[Imc-uk-features] publishing guidelines

[Anarcho Babe]

Ooops, it's getting a bit weird here.... I do think changes in the editorial 
policy are not just made on imc-uk-features but also imc-uk-process and the 
network meetings. 

In my opinion, Indymedia always is strongest when it focuses on Direct Action 
reports rather than ideological topics in its features. Ideology would divide 
the activist communities more than unite it, and theories and opinions should  
make the feature column on their own, as should not make individual 
interpretations of events. 

That's what the links are for, so that theories should stay in the newswire 
and grassroot direct actions reports in the feature.

For me, the feature was always more fact-based and more objective in a way 
than the newswire reports, making 

indymedia's truth= facts + summary of as many personal reports of the event as 
close to the time it happened as possible.

Also Indy never really seemed to tell people what they should believe and we 
had a policy not to tell people of what they should do either, because we 
believed in reporting rather than indoctrinating or using indy as a 
recruitment tool. 
I believe that's still the reason for indys good reputation.

Also, in the end, I would want to stress that personal subjective evaluations, 
interpretations, comments and conspiracy theories are better published on  
blogs and if indymedia would like to branch out into this area, it would be 
great that we offer a kind of "indyblogs" - rss feed collection as we 
previously discussed some years ago at a network meeting, rather than in 
features.

Saying that, I am wondering if Indymedia is pretty much getting killed by 
web2.0 anyways - there are now so many interactive publishing tools that the 
relevance of indymedia is diminishing. 
On the other hand, some of the best indy archive sites like radio and video  
had to be pulled because of lack of server space, and lots of old-time indy 
volunteers are taking a bit of a break now and getting on with their personal 
lives, and with the technical difficulties of the various indy cms and a 
liberal internet policy,  indymedia has lost its importance with the rise of 
flickr and YoutTube.

The change in many governments' policies, not to try to control the flow of  
information and its publication anymore, but to identify the authors before, 
at and after the events and holding them to account could mean in future 
though that we might need to focus more on anonymisation and focus on that 
aspect of indymedia at the next network meeting.

cheerio Ulla