untruth. Perhaps a colour coded system.

(5)A BBS / IRC related to the site where people can chat in a less moderated way and build community links. Maybe move most commentary from the main site over to that and let the community vote it up or down themselves over there,( thereby rendering most of this discussion academic? )

(6)Decide exactly what we are and what we want to be as a site. Then be honest about this and state it clearly.

(7)Stick more closely to the guidelines. Define them better if necessary. Update the guidelines and Write down any outstanding unwritten ones such as "bumping old thread" etc.

(feel free to remind me in summary form as above of any important ones I may have left out)

Please keep the constructive comments coming folks. Thanks

by peter Sun Oct 09, 2011 21:27

What about a Comments Ombudsperson (CO)?

This would have to be an adult of integrity, independence, and objectivity.

The CO would be independent from both the people who de-facto control Indymedia.ie and the moderators. It would be agreed that the decisions of the CO would be final. It would be agreed that the CO would be able to challenge any decision by a moderator to censor a comment. The duty of the OC would be to defend the guidelines. In other words, the moderator would decide whether the reason for censoring given by the moderator was substantial, and that the allegedly offending comment in fact infringed the guidelines for the reason given. The OC would start from a presumption in favour of freedom of expression. It would be for the moderator to displace that presumption. A successful challenge would result in the comment being reinstated. The OC could challenge either on his or her own iniative or acting upon a complaint to Indymedia by the author of the comment or any other party. The New Your Times operates a somewhat similar system in relation to its blogs and comment-lines.

Peter.

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Mon Oct 10, 2011 13:47

Peter

currently we operate what's referred to as a "see saw" rule
If someone objects to a hide, they simply send us an email saying why.

If just 2 moderators agree then the post is reinstated.

one moderator hides. Two disagreeing unhides. It works ok. just a little slow.

Perhaps I'm missing something but I don't see sufficient advantages outweighing the disadvantages in doing it your way.

Essentially you are saying that not even 2 members of the indymedia collective are "adults of integrity, independence, and objectivity". Hmmm. I may be misinterpreting this but it seems a little like a clever way of putting the boot in Peter.

I'll leave it to other posters to judge your suggestion.

As a matter of interest, do you have any suggestions for this "adult of integrity, independence, and objectivity" you are suggesting?

rgds
ws

by peter Mon Oct 10, 2011 19:47

OP,

The problem with your system (other than the manifest fact that it is the lack of credibility of this system that has led to this thread being opened) is that it gives the power of decision-making to the moderators themselves. Oversight only works when it is completely independent of the oversighted.

The essentials of a credible system are:

The guidelines are transparent and public.
The Ombudsperson's brief is to defend the guidelines.
The Ombudsperson is independent of the moderators.

Regards,

Peter.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Tue Oct 11, 2011 10:59

that OP refers to mise, P, can you elaborate as to what system is mine?

If its some other systematiser, ignore this.

by nb Tue Oct 11, 2011 13:55

The editorial guidlines are a bit long and rambling, I would suggest a short list of precise rules that appear in between writing a comment and posting it and the commenter having to tick a box that their comment is within the rules (children start to play with rules after the age of about five otherwise they hit each other over the head in the sand pit).
I would imagine most commenters do not even read the guidlines as you have to go look for them.
Showing the rules to the commenter would allow for self-censorship which would give the moderaters a whole lot less to do
(unless moderaters have nothing better to do then search for trolls all day)
I would also suggest if such a list was numbered the moderaters could just stick a number in the hidden comments box which would be fairer than things like 'bumping an old thread' which isn't even in the guidlines and is applied with arbitrary unfairness whenever in is used.

by peter Tue Oct 11, 2011 15:43

To OP: Apologies for using you as the personification of Indymedia. I am now officially removing you from that office.

To nb: On the precise point you raise: Yes, a valid reason for censoring a comment should be given. It should be a reason expressly provided for in the guidelines, not some exotic formula cobbled up as a pretext for removing uncomfortable comment. (Those of us who qualify for bus-passes will have memories of this sort of thing in the Stalinist USSR. Exotic crimes which didn't exist in any statute book were used to send thousands to the gulags. "Cosmopolitanism" was one of the most notorious. "Cosmopolitan" was shorthand for Jew)

Regards,

Peter

by me Tue Oct 11, 2011 20:01

"Apologies for using you as the personification of Indymedia. I am now officially removing you from that office."

yep - that was a mistake, no doubt about it - rather than being the "personification of Indymedia", he is IMHO better viewed as the "personification of What is Wrong with Indymedia"

by peter Wed Oct 12, 2011 11:46

I don't believe you should be censored. However, your contribution could certainly do with a haircut. (Perhaps it could be sent to NAMA?)

by me Sat Oct 15, 2011 12:59

In an effort to gauge the position of indymedia.ie in relation to other sites in Ireland I went to Alexa and checked out the site rankings -

Site Information for indymedia.ie - http://www.alexa.com/search?q=indymedia.ie&r=site_sitei...igtop

Alexa Traffic Rank: 425,439
Ireland Traffic Rank in IE: 3,240

I then checked what I would suppose is a similar site, which hopes to reach a similar audience - the difference was quite startling

Site Information for politics.ie - http://www.alexa.com/search?q=politics.ie&r=home_home&p...igtop

Alexa Traffic Rank: 48,610
Ireland Traffic Rank in IE: 150

I then decided to look up the most unpopular bunch of arseholes on the Irish political scene that I could think of - http://www.alexa.com/search?q=youthdefence.ie&r=site_si...igtop

Site Information for youthdefence.ie

Alexa Traffic Rank: 172,863
Ireland Traffic Rank in IE: 461

I was quite shocked to discover that the most unpopular bunch of arseholes on the irish political scene, that I could think of, ran a website that was nearly 10 times more popular than Indymedia.ie

The Indymedia Editorial board might pause at this point to consider the implications of that - and possibly wonder if the behaviour of some of the Moderators here contributes in anyway to the fact that, according to Alexa, Indymedia.ie seems to be nearly 10 time less popular than youthdefence.ie

I realise that Indymedia is not here just to be popular - but when Youth Defence can draw nearly 10 times more traffic than you, then you really need to look at why that might be

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Sat Oct 15, 2011 13:53

Hardly gratifying figures.

But if I were to follow the logic, I'd be a Sun reader and own a TV. Joseph Heller probably has fewer readers than Barbara Cartland.

I'm new to the cyber-region, and the only one I tried was Politics.ie, but I found it badly edited, full of noise and juvenile cackle(age betrayal there??)and not worth the bother. Indy is user friendly(to use an inimical cliche)and open to us dunces. Also the real deadwood gets cleared, and once I've vented, I can live without its remaining for posterity to marvel. Knowing posterity's vagaries, that helps.

As Radio Connemara has it, its not the size, its the frequency.

@t.eile
You provide some not encouraging opinions, but I dont think you'd be allowed say the same things IN the Irish Times OF the IT. Get your arsehole categories irrigated.

