[IMC-Boston-Editorial] Brilliant essay on editing website from
ireland indymedia
Pete Stidman
pstidman at yahoo.com
Mon Aug 15 07:20:25 PDT 2005
Here's a brilliant little off hand essay written by
one of Irelands crew on the way they edit their site.
Some really good ideas that are doubtlessly working
well.
Does anybody have a date for our next webitorial mtg?
-Pete
Indymedia Ireland's comments work very well in my
opinion. This stems
from us having a relatively detailled editorial policy
http://www.indymedia.ie/editorial.php and applying it
strictly - even
ruthlessly. In addition to the various anti
hate-speech policies, and
the one forbidding meta-discussion on the newswire (a
golden rule of
web
moderation) the most useful (and heavily used) policy
that we have for
keeping order in the comments is banning any personal
abuse summed up
as
"play the ball, not the man" (*note to self - address
gendering of
phrase).
Second most useful and used policy is that which
forbids
unsubstantiated
allegations. In practice we apply this in proportion
to the
seriousness
of the allegation. So, for example, we would require
a very heavy
amount of evidence for a serious criminal allegation
against a named
individual and lesser burdens of evidence for general
allegations of
mispractice against institutions or public figures.
This guideline
takes care of all sorts of rubbish from serious
misinformation to
standard "all them protestors are just criminals"
trolling. It even
serves to weed out most of the bonkers conspiralunacy
(although banning
cross-posting is more important for that).
Third most useful and used policy is that which
demands that comments
are directly related to the article and add
information or put forward
a
coherent argument about it. This gets rid of general
cliched responses
such as "you're all smelly hippies, get a job".
Actually it's
historical genesis was dealing with a particularly
annoying trotskyist
troll who greeted every single posting by an anarchist
with "anarchists
are middle class tossers..." rubbish and every labour
party posting
with
"the labour party is not a workers party....".
However, having such a detailed and effective
editorial policy set
depends on us having a very well defined
organisational structure,
highly evolved decision making processes, the current
state of which is
summarised here:
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=70147
Particularly important is that we have means of
resolving disagreements
over non-core issues in a speedy fashion.
It's also important to the functioning of the comments
section that we
apply the rules irrespective of the political point of
view of the
poster. The paradoxical outcome of all this is that we
have by far the
highest ratio of comments to stories in the network
_and_ we delete
far,
far more comments than almost anybody else (bar the
belgians probably).
Finally, the fact that our software (oscailt) provides
many automatic
features to ensure transparency and accountability
means that we
successfully maintain the trust of our readers despite
the inevitable
and regular onslaughts of "CENSORSHIP FASCISTS!!!!"
campaigns that are
waged against us by the far right and by
conspiranoids. In fact we
just
endured a 4 pronged assault in the last few days (see:
https://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/private/imc-ireland/2005-August/date.html
- you need to join to view I'm afraid)
Some measures of our relative success:
* We get an awful lot of traffic for an Irish site:
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=71247
(the number of
visitors to our site in July was equal to about 5% of
the country's
population).
* Our comments section plays host to all of the most
important and
influential public debates on the Irish left (most
recently:
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=71354)
and among various
other groups, for example Irish historians:
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=67769
(many of the
commenteers are well known professional academic
historians).
* The last lord mayor of the capital city is an almost
daily
contributor
(and we regularly have to hide his comments) - search
for "Dermot
Lacey"
on the site.
* Our traffic and anecdotal evidence shows that by far
our best segment
of "market penetration" at the moment is among small
farmers in the
West
of Ireland who are currently in virtual rebellion
against exploitation
by the multi-national shell (see
http://www.indymedia.ie/mayo ). They
have used indymedia ireland as their primary
communication mechanism in
their extremely impressive and virtually unprecedented
mobilisation -
the biggest thing to happen in the region since the
war of indpendence.
In general in Ireland, as soon as people turn to
struggle, they turn to
indymedia.
* We regularly get denounced in the mainstream media
and in particular
by the minister for (in) justice (eg
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=64150 )
* "I'll put it up on indymedia" is a fairly well-known
threat in the
council chambers and parliamentary corridors of
Ireland.
* The local PR industry includes news of our internal
debates and
decisions in their bulletins to corporate clients:
http://pkellypr.com/blog/2005/0616/indymediaie-to-expand-into-local-collectives-pr-practitioners-take-note/
* We have our very own lunatic stalker site designed
to post personal
details of editors and damaging slanders about us on
the internet:
http://indymediairelandwatch.blogspot.com
* Finally, and most significantly in my opinion, if
you were to mention
the word indymedia in front of any given member of our
elite, you'd get
very short odds that an instinctive scowl would cross
their face. They
don't like us one little bit. Better still, we are
equally disliked by
the leaders of the authoritarians of the left as by
those of the right:
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=65858
while being
immensely popular amongst rank and file movements of
all sorts.
