[Imc-uk-features] Moderating Indymedia: The Joy of Sects and the Right

[phunkee]

euan2000 at onetel.com wrote:

> And I don't really see why this post needs to be hidden.
>
> What happened in Sheffield? Wasn't there some sort of discussion about 
> there
> being to much Hidding going on, a discussion that was continued from 
> the long
> discussion we where having on the lists?
>
> Was it agreed that people should continue hidding anything and 
> everything that
> wasn't 100% anarchist?
>
> I don't want that.
>
> un.

hmmm i don't really know where to begin with this one - i haven't 
responded to your last objection to my moderation decision about hiding 
the fight racism fight imperialism conference article (325618)

so here goes:

Indymedia and the Joy of Sects:

Before I begin I'd just like to point out that Fight Racism Fight 
Imperialism are the Revolutionary Communist Group which is a political 
party. Perhaps it's one you've never heard or taken any notice of, so 
here's some links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Communist_Group and 
http://www.rcgfrfi.easynet.co.uk/

According to our editorial guidelines we don't accept posts from 
hierarchical groups or political parties that use our newswire as a 
noticeboard particularly when they don't have any news content. I 
thought that was a fairly good reason to hide the post.

I've gotta admit if it had some news in it I probably wouldn't have 
hidden it but this post is just promoting an event. We had a brief 
discussion in irc about it and a couple of imc-istas who incidentally 
managed to leave some of these cultish sects some time ago agreed with 
my moderation decision.

So why do we hide posts from hierarchial political parties and leftist 
sects that seek to promote their events on our newswire? My 
understanding of it is because we don't want our newswire saturated with 
their events that revolve around instrumentally recruiting new members 
and not doing much else. My understanding of the newswire is that it 
should promote grass roots orgs and groups and not political parties 
particularly one's that have their own media anyway. I think we also 
need to avoid some of the sectarian squabbling that goes on between 
these groups in their own media too. To be honest I don't think the 
concept of open publishing is very compatible with their understanding 
of democracy either. If someone else has got a different understanding 
of these guidelines then please go ahead and contribute :)

Indymedia isn't  a platform for neo-cons and the right either:

I hid 325669 because it comes from some neo-con, self confessed 'born 
again republican' who uses our newswire to evangelically defend George 
Bush and his occupation of Iraq. And he's an ugly mutherfucka to boot :P

I think you'll soon discover that virtually all the volunteers in this 
project would object to this staying on the newswire. Personally I can't 
understand why you'd want it to remain here - perhaps instead of 
reacting to my moderating decisions you can elaborate instead?

phunkee

[what's 100% anarchist?!]