I discovered this source of expression after years of trying to make points mainstream, with occasional cracks in the edifice of complacency. Maybe that makes be starry eyed and deluded, but I aint expecting anything on the editorial/moderator end except fallibles prepared to allow a vent for attempts to consider ways of breaking the consensus of collective arse-covering that the mainstream presents. I've been deleted when i thought I was relevant, and seen shit left up I thought outrageously false and destructive, but we have to not let OUR agendas(whether we're always conscious of them or not)blind us to the free service these people are providing.

I also think Indys existence may yet prove itself as our situation evolves, and we should be careful of losing the bambino because he occasionally shits in the bathwater.
Also T, 'islamophobia'??
I've seen more borderline antisemitism in the guise of antiZionism. That accusation undermines your credibility. Easy with the tar-brushes.

No doubt the Indyans have their blind spots, but lets not join the cavalry.

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Sat Oct 15, 2011 13:58

well you seem to like it here Tomeile / me! perhaps you should consider going somewhere else where you can get a bigger audience for your poison. By your own arguments, I can't understand why you spend so much of your time trying to put an inconsequential site like this down. I mean why do you bother?? Very curious. Unless, of course underneath all your poison, you actually see some value in this site? Well either that or its of some concrete value to you personally to keep doing so with such monotonous regularity.

I'm sorry you chose to revert to type so quickly. I was actually starting to think you might be making an effort to become a constructive contributor to this site. Sorry I was proved to be so wrong on that score and that I was made to look foolish for reaching out to you in an attempt to be fair. Don't say you were never offered the hand of friendship around here. The fact that you chose instead to bite it is your own decision. I won't be quite as willing to do this again with anyone else. You should consider that point.

You try to blame any issues there may be regarding the current comment moderation policy on the volunteers here but Its people like yourself that play no small part in the rather defensive approach currently taken to moderation here.

The fact is, the nature of the abuse people post here largely dictates the style of moderation. If the posters were polite and engaged in an adult fashion, we'd have nothing to moderate at all.

You want to improve things? well you can start by examining your own behaviour and the strong argument it makes for maintaining the status quo.

If you truly were interested in improving this site then instead of waging a campaign of destruction, you would help out and apply to become a moderator. Given the amount of energy you expend trying to undermine our efforts, it would actually require far less of your time. But no, you seem much more interested in attacking and destroying. Therefore I can only assume that your motive is to harm the site not improve it. But why would you bother doing this to a site with such a low alexa rating? Very curious. I can only assume it is in some way of some benefit to you.

rgds
wageslave

by me Sat Oct 15, 2011 14:45

Firstly I'm not 'tomeile' - hard though that may be for you to believe - so please stop referring to me and Tomeile as if we are the same person -I don't know who T is and I have nothing to do with him.

Secondly - most of the subjects written about here are subjects Irish people actually have an interest in - and in many cases the majority of Irish people would actually agree with most of the sentiments expressed by contributors - Most Irish people are anti-war, most are anti-imperialism - most find the actions of the Israelis to be abhorrent - most would agree with your concerns for the environment, most would disagree with the actions of Shell and the Gardai in Rossport

As Opie pointed out, the format is user-friendly - no one has to 'register' - it is easy to comment here.

Indymedia is well programmed from an SEO perspective and shows up in any websearch that searches for subject matter commented on here.

So people obviously can find there way here easy enough

That being the case, what is it that drives them away from here once they have found the place?

I support the Indymedia concept and have used UK indymedia German Indy and US indymedia both for information gathering and for commenting.

Nowhere else in the Indymedia spectrum have I found the level of censorship found here at indymedia.ie. and nowhere else have I seen such obvious disregard, displayed by the Moderators themselves, for the sites own rules,

Indymedia is a world-wide 'brand' - and some of you don't seem to understand that, and it's importance.

The actions of certain moderators here, their intolerance for differing opinion, cheapens that brand considerably,

Personally I think that you might be concerned with the fact that despite all the advantages bestowed on this site by the 'brand' and by the open format you inherit by using the software, and despite the fact a lot of the opinions espoused here by many contributors are in fact ones that the majority of Irish people would easily agree with, this site is unable to keep people here once they have found the place.

If that doesn't concern you, maybe you spould relinquish the Indymedia 'Brand' and let others take it over -

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Sat Oct 15, 2011 15:01

I think, if you look, you'll find you've been invited to step into the tent and join the moderation team. If I had your stated familiarity with the technology, I'd be moving on it, or else just suggesting how it can improve its retention factor failures. I too would like to see less tumbleweed days, even if the movers have plenty to do in that 'real' world. But lets not loose the quality for P.ie quantity.

by me Sat Oct 15, 2011 15:09

Provided I have your identity correct, you and I both have friends , or at least acquaintances in common. right now I have 10 DVD's sitting on my table, that I have been asked to edit, that YOU personally shot on video (that is if you are who I think you are)

If you supply an email address I'd quite happily contact you personally to continue to discuss Indymedia and it's moderation further - I'd quite happily join the Mods but I already suspect that my disdain for the ease with which some of them break the stated site rules, might not sit well with one or two of them

PPS: you reply to Tomeile but censor his posts - THAT really is not cricket - THATs the sort of thing I find distasteful and unethical - if you wish to converse with someone then censoring all their posts seems a little rude, IMO.

And once again, I mention this NOT because I am T or that I support him personally, but because I think a site with the Indymedia brand should conduct itself in an more fair and ethical manner than what I have seen around here lately - you yourself have stated that some of the Moderation decisions taken here have been way over the top

by me Sat Oct 15, 2011 15:13

my last comments were directed at wageslave

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Sat Oct 15, 2011 15:16

if that was directed at this 'me'.

by Brian Flannery - Justice Sun Oct 16, 2011 14:11

To all the people who post on this extremely important site. I say stop the personal attacks. Stop the slagging and please try and respect the moderators who may have their faults but are in fact doing an impossible job in keeping the peace on a site that gets into very heated discussions.

I say to Wageslave - Well done/Don't stop trying. I say to Opus: Keep writing but try and keep the cyncial part of your brain to more positive ideas and feedback because no doubt you have a major historical memory brain.

To Terence and the remainder who I don't know: Open up and if you have to give a general amnesty to people who have left Indymedia for years. This site is too important for trivial arguments of who is who or what is what.

This site has vast potential and in the current climate it will have many enemies so let us try and stick together. At least on one issue and that is: we are the 99% against that 1% elite who have taken this Nation down. Tearing each other apart is not the answer. No moderator is perfect but that also means they don't deserve the abuse I am sure they get on a daily basis. Also I want to add one more point:

People write differently. Some may ramble a little bit. Some may not keep to the point and flexibility is the key issue in this and if we achieve consensus we can all work together and achieve the same results because the present Government would love to take away our Freedom of Expression

Brian Flannery

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Sun Oct 16, 2011 20:46

@Me

ok, I can see that you are different person to Tomeile.
I apologise for confusing your posts with tomeile's and as a result perhaps taking a somewhat more jaundiced and weary perspective on them.
I had just gotten very frazzled with some of the personalised posts on this thread and the fact that I had little alternative but to just give in and do exactly what I said I wouldn't do on this thread. That is, hide posts, well that really pissed me off no end!