Of course, our model is not necessarily going to be
transposable to
other parts of the world. We enjoy several major
advantages over
others, including a manageable 'market' size and a
relatively parochial
political system (when members of the cabinet
bad-mouth us at dinner
parties, we sometimes hear about it the next day) and
a reasonable
spread of political backgrounds among the collective
which means that
we
can verify stuff quickly and reliably. Politically we
benefit from a
landscape that had a relatively tiny authoritarian
left to serve as a
brake to the wave of global libertarian consciousness
which indymedia
sprang from and thus very few established alternatives
in competition
with us. We also have a relatively well organised,
ambitious and
active
anarchist movement and a general culture where writing
and
argumentation
are relatively popular mass passtimes. Our economy is
also unusually
dominated by technical industry and we thus have a
good number of
leftists with technical expertise.
I apologise if this mail might reek somewhat of crass
boasting.
However, I do think that, in relation to comments and
our website's
impact in general we are well worth having a look at
as a model and I
am
very proud of what we have acheived. In other areas
we are far less
successful and I am much more critical of some of our
other work. For
example, we have developed largely in isolation from
the international
network. It is only in the last few months that we
have started to
have
some meaningful engagement and participation in the
global network and
lists and that is only because I've been able to
wangle my way into a
technical research project which allows me to spend a
fair bit of my
time researching the network and its operations and
reporting my
findings back to the collective. In particular I am
somewhat
embarrassed
that we have never provided much in the way of
solidarity to the
movement in the global south when we don't have any
problem raising
funds when we try.
I am attempting to address that isolation as much as
possible and we
have a proposal on the table to engage in a serious
fundraising
campaign
for the movement in the global south. Anyway, my
investigations into
the network have frequently surprised me as to how
different we are to
many other indymedias and also as to how our model is
one that might be
well worth looking at for other collectives.
Researching our network
keeps making me ever more of an advocate (or
evangelist ;-)) for
imc.ie. There are many things that have impressed me
about the
international network on the other hand and hopefully
I can carry some
of them back to our collective, but there are also
lessons that others
in the network can take from us. The most important
one is, in my
opinion, that formality, effective decision making
processes and strict
application of rules are not inconsistent with free
democratic media,
instead they are vital for it.
Hey folks,
Why so glum chums? Here's a really great explanation
of how indymedia.ie does their editing and how well
they are doing. Maybe we can take a few hints?
-Pete
Indymedia Ireland's comments work very well in my
opinion. This stems
from us having a relatively detailled editorial policy
http://www.indymedia.ie/editorial.php and applying it
strictly - even
ruthlessly. In addition to the various anti
hate-speech policies, and
the one forbidding meta-discussion on the newswire (a
golden rule of
web
moderation) the most useful (and heavily used) policy
that we have for
keeping order in the comments is banning any personal
abuse summed up
as
"play the ball, not the man" (*note to self - address
gendering of
phrase).
Second most useful and used policy is that which
forbids
unsubstantiated
allegations. In practice we apply this in proportion
to the
seriousness
of the allegation. So, for example, we would require
a very heavy
amount of evidence for a serious criminal allegation
against a named
individual and lesser burdens of evidence for general
allegations of
mispractice against institutions or public figures.
This guideline
takes care of all sorts of rubbish from serious
misinformation to
standard "all them protestors are just criminals"
trolling. It even
serves to weed out most of the bonkers conspiralunacy
(although banning
cross-posting is more important for that).
Third most useful and used policy is that which
demands that comments
are directly related to the article and add
information or put forward
a
coherent argument about it. This gets rid of general
cliched responses
such as "you're all smelly hippies, get a job".
Actually it's
historical genesis was dealing with a particularly
annoying trotskyist
troll who greeted every single posting by an anarchist
with "anarchists
are middle class tossers..." rubbish and every labour
party posting
with
"the labour party is not a workers party....".
However, having such a detailed and effective
editorial policy set
depends on us having a very well defined
organisational structure,
highly evolved decision making processes, the current
state of which is
summarised here:
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=70147
Particularly important is that we have means of
resolving disagreements
over non-core issues in a speedy fashion.
It's also important to the functioning of the comments
section that we
apply the rules irrespective of the political point of
view of the
poster. The paradoxical outcome of all this is that we
have by far the
highest ratio of comments to stories in the network
_and_ we delete
far,
far more comments than almost anybody else (bar the
belgians probably).
Finally, the fact that our software (oscailt) provides
many automatic
features to ensure transparency and accountability
means that we
successfully maintain the trust of our readers despite
the inevitable
and regular onslaughts of "CENSORSHIP FASCISTS!!!!"
campaigns that are
waged against us by the far right and by
conspiranoids. In fact we
just
endured a 4 pronged assault in the last few days (see:
https://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/private/imc-ireland/2005-August/date.html
- you need to join to view I'm afraid)
Some measures of our relative success:
* We get an awful lot of traffic for an Irish site:
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=71247
(the number of
visitors to our site in July was equal to about 5% of
the country's
population).
