[imc-maritimes] PROPOSAL: New editorial policy

[Pollard, Ryan Joel]

Hello all,

  Folks have been looking to re-examine the editorial policy.  I present you a draft
based on the IMC Victoria model.  If you wish to propose any amendments, please send
them to the list so that they may be debated.  If there are no objections, or only
non-contentious amendments, I propose the new policy come into force on December 27,
2004.

  I have posted the draft to the website, as well:

http://maritimes.buffaloimc.org:8080/news/2004/12/9287.php

[begin proposed new policy]

IMC Maritimes shall focus on ‘Activist Publishing’, with an emphasis on local material
that is relevant and useful to our audience of progressive Maritime social and
political activists. As part of this transformation, we have decided to reduce the
'noise-to-signal' ratio on the IMC Maritimes web site by adopting the following
editorial policy, which we believe best balances the IMC 'Open Publishing' tradition
with the real needs of the Maritimes activist community. 

Local and Global Newswires 

In accordance with IMC Maritimes's overall mission, the online Newswire is designed to
empower individuals to become independent and civic journalists by providing a direct
forum for presenting media, including text articles, audio and video recordings and
photographs to the public via the Internet. 

Within that general framework, we specifically encourage individuals to publish: 

* Well-researched, timely articles 

* Investigative reports exposing injustice 

* Coverage of Eastern Canadian regional issues 

* Stories on events affecting underrepresented groups 

* Stories on issues ignored by the mainstream media 

* Stories on people or projects working towards social and economic justice 

* Eyewitness accounts of progressive actions and demonstrations 

* Media analysis 

* Information on new forms of technology that promote social justice 

* Other stories from around the world, that while not specific to the Maritimes, are
pertinent to a world-wide struggle for social justice. 

This type of material is generally promoted to the 'Local' or 'Global' Newswire
sections, to give it more promenance and exposure, and may be selected by one of the
'Category Editors' to become a feature story in the center column of the front page,
and of a topic (e.g. Buy Nothing Day, Poverty) or geographic (e.g. Prince Edward
Island, North East North America) page. 

Banned Material (Posts that will be removed) 

Generally speaking, the following types of material is outside of the range of
acceptable use, and will be hidden or deleted if posted to the Newswire as an article
or comment: 

* Pornography and sexist/abuse posts. 

* Racist, Anti-semitic, anti-islamic and other 'hate speech' posts. 

* Libel, slander, defamation and abusive personal attacks. 

* Death threats and threats of violence. 

* Bombmaking instructions and similar paramilitary information 

* Posts by fascist, Nazi or sexist organizations and individuals. 

* Commercial advertising 

* Destabilization posts intended to undermine the usability of the newswire 

* Anything fraudulently posted as IMC Maritimes 

*Misinformation intended to disrupt activist actions and discussions (i.e. false
information regarding an event, with the intent to disrupt the event.) 

* Identity theft postings using real names or the known handle of another activist 

* Posts where IMC Maritimes has received a ‘cease and desist' letter from a solicitor. 

* Posts that are primarily personal attacks on other posters. 

* Duplicate posts 

* Posts that are technically corrupt or unreadable 

Multiple posts of banned material by a poster may result in a permanent ban of that
poster. A permanently banned poster may have their posts removed from the Newswire,
irrespective of the contents of any specific post. 


[end proposal]

  Peace, RP.