If I had things all my own way right now, I'd probably just unhide the lot. However it just isn't that simple. There are some unseen factors for the greater good that I have to take into account here. I don't have the luxury of looking at things in such a black and white manner.

This collective is fragile and right now very undermanned. If I were to let this feud that has developed totally spill over on this thread then it really might ultimately mean the collapse of the site. Some of you out there might say "yeah, just let it burn". But personally I believe this would not be in anybody's interests at this sensitive time.

So much as I would like to right now, I'm not going to unhide the posts and the ban on Tomeile will stay in effect for now. unless he can agree to restrain his need to hijack this particular thread to air all his own his personal grievances. This thread is not just about you Tomeile or the moderator you speak of. Its about improving the experience for EVERYONE. You are both derailing that process and in doing so you are both depriving others of a voice.

However, I will say a few things here.
(1) I am in favour of having some kind of discussion with all parties concerned to try to get to the bottom of this matter.
(2) There are wrongs on both sides, but this is not a good forum for teasing this out and it is not the reason this thread was set up. This matter is mainly just about one single grievance between one poster and one moderator. Its very selfish of BOTH parties involved to destroy a thread dealing with EVERYBODY'S experience of moderation on this site just to settle a personal feud.
(3) Lets try and work something out over email over the next few weeks ok. For now though just leave it as regards this thread. This thread is really not the proper vehicle for this. Its really something ideally sorted out face to face (perhaps with a moderator? ;-)

Tomeile, me. You are both looking at this problem in the wrong way. You are looking at a symptom and not the root cause. The root cause is that moderators are really in no position to censure other moderators if they make decisions that are dubious. Also, the current fragility of this collective means we have to be very careful.

The answer is an objective fair scheme to reduce the power of all moderators (multi vote hiding?) and the introduction of a quality control system for moderation based on a vote of some kind and linked automatically to moderation powers. I have already suggested we implement such a process. It may take a while for the idea to take root and have some technical solution implemented.

These ideas came from polite discourse, thinking about the problems and reflecting on what reasonable people said about the site here. in other words, from the positive contributions on this thread, not from selfish squabbling which inflames old wounds, derails any sane discussion and leads to worse polarisation

So to sum up:

>please lets try to get back to discussing moderation guidelines etc in an adult manner
>Tomeile and mod, we'll try to do something about this situation over email in the next few weeks
>Tomeile, I'll lift the ban so you can post on other topics on the strict understanding that you let this topic and related ones go until we attempt to sort things out through another channel ok? I think thats a fair compromise
>meanwhile behave yourselves or all bets are off ok?

How's that?

rgds
wageslave

by me Sun Oct 16, 2011 22:29

essentially what you seem to be saying is that many/some of the criticisms MAY be valid but getting into the nitty gritty right here and now would be too divisive.

If so that is a fair and valid point.

I sympathise with the positions of both T and the collective and yourself personally. I realise moderating this site must be at the best of times a real pain in the ass, and a generally  thankless task. So let me here and now say 'Thanks for performing a hard job'

I mentioned earlier the ease of use here - this of course has a downside in that ease of use also equals ease of abuse.

Before I go any further I should say that personally I value the contributions you yourself have made to keeping this thread going.

Your list of points and suggested solutions, even if only  short-term, appear more than reasonable - you personally appear to be performing a tricky balancing act between handling complaints from users on the one hand and the tempering  the urge of the collective to close ranks - this tendency towards closing of ranks is no more than a pretty basic human group reaction, I realise that


My main concern is for maintaining Openness in terms of dialogue and speech in general. But I also realise that here in Ireland there is not a tradition of 'free speech' ingrained in law, such as exists elsewhere, and that there may at times be very valid legal reasons for what might seem to be unfair censorship.  I'm a major free speech advocate as long as those speaking are not actually blatantly lying, and for me there has to be a fairly high bar when it comes to deciding what is or is not a blatant lie.

This means that I really have little time for people being 'offended' by something. I believe that No ONE has a 'right' not to be offended. It also means that I frequently find myself defending the rights of people I really have no common, political or social,  ground with.

and this for me is the crux of my beef with the occasional excesses regarding  Moderation here:

For me Moderation should be practiced on an 'As little as possible' principle - meaning that if something is 'borderline' then it should be let pass. My problem is that too often I see the opposite here - that if something is borderline there is sometimes a fairly desperate hunt to find a rule, any rule,  to in order to justify quashing speech with which we might no agree.

I am a big fan of the Indymedia concept - we truly do need an alternative, but too often I feel that Indy.ie has behaved no different than the MSM would have behaved in similar circumstance

If Indy.ie is not prepared to be an  'alternative', prepared at all times to give space to 'alternative' voices and opinions with which the 'collective' might at times strongly disagree  then "What is it?" What is it's reason for being?

what does it do differently that no one else does - what unique 'space' does it occupy?

these are to some respect 'marketing' and 'branding' type questions, and this sort of discussion is often dismissed by those with little taste for concepts as 'marketing' and 'branding' (myself included in the past)  - but in the outside world they exist as businesses and concepts because people, unfortunately, DO react to both. Ignoring that will do nothing to stem the tide

I'm not suggesting flashy 'revamps' or anything of the sort, but rather an in-depth look at what does Indy.ie actually hope to achieve - who does it wish to connect with? If the answer is merely 'people like us' (i.e: the collective that runs it) then it will continue to lose ground and will eventually  fail

by @Opus Mon Oct 17, 2011 02:00

Also the real deadwood gets cleared, and once I've vented, I can live without its remaining for posterity to marvel


there's the problem - using the site to vent is actually ABUSING the site - it increases the workload for the Mods and generally detracts from the any thread in which you choose to vent.

I don't mean to be personal, but using it as you do, to vent, is a very selfish act - someone has to clean up after you've vented.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Mon Oct 17, 2011 09:12

Sound.
But if you can't detect irony, amen: bar me(when it comes to venting I doubt I am the worst offender, and actually consider your remark a bit of a vent. Are we not ALL venting?).

Judging by the % of deletions I take, someone in there agrees. I'd say my information/noise levels are no worse than average. I also accept my opinions(and honestly presented facts) are decidedly uncomfortable for the received wisdom of some of the ensconced venters.

For context(not irrelevant) I sugest you revisit the compaint I was responding to with the quote in question. It was the apparent fixation of a poster with their comments being trimmed. My point was the necessarily ephemeral nature of the medium.

I do hope that is not a superflous return. If so, I think my record confirms I do not reject constructive demolition of erronious argument I may inadvertantly post.

I certainly have too much respect for use of the site to deliberately waste its space by any ABUSE. That implies I fail to value the resource, neither my intended substance, nor, I hope, my style. RSVP.

PS: I hope this is not going to degenerate into a distraction about mise. There are more important trivia in the equation.

by peter Mon Oct 17, 2011 17:34

Sadly, this discussion has degenerated into a very boring dialogue between what (I assume) are Indymedia insiders. While the, largely petty, interpersonal aggravations within the Indymedia family may be of great interest and importance to the people involved, these "domestics" are of no interest whatsoever to the people who wish to discuss the censorship and bias whose dead hand is strangling the life out of Indymedia.

In fact, one of the valid grounds under the guidelines for removing comment is the fatwa on irrelevant, personalized, dialogue.

Can we get back to the point folks: The issue here is a framework for the re-establishment of freedom of expression in Indymedia, and the fair and honest application of the guidelines.

Peter 

by Terence (personal capacity) Mon Oct 17, 2011 22:53

It is clear that the moderation is not working and there have been numerous reasons and examples given. What is not perhaps obvious is the dynamics of the moderation process itself because it works in a negative way.

For example if one moderator happens to see a comment and thinks it is okay, then it stays up. But there is no real recording of that to the other moderators. Thus when another moderator sees the same comment they may decide to hide it unaware that another moderate already thinks it is fine. In this situation, it is split and on balance it should probably stay up and the case for it be made to hide if required but the reality is that it would be hidden. And so I'm sure one can see how things can all slide downhill from here.

In general a moderator does not read all the comments because they don't have time, but it is likely that most of the comments do get read at least once by a moderator when you combine all their comment reading together. This means, we have another situation, where a comment that is seen for the first time gets hidden, but then another moderator might not see it for quite awhile afterwards but thinks it is okay, but the unhiding process and debate is too cumbersome to negotiate this one assuming that the 2nd moderator disagrees.

Now some people have suggested a free-speech approach be taken where everything stays up. This is appealing because it is so simple, but it is not that simple. For example commerical spam should go. I am sure everyone agrees on that. Then we have the self promotions of all kinds. They should go. Then there are the bizarre and irrelvant. Things might be getting a bit grey for some people at this stage.  But one thing is clear and that is it is not black and white. It is many shades of grey.

The other point to consider is that the moderators have to agree and nor should they. Whatever system is in place whether it be this site or any other has to somehow incoporate disagreements and along with sometimes you may make your case and not win and vice aversa. Another factor to consider is the unequal amounts of time that different people will have available to them and how that can skew any of the above scenarios.

At the core of the moderation problems are really different opinions, intrepretations and political tendencies.

To try and address some of the structural biases identified above, I am tentatively proposing that additional mechanisms be put in place although I do not believe they can address the politics of the matter. However reducing the tedious side of the workload can sometimes help as can presentation of data.

So the main idea is to introduce a system whereby an editor can essentially vote or mark a comment as okay. This would basically mean that I have read it and I think it is okay. And in that situation it would require two (instead of one) vote or action to hide it.  While it would be good to give the public a vote, to realistically implement this would require them to register and I not in favour of readers registering. I know people will object to this, but it only takes one or two to abuse the voting to ruin it for everyone else. In the same manner that we all lock our doors not because everyone is a thief but only because a few are.

Another possibility is to introduce a type of rating system, so that when a moderator hides a comment it is rated as 1 to 5 (5 is very bad) and the rating value would be shown on the hidden articles page. Not sure how effective this might be as it would become pointless if they all just get a rating of 5. If it worked, at least the ones with lower ratings have a better chance of being overturned. But I am not sure this system would be of any value and may even be counter-productive.

At the Indymedia Moderation meeting it was suggested to make the hidden comments visible just elsewhere on the site. One variant of this could be to make it visible for say sometime afterwards during which it would be greyed out. This could be easily implemented. These comments could be reached from the existing hidden articles page. One downside is that it create all sorts of new counter productive dynamics.

Lastly a mechanism to rate moderators has been suggested. There are 2 main options which are moderators rate other moderators and the public (and maybe moderators) rate moderators. The difficultly with the 2nd is there is no way to determine if someone simply has their finger stuck on the vote down button.  -i.e. how do you implement one vote/rating per user on the internet? Overall though rating has potential but has bigger technical hurdles and you can't really force someone to rate someone if they don't want to. Or they may not even have time or not have logged on in several weeks. So it suffers from a similar problem we have with hides whereby negative results have an impact, but positive ones don't.

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Tue Oct 18, 2011 11:58

how about "if editors don't vote then they lose x points from their total vote".
Pretty soon they won't be editors any more! How's that for an incentive?
I mean, If you can't log on once a month without a VERY good reason then you probably shouldn't be one anyway. Either you work on the site or you don't. We have a 3 month rule for a very good reason, even if we don't actually apply it.

This system will work if people vote honestly and agree to do so once a month.
individual Spats should cancel out. i.e If person A dislikes person B then both lose each others points so there's no real advantage to this strategy. Cliques are the only problem here, but currently, there are none. Everyone is pretty much their own person. (and the public vote might help balance this a bit)

You do a good job, i.e. your moderations are mostly measured and fair, then you get a good vote. You are biased and unreasonable, you get a bad vote leading to automatic suspension / review

Perhaps we could do a hybrid system whereby the public have one vote (10 points) out of the total. This vote is built up over the month for each moderator on a special voting page. "rate your moderator" if you will. One point per vote per person would be added ( each moderator seperately). The vote would be "positive only" so there is no incentive to vote except if you want to say a moderator is doing ok, so trolls need not apply. it would still have the effect of rewarding good moderation and not bad moderation. A string of zeros from the public would not be a good sign over time.

at the end of the month a snapshot is taken.

this counts as one vote (10 points) and each other moderator has one vote (10 points) too
so if there is 7 moderators, you have a possible 80 points each month. if you only get say 30 then you face automatic suspension pending review. If you score consistently below 40 then you are reviewed say after 6 such months. You get the basic idea. Moderator votes on each other would of course be secret ballots so there's no recrimination possible.

An IP address for each (public) vote could be retained and duplicates could be discarded.
This also makes it awkward for multiple votes so the voter would have to really be without a life and determined to try to game the system. Abusers could get a ban. mostly the public probably wouldn't bother voting for anyone so in practice it would probably be a vote out of 70 but I would hope to be proved wrong here.

There are lots of ways we could make this idea work if we really wanted to be fair. If moderators are no longer invulnerable then that makes them think twice about the guidelines and about doing stuff they know is not quite fair. It can only lead to an improvement in fair treatment of posters comments. I think this process in turn would motivate some decent clarifications and fleshing out of the guidelines so there is less room for "creative misinterpretation"

You need regulation in any system involving an imbalance of power. Currently there is really none. This lies at the very heart of the moderation issues we are talking about IMHO

Its all very well tweaking the guidelines, but the real problem is the application of the guidelines. This voting idea is most definitely a step in the right direction to addressing the real issue.

by Pondering Tue Oct 18, 2011 12:09

>An IP address for each (public) vote could be retained and duplicates could be discarded.

But proxies may be used. If you know what you are doing you can switch IPs very quickly. Amass a great number of votes in a short time. A better system is required. A log in procedure wouldn't totally negate this but it would make it more difficult to cheat.

by Thwarted troll Tue Oct 18, 2011 13:27

yeah. But how many people actually know what they are doing? How many of those people are stupid enough to be trolling on indymedia? I think very few. IP changing is just annoying enough to put off most people from bothering to do this. Furthermore, they can't actually vote down a particular editor. Not voting at all is the best they can do there. Voting up one particular editor won't help a troll much will it?

by critic Tue Oct 18, 2011 15:58

I think it is very unfair of the moderaters to personally attack critics of the site or how it is moderated such as the comments above of wageslave telling tomeile to go away. some of the actions of the moderaters have been really insulting and offensive to people in fact i consider unfair comment cutting to be worse than censorship I think it is uncomradly and very divisive of our cause and i would also call it the practice of social exclusion and political alienation for example opus diablos is never cut, one can only assume either he is on the committee or knows everybody on it which means the mod team is behaving simply like a social clique, people who don't live in Dublin or know any of the mod team can expect to be cut a hell of a lot more than in-group people

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Tue Oct 18, 2011 16:38

But check again.

I'm regularly cut. And sometimes bewildered by it. I say nothing cos i'm well used to not ever getting any space to counter what i consider misleading or mischievous shit.
For the same reason i try not to be personally abusive(I've read the code and adhere as best i can, and make alllowances then for the human agent trying to keep clutter down and not have space  wasted).

I've more to say than i do say. so when i post, I review and self-edit for my my own shit capacity(yeah, i know I do have one). Even if I feel something deserves a put-down(i always try not to INITIATE ad hominems)I try to tag information to it to make my case rationally.

Also, I'm quite happy to be corrected, but i check my facts and qualify my statements, it helps the score rate. Just common sense, and consideration for users and wageslave who has to plough through it all for little recognition.

Maybe my appreciation of the value of the resource helps. I dont demand perfection to MY terms, its a communal exercise. For me its like a meeting; I stand a t the back and leave it to smarter and more informed people unless something is obviously misleading and needs addressing cos the moderator is not seeing it, then hit to counter.

I'd rather just stay out, and watch, or read another book(or catch up witrh some comedy DVDs that are accumulating.
And, again, I do get(for some reason, my annoyance factor?)INVOKED. But not always in as civilised a way as ypu just did. Ta.

by critic Tue Oct 18, 2011 17:24

the moderaters have done it again they have just cut my comment and 1 comment by Tomeile completley unfairly, do the moderaters not realise that they are actually insulting people?

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Tue Oct 18, 2011 17:27

...I'd say if a moderator is posting they should surrender moderating on the issue, and other moderators should be extra slow to delete, unless real abuse occurs.
Maybe moderators need occasional democratic review of general behaviour.
Personally, I find acting as a guest gets me past. Travel teaches you that if you give respect, usually its reciprocated. And when its not, you aften damage the fucker more by keeping the cool and saying, Ciao.. Leave them to figure.
Sometimes, though, you do have to break noses, unfortunately, only language a bully understands, and if its not delivered they will do the damage to someone even weaker somewhere else. And I mean that nose-job literally, I'm an EX-pacifist, had me own snot briste too many times for no good reason. Had to do it recently. pain in the arse(head for him) but it halted a long run of abuse. Danger is someone else then wants your scalp for kudos.

But I have noticed people using multiple names(or else psyco-clones)when they want to intimidate and bully(it do happen you know). I dont mind, I'm a big boy, but its a dirty tactic, and shows insecurity of argument or arguing for ego-pump, not too conducive to construction, in a world over run with destructive psychosis. And certainly unfair to younger users maybe not as sure of themselves as we might be. As you say, if we dont show courtesy how can we build a counter-civilisation to the prevalent syphilisation. Its often the pro propaganda deliverers who know their arguments are false(guess yourself).

I'm not here for a buzz, I'm trying to stop shit thats accelerating towards us ALL. Even the shit-heads. Thats why I hold to the line we are more divided by stupidity and ignorance than malice, it allows me walk away and keep calm, more  important than any petty victory over someone else's neurosis. But then I'm a wrinklly ol fart, with a coupla grown kids so i figure i should have that gunslinger shit burned by now if I'm to exit less gracelessly than i've visited.

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Tue Oct 18, 2011 17:29

I personally don't live in dublin. Far from it.
I personally have no idea who opus is except from what he's said in comments.
Opus is not a member of this collective or a personal friend of anyone in the collective (to the best of my knowledge)
He's just a guy who likes to post on the site like everyone else.
I personally have hidden opus's comments on a good few occasions.

Most of what you are saying is just nonsense and completely untrue. I've clarified things so Take it back please.

by critic Tue Oct 18, 2011 17:38

as you can see from above total waffle is allowed from opus for example his comedy dvd collection??????? but sensible comments from Tomeile are being deleted because of a political argument concerning Hopi, obviously some of the moderaters are Hopi supporters that want to silence Tomeile, it could not be more unfair.

I also made a perfectly legitamite point that wageslave should not be trying to 'out' the real identity behind pseudo noms if the moderaters want to do that then get rid of the psuedo nom option alltogether.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Tue Oct 18, 2011 18:13

waiting for godot is short hillarious play. Go read beckett's reverence for such fixated critics as your harping is degenerating into. you grow tiresome, and only highlight wageslave's patient tolerance. I'm being polite here. If I had influence I'd give you a double barrel for sulking. I dont mind if this is wiped. It grows embarrassing to even engage with you.

And stop pouting, even though we're getting extra leeway for this thread, you're only wasting space stalking my hairy arse.

Drop the personal, i'm even new to cyberspace(though not primitive information technology like gutenberg), never mind knowing anyone 'inside'. I can barely navigate the site, though i am literate, and used to shooting grafitti at walls.En passant.

Lighten fucking up.

and the bad news??

I'm learning. Try it.

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Tue Oct 18, 2011 18:17

and mr critic

Please stop referring to us as "the moderators"

We are not an amalgam. If your comment is hidden., then it is currently hidden by ONE moderator who is an independent entity acting unilaterally who makes a subjective judgement call hopefully based on our guidelines that should not reflect on other moderators who may not necessarily agree with that decision at all and frequently don't. We are looking at changing this hence this thread and the meeting and other discussions.

I would also like you to note that I personally have unhidden anything that I felt forced to hide on this thread no matter how unpleasant or abusive it was since I have been commenting extensively here.

I don't agree with all the reasons comments were hidden on this thread. Personally I think some of those decisions were in error and have expressed this here and in other appropriate channels. But no individual moderator runs the show here. Nor should they. Not myself nor anyone else.

The real problem here is not "the evil moderators" acting as a group, but individual moderators acting unilaterally with poor judgement on occasion, without any serious fear of censure.
The solution lies in "the evil moderators" making more collective decisions on post hiding and individual moderators being reined in somewhat and again having a serious fear of censure injected into their world.

Tomeile is bold. He has been given every chance on this site to become a positive contributor. I personally have used my own personal time and energy and reached out against my better judgement and to my own detriment to try to extend the hand of friendship to him. He preferred to bite it. As far as I'm concerned, This last initiative of mine is his last chance and if it doesn't work out then I will wash my hands of him. You can only do so much to try and help people.

As mr spock said "the needs of the many...." There is a limit to how much we can allow one single individual to deliberately disrupt our threads. Tom is teetering on that boundary.

It takes two to tango, and his partner in crime is currently taking some serious flak for his part in this little dance too, believe me!! We may not have proper regulation of moderators yet but we can still express our dissatisfaction internally in ways that don't make the life of an offending moderator as easy as they might like it to be.

Its not just moderators that can be wrong in their behaviour. Posters hold responsibility too. Quite a lot in fact. Some of them need to think a little more about this before posting.

rgds
wageslave

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Tue Oct 18, 2011 18:31

"wageslave should not be trying to 'out' the real identity behind pseudo noms"

Please explain this comment mr critic.

I'm not trying to out anyone. I believe in as much anonymity as is possible and practical to running a website. I myself work anonymously on the site. Its what allows me to engage with people on this site without fear of personal reprisals. Others have chosen to be completely open and upfront regarding their identities and have been penalised for this admirable stance in their personal lives by trolls on this site.

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Tue Oct 18, 2011 18:46

ok I am now looking at hidden comments and I see why you made that statement critic.

All I'll say is whether "me" is "tomeile" doesn't really out either in any way. its just a two letter label as opposed to a 7 letter one. I still have no idea who tomeile really is. Thats what really counts here. Tomeile can come on the site tomorrow and post as "silvio berlisconi" if he likes. You are nit picking over nothing just to put the boot in mr critic.

In fact, for all I know YOU are tomeile! ;-)

by Peter Wed Oct 19, 2011 18:07

I give up. Indymedia is probably beyond redemption.

My last posting which contained a constructive suggestion, and a very gently ironic gibe at the moderators, was removed by some humourless censor  who considers himself so self-important that it is utterly beyond the pale to prick his pomposity.

Go die Indymedia. You aren't worth saving.

I'm not interested in participating any further.

Peter

by W. Finnerty. Wed Oct 19, 2011 20:01

Unfortunately, I think you may be right Peter (at Wed Oct 19, 2011 18:07): at least as far as some of the Indymedia moderators are concerned.
 
 Related link: http://www.humanrightsireland.com/CelticParty/18October...l.htm
 
 "Errare humanum est; perseverare diabolicum." (Seneca the Younger, circa 4 BC – 65 AD)
 
 "To err is human; to persist [with error] is of the Devil."

by wageslave Wed Oct 19, 2011 20:57

peter, william

sorry you both feel that way.

Thanks for your input, some of which was quite constructive.

I can't comment on the hides other than to plead the bart simpson defence "it wasn't me"

all the best
wageslave

by Des Wed Oct 19, 2011 22:04

I have to agree with others regarding the removal....ooops.....I mean hiding of comments.

 

I've had several removed in the past (lets face it - who goes onto the removed part and reads it - so at the end of the day its still a form of censorship).

 

I wouldn't have minded if I'd said something offensive or libelous, but all I did was put forward and argument disagreeing with certain people who spat out the dummy and wouldn't or couldn't counter what I said so took the cowards way and had them removed.

 

Have to admit, as much as I love this site, it does really piss me off that something dedicated to freedom of speech and helping the under-dog has no problem using big brother tactics, at least to preserve the egos of certain patrons.

 

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Thu Oct 20, 2011 10:09

Des
Thanks for your comment.
I agree, it is currently somewhat cumbersome to access.

if an offending comment was removed and replaced by a direct link to the comment in the archive, would that be enough? The comment would now be just one click away.

The problem of whether or not a comment should be hidden in the first place is an individual moderator quality control issue and is a somewhat thornier problem, but that too is being discussed. (see above). One current suggestion here is a regular moderator confidence vote.

To help guard further against bias, It has been suggested that we should take a leaf from "occupy" movements and demand resignation from external groups before joining as a moderator here. Personally I am of this opinion. Strong external group allegiances are problematic. However the shortage of moderators and lack of applications makes this somewhat impractical at present. Also submarining could still occur. In short, all organisations / campaigns face the possibility of infiltration / control attempts. I think the key here is that things should be arranged so that this doesn't matter because the work still gets done. Essential decision making should be evenly spread so its difficult to control by any one person. Also individual powers should be limited and most importantly, regularly accountable to the group with automatic suspension of powers based on a regular vote as previously suggested.

Well thats just some of my own thoughts. I'd like to hear some other people's thoughts. These problems don't just occur on indymedia. How do other groups deal with these problems?

rgds
wageslave

by aunt vanya Sat Oct 22, 2011 11:36

Hi,

Here's something you should consider.

The government appoints judges all the time. Notoriously, most of these are appointed because, in addition to having the required experience, they were of some service to one of the government parties when they were practicing at the bar (Some would even have been candidates for political office).

However, in spite of this flawed and partisan appointment process, our judges, once appointed, have never to my knowledge failed to uphold their independence when administering and interpreting the law. Judges appointed by a particular government don't hesitate to make decisions which are often (particularly in judicial review cases) mightly inconvenient to the same government.

The system works, in spite of the partisan appointment process, because once appointed, the judge considers his or her only priority is to unhold the law and justice. This is an issue of integrity.

Why doesn't anyone here expect the Indymedia moderators to have a similar integrity in applying the guidelines?

 

 

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Sat Oct 22, 2011 12:44

Now there is a pair of strange bedfellows. Our law is founded on centuries of war and theft, and is designed to protect the thieves and warmongers.

Otherwise Shell would be indicted for murder, bribery, corruption and Pat O'Donnell would be on your news instead of Dana and her dwarves(no offence ye elevationally challenged people, I'm referring to the mental midgit brigades).

And our 'leaders' would be up before the ICC for colluding in illegal wars, torture and abduction. And you might even by able to say such things in our media.

Oh, the system works all right, and no-one who dissents from the heirarchical consensus of brown-nosed ambition filters UP.

May indy never descend to such 'integrity'. I know its unfashionable(and I'll probably draw accusations of nasal manouevres for it)but I think your criticism needs a wee tweak.

by tomeile Sat Oct 22, 2011 13:37

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. There is no indymedia collective outside of the editorial board that is capable of giving moderators any sort of a legitimate mandate for the decisions they make. They are all the same people . 7 moderators , 7 collective members 7 members of the collective. They are the Magnificent 7 , that’s all there is of them . And now they want us to supply our own line breaks! The moderators are all in breach of their own constitution which states inter alia : "6.1 No member shall remain as a list moderator or a list secretary for a consecutive period of longer than 1 year" The “peace-keeping” moderators who make all the decisions in other words have no legitimacy outside of their access to the site codes and their proximity to the delete button . At times these high and mighty ones seem to be at each others throats , but the Olympian wars we sometimes hear about are just hot air – all completely unprincipled and based on compromises and usually-unvoiced blackmail going on between editors. You leave me in peace to write my Islamophobia whenever I like , Mark and I’ll forget about that time you featured the interview to promote your own website that we all knew was “self-conducted” . As individuals , editorial board members have made so many compromises with the truth that they are now all fully compromised.

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Sat Oct 22, 2011 15:15

Tom

what you say is largely a lot of mudslinging. I only wish this loosely bound group of individuals that work to try and keep this site going was anything like as coherent in consensus as you say. We have plenty of genuine healthy disagreements. Anyone with eyes can see this.

I can't really speak directly for others, but your picture does not reflect my own part in this website at all. IMHO neither does it reflect anyone else I work with whom, although I disagree strongly with at times, still are IMHO quite a decent and principled bunch of individuals with good hearts committed to changing society for the better, each in their own different ways. A far cry from most people in the other media I have come across.

You freely speak of the motivations of other people you don't even know.
Perhaps you might also enlighten us as to your own motivations in continually criticising and attacking a website and its volunteers individually for years on end. And a website you describe as irrelevant and receiving few hits. Seems an odd way to spend your time? Maybe you are benefitting in some way from this odd behaviour?

Do enlighten us Tom since we are all baring our souls here.....

by Aunt vanya Sat Oct 22, 2011 15:41

You are rather missing my point. I am not arguing that any particular law is fair or unfair (And I'm interested to note that you are quite prepared to assume criminal guilt on the part of people you obviously dislike - without benefit of judge or jury - God help us all if you were ever in a position of executive or judicial power). Laws are made by the Oireachtas, which, if I recall, is comprised of the elected representatives of the Irish people (Save for the Senators, of course). The judges administer and interpret those laws in determining whether the state is entitled to infringe on the rights of individuals (they also adjudicate private disputes between individuals). So much for the political theory. The point is that the judges are capable of carrying out their task without fear or favour, and that is what we expect of people in that position. The quality we expect of them is personal integrity (irrespective of whether you, I, the judge, or uncle Tom Cobley personally approve of any particular law). The issue is committment to an abstract ideal - not whether you approve of the law, comment, or guideline.

It seems to me implicit in this discussion that no one trusts the Indymedia moderators to have impartiality or integrity in their task of applying and interpreting the guidelines. It is assumed that they are incapable of leaving their partisan alliances outside the door when carrying out their moderating function. This is a dreadful indictment.

Indymedia should appoint an Ombudsperson who has the necessary maturity and integrity, and the moderators would have to refer comment which they consider objectionable to the Ombudsperson BEFORE hiding the allegedly objectionable comment. 

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Sat Oct 22, 2011 15:53

you could boycott this lousy site that is so unworthy of being graced by your olympian standards.

That'd teach 'em.

Go on try it. Deprive us of your pontifications for a week. I'd say they'll be knock knock knockin on your heavenly door by tuesday.

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Sat Oct 22, 2011 16:44

thought I was talking to tom not Aunty vanya.
Unless of course you are actually same person??
(Sock puppetry on the same thread is normally a hiding offence by the way.)

Hiding a few borderline comments on a website is about the worst we can do with our "absolute power" (muhahhah!) which is a far cry from imprisoning people and taking away their liberty.

God, you'd swear the way certain people go on here that we are responsible for warcrimes or something. We hide a few comments. Thats all. Get a grip ok? We're even trying to get feedback so we can be fairer about even doing that.

Perhaps you'd like to get back on topic now and actually make some constructive suggestions as to how we could make this website better instead of taking cheap shots, totally exaggerating our "evilness" and putting the boot in.

Meanwhile, I have a little puppy. perhaps you'd like to imagine he's the cereberus and kick him a few times too?

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Sat Oct 22, 2011 16:59

And aunty, I personally think an ombudsman is not a sensible suggestion. Who in their right mind would want that job for one thing. Secondly, its no better than a two vote hide or a positive vote system and far less practical. i.e. we need to find someone daft enough to volunteer to read every stupid borderline post we get on this site. I wouldn't wish that on anybody!!

However just for giggles I'm interested in your suggestions as to who might do this job!

Maybe Dana when her election campaign fails perhaps? ;-) Brownie points for the funniest suggestion ok? Cos I could really do with a good a laugh at this stage on this thread!!

by Aunt vanya Sat Oct 22, 2011 21:17

Yeah, I appreciated the impracticality of an Ombudsperson when I made the suggestion. (Mind you, Indymedia is full of people who claim to be able to speak on behalf of the entire Irish people. You would imagine that people who claim to speak for the entire population wouldn't have a shortage of manpower to call upon)

But, think about this: We are having this discussion because everyone here recognizes that the moderators have been unable to fairly, impartially, and honestly apply the guidelines. It is accepted common case in most of the comment in this discussion that they haven't had the maturity, integrety, and restraint to put their personal partisan prejudices aside when doing this job. Now, in the real world if people are unable or unwilling to do their job properly they are generally replaced by people who can or will. Is there anyone in the Indymedia family who has the integrity and maturity and common sense to do this job?

Perhaps not.

 

 

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Sat Oct 22, 2011 21:29

Aunty gives great joke

'..Indymedia is full of people who claim to be able to speak on behalf of the entire......because everyone here recognises....'

I think Aunty should get the ombudswo/man job....and post as U. N. Animus.

by tomeile Sun Oct 23, 2011 12:34

Auntie V was obviously trying to be constructive with her suggestion about an ombudsman . People who spend a lot of time writing to this site only to have their contributions deleted at the whim of an anonymous editor should have some recourse. The point Auntie Vanya makes about integrity is also entirely valid , as anybody who has followed the deleted comments to this thread should know ..

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Sun Oct 23, 2011 13:21

Just pointing out a contradiction, tom, I'd expect(and hope for)the same constructive response when(not if) I merit it.

And would you not open a fresh thread on your pet subject? Or has that been barred?Despite accusations I am not, as Wageslave has testified, 'an insider'.

I just accept the site as a resource, try not to indulge meself tooo much, and accept they'll take down stuff I think should stay. I dont want to be editor or ombudsman, and think the fuss is a bit OTT. Compared to MSM censorship we're fucking rich in freedom of expression here. Maybe I'm too easy pleased, but ya cant please some people.

Plus some of the feedback is positive nitpicking, and tending towards negative disruption and, harping on one string issues when we have a whole shagging orchestra of problems. Triage has to enter, and subjective decisions are reality.

I think we share perspective on BAe, but it is only one (if an enormous)issue. And generally, (even when trying to penetrate the fog of IT policy on  letters access) know when I'm pissing against the hurricane. Not a fruitful exercise. I save my beef for Rupert and his cowboys. Not the  Indyans. Other people can be put off by monotone. hardly what we want is it?Unless you'd rather the site faded altogether.Me I wish it had MORE traffic and activity, not least critical feedback.

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Sun Oct 23, 2011 13:45

Your wanton acts of graffitti on this site, i.e. repeatedly derailing discussions by repeating the same tired old posts about the integrity of Yassimine Mather over and over again, trying to sling mud at the moderators of this site etc, do not show a whole lot of integrity either Tom.

Just an incomprehensible and single minded desire to try to sabotage a public resource for some unseen motive. Other people use this site and find it useful judging from their feedback, and your posts often interfere with that. Have you ever considered them before clogging up yet another thread with one of your selfish and deliberate acts of graffitti on this site?

You clearly don't have the best interests of this site at heart Tom. Just destruction. This thread is about constructive public input.

