[New-imc] hiding and deleting

[clara]

hoi,

thanks Shayne for providing me with such a nice expample to illustrate 
my point :-)

I think we need to be much more exact in the words we are using. If we 
as sponsors use misleading words, then it's no wonder that new 
collectives don't understand us.

Shayne O'Neill wrote:
> ... there is absolutely nothing wrong with deleting ....  perth deletes defamation .... our software doesnt actually delete things, just makes them unavailable to non editors.
> 

We really should not say "delete" when we don't mean "delete" - and the 
software we use should also be clear what is what.

As far as I can see there are about 3 ways of taking postings off an 
Indymedia site:

1) taking them *off the newswire*, but leaving them online. Sometimes 
