[Imc-uk-process] proposal and discussion needed how to handle blog reposts (blogspam)

[Chris]

Hi

On Sun 17-Jun-2007 at 08:28:01PM +0100, maqui wrote:
> 
> i couldn't agree more with what startx says below.

I have some disagreements with what he said...

> • Reposts from blogs or other sources that specifically
> relate to institutional politics and/or power
> structures, and do not constitute first hand reporting
> on grass roots struggles for positive social change.

If I understand this correctly (perhaps I don't) this
would mean, for example, that all the articles that this
feature linked to could (should?) have been hidden as
reposts:

- Imperial Disinformation: The Guardian's Iran/Iraq
  Coverage 
  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/05/371753.html

And then the feature wouldn't have happened... Is this
the kind of thing you want to achieve?

> On Thursday, June 14, 2007, at 10:29  am, startx wrote:
> 
> > when i got up this morning i had a look at the
> > newswire and it was full of blog reposts (more than
> > 60% i guess) , mainly commenting world politics. this
> > let to a little discussion (again) in chat if these
> > are against the guidelines or not.
> >
> > to be exact, there is no guideline against cross
> > posting if the article is not from a "commercial" blog
> > or newspage, however, i think most of them suck and i
> > think we need a policy to handle them.

I think some of the reposts suck but a lot of the ones
about geo-politics are actually good.

> > not every blog repost it bad, some are interesting
> > comments on the movement, such as analysis of protests
> > or campaigns. but lots of others are just commenting
> > world politics, Bush does this or that, Iran does this
> > or that ... blabla

Do you think that Indymedia shouldn't be a place where
alternative news and analysis about world politics can be
posted and read?

> > in many cases indymedia is only used here as a
> > promotion / google ranking tool, as authors and fans
> > know that indymedia get much more hits them most of
> > the private blogs. 

I don't think this is true -- perhaps in some cases but
not most -- can you point to a political blog repost where
the original site has adverts? If the site doesn't have
adverts why should anyone case? I think that people repost
material of this nature because they think that the
article they are reposting is relevent and good not
because they are concerned about where the site they are
posting from comes in googles rankings.

If this were the case it could be fixed by getting Mir to
rewrite URLs to external sites to have the rel="nofollow"
attribute and then google wouldn't follow any links from
the site.

Chris