Tom, at this stage everyone and their dog has read your various misgivings about HOPI and Yassimine Mather in meticulous detail in your umpteen posts about this all over this site repeating the same stuff over and over again. Nothing has changed and repeating the same points over and over doesn't achieve anything new except to try your audience's patience and clog up other discussions on this site with your selfish YM "graffitti" posts. The words "digital vandalism" somehow come to mind!

Look, we get it ok. The readers have statements ad nauseaum from both sides now so can we just let them make up their own minds up at this point and move on to other issues ok?.

And can we get back on topic here please?

by tomeile Sun Oct 23, 2011 15:56

No , readers haven't had a chance to make up their minds, wageslave. Every time i post a comment about Yassamine Mather's work at the BAe-funded Department of Aerospace Engineering her supporters on the editorial board take it down . This story posted by the vice-president for teaching at UCC was hidden by the editorial board last Monday. The reason for the hide according to the HOPI-supporting editor Ronan was : “Absolutely no mention of this on UCC website. This is just more nonsense from tomeile.”

Erin-Iran conference at UCC, 22 October 2011
On 22 October 2011 there will be a conference at UCC that may be of interest to you. The approx timings will be 9am start with a 6pm finish. The venue is Boole 2. The conference is a public one, i.e. open to all, so please feel free to circulate to your contacts. All are welcome. Registration isn’t required – just show up on the day. --- Content --- Panel I: Comparative Legends

Chair:

Iran and Erin: Gorgani’s Viseh and Béroult’s Iseut
Richard Davis, Ohio State University

Parallel Heroic Themes in the Old Irish Cattle Raid of Cooley and the Classical Persian Book of Kings
Olga Davidson, Boston University

Building Bulls and Crafting Cows: Indo-European Narratives of Bovine Fabrication
John McDonald, Cornell University

The Conqueror Worm in Irish and Persian Tradition
Joseph Nagy, UCLA

Discussant:

Lunch break

Panel II: Literary Encounters

Chair:

The Wilde Iran: Lady Jane Francesca Wilde, Ancient Iran, and Irish Nationalist Historiographies
Mansour Bonakdarian, Independent Scholar

Orientalism and Persian Poetry in Late-Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century Ireland
Oliver Scharbrodt, UCC

The Irish and Iranians in Simin Daneshvar’s Savushun: Sharing Poetic Sensitivity and Misery
Mohammad Ghanoonparvar, University of Texas

Discussant:

Panel III: Socio-Cultural Encounters

Chair: Houchang Chehabi

Collecting for the ‘Dublin Museum’: Robert Murdoch Smith and the Acquisition of Artefacts in Qajar Iran
Moya Carey,Victoria and Albert Museum, London

An Irishwoman in Tehran (1849-53)
Brendan McNamara, UCC

Gendered Images and Women’s Rights in Iran and Ireland
Roja Fazaeli, Trinity College, Dublin
Melanie Hoewer, University College, Dublin

Discussant: Ali Ansari, University of St. Andrews

Opus Diablos takes the view that Ms Mather's work is one issue among many , but for readers of this site it is a very important issue ,because Ms Mather's supporters are in control of the editorial board of Indymedia Ireland and they are censoring all posts left right and centre that don't suit them . Comments that I posted here today regarding censored posts in April that exposed the IAWM position on Libya - which is a position similar to the one taken by HOPI in relation to Iran- were censored by HOPI supporters on the indymedia editorial board . As the hide from UCC above indicates , this censorship is going to absolutely ridiculous lengths . Four ,perhaps five ,posters to this thread have been wrongly identified as “tomeile”. Opus doesn’t seem to mind about his comments being deleted , and suggests that I open a new thread . Believe me I have tried Opus , please look at the hidden articles section to the left hand side of the site .

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Sun Oct 23, 2011 16:38

its you thats censoring and distorting.

I've said I mind, but I'm not locked on a single-track monorail to nowhere, and realise other people have other spectra of priorities than my particular punnet of bonnet-bees.

Your fixation needs fixing, and the more you disrupt the less sympathy I have for your case. Everyone who aint in lockstep is the fucking enemy. May you never get editorial influence, dictatorship seems to be your bag, and I begin to get the impression your only agenda is the deniigration and sabotaging of the site.

Now why would that be? Further, and if you've noticed my remarks over the while I'm about you know I'm no BAe fan, but your drone is getting incessant and I'm inclined to organise a whip round for the readies to order a fucking stinger for humane elision.

Now that spells you are actually defeating your own purported case...possible conclusion?...you are false flagging for nefarious purposes.

And again you fucking presume to write on behalf of '..readers of this site..'. I AM one of those readers. Who fucking gave you the right to whinge for ME?

And any chance I might go look at your deletions is removed as a result of your incivil lack of respect for the thread, this reader, and wageslave, who may be a total whateveryouliketocall, but had shown more patience than I would.

By several blocks, not imposed. thats as polite as i can manage. Good luck.

by wageslave - (personal capacity) Sun Oct 23, 2011 19:36

tom.
That post you refer to was unhidden again exactly because it was hidden in error.
Get your facts right.

Its just that we are so used to you causing trouble we are seeing you and your socks everywhere. could you blame us at this stage??

You've just posted a completely off topic irrelevant post that is not hidden and is available elsewhere on the site and its clogging this thread so I think it should be hidden purely to unclutter this thread. duplicate posts are clearly against the guidelines. And 95% the same is considered a duplicate here for practical purposes.

By the way tom, if you read the guidelines, continuing an argument across multiple threads is part of the guidelines and is grounds for hiding. Why do you continually break our guidelines and not expect to get your posts hidden? You have continued this YM argument across multiple threads over a very long period of time. People have agreed the guidelines are ok but it is the implementation that is the problem.
So how come you are continually breaking our guidelines by any fair reading of them and yet still complaining about us hiding your posts?

Furthermore you are currently on a ban because you did not respond to our offer. I'm not going to hide your posts but someone should.

Personally I have nothing to do with HOPI or YM. tom is just talking out his ass on this. One moderator is a member of HOPI. thats it. There are 7 of us here. 6 are not members of HOPI. We have discussed the matter of bias with the aforementioned moderator and they were duly chastised. What more do you expect from us here tom?

Now please stoppit. I've been far too patient with you.

I am locking this thread now because you are just using it to cause trouble and you have essentially derailed the thread with your antics, and I no longer have time to respond to you any more.

your activities will be directly responsible for the decision to lock this thread. Your activities are directly responsible for depriving members of the public from expressing their views further on the actual topic. You really don't care about the rights of the public at all do you. Otherwise you would not be so disruptive and forcing our hand like this.

IIf anyone has an issue with my locking this thread, please express your displeasure by emailing tomeile and telling him so.

Again thanks to everyone who contributed positively. Sorry one troll derailed our bona fide attempts to get feedback about our moderation. Perhaps now people can see the kind of thing we have to endure here and why we are as defensive as we sometimes are.

thanks again everyone.
some good ideas have been absorbed into the collective consciousness. Hopefully some practical actions will be taken to improve moderation as a result of this dialogue.

rgds
wageslave