* Our comments section plays host to all of the most
important and
influential public debates on the Irish left (most
recently:
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=71354)
and among various
other groups, for example Irish historians:
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=67769
(many of the
commenteers are well known professional academic
historians).
* The last lord mayor of the capital city is an almost
daily
contributor
(and we regularly have to hide his comments) - search
for "Dermot
Lacey"
on the site.
* Our traffic and anecdotal evidence shows that by far
our best segment
of "market penetration" at the moment is among small
farmers in the
West
of Ireland who are currently in virtual rebellion
against exploitation
by the multi-national shell (see
http://www.indymedia.ie/mayo ). They
have used indymedia ireland as their primary
communication mechanism in
their extremely impressive and virtually unprecedented
mobilisation -
the biggest thing to happen in the region since the
war of indpendence.
In general in Ireland, as soon as people turn to
struggle, they turn to
indymedia.
* We regularly get denounced in the mainstream media
and in particular
by the minister for (in) justice (eg
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=64150 )
* "I'll put it up on indymedia" is a fairly well-known
threat in the
council chambers and parliamentary corridors of
Ireland.
* The local PR industry includes news of our internal
debates and
decisions in their bulletins to corporate clients:
http://pkellypr.com/blog/2005/0616/indymediaie-to-expand-into-local-collectives-pr-practitioners-take-note/
* We have our very own lunatic stalker site designed
to post personal
details of editors and damaging slanders about us on
the internet:
http://indymediairelandwatch.blogspot.com
* Finally, and most significantly in my opinion, if
you were to mention
the word indymedia in front of any given member of our
elite, you'd get
very short odds that an instinctive scowl would cross
their face. They
don't like us one little bit. Better still, we are
equally disliked by
the leaders of the authoritarians of the left as by
those of the right:
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=65858
while being
immensely popular amongst rank and file movements of
all sorts.
Of course, our model is not necessarily going to be
transposable to
other parts of the world. We enjoy several major
advantages over
others, including a manageable 'market' size and a
relatively parochial
political system (when members of the cabinet
bad-mouth us at dinner
parties, we sometimes hear about it the next day) and
a reasonable
spread of political backgrounds among the collective
which means that
we
can verify stuff quickly and reliably. Politically we
benefit from a
landscape that had a relatively tiny authoritarian
left to serve as a
brake to the wave of global libertarian consciousness
which indymedia
sprang from and thus very few established alternatives
in competition
with us. We also have a relatively well organised,
ambitious and
active
anarchist movement and a general culture where writing
and
argumentation
are relatively popular mass passtimes. Our economy is
also unusually
dominated by technical industry and we thus have a
good number of
leftists with technical expertise.
I apologise if this mail might reek somewhat of crass
boasting.
However, I do think that, in relation to comments and
our website's
impact in general we are well worth having a look at
as a model and I
am
very proud of what we have acheived. In other areas
we are far less
successful and I am much more critical of some of our
other work. For
example, we have developed largely in isolation from
the international
network. It is only in the last few months that we
have started to
have
some meaningful engagement and participation in the
global network and
lists and that is only because I've been able to
wangle my way into a
technical research project which allows me to spend a
fair bit of my
time researching the network and its operations and
reporting my
findings back to the collective. In particular I am
somewhat
embarrassed
that we have never provided much in the way of
solidarity to the
movement in the global south when we don't have any
problem raising
funds when we try.
I am attempting to address that isolation as much as
possible and we
have a proposal on the table to engage in a serious
fundraising
campaign
for the movement in the global south. Anyway, my
investigations into
the network have frequently surprised me as to how
different we are to
many other indymedias and also as to how our model is
one that might be
well worth looking at for other collectives.
Researching our network
keeps making me ever more of an advocate (or
evangelist ;-)) for
imc.ie. There are many things that have impressed me
about the
international network on the other hand and hopefully
I can carry some
of them back to our collective, but there are also
lessons that others
in the network can take from us. The most important
one is, in my
opinion, that formality, effective decision making
processes and strict
application of rules are not inconsistent with free
democratic media,
instead they are vital for it.
We are also preparing a major expansion into several
new areas of media
with the completion of our new software which is an
attempt to endow us
with the tools to cope with the continual expansion in
numbers of
people
using the site and contributing to it.
Finally, considering the increasing impact that we are
having in
Ireland, I don't think it will be too long before
there is some attempt
to suppress us. So don't be too surprised if you soon
read an appeal
for help from myself or another of our volunteers.
Chekov
1 of indymedia.ie (and an evangelical one at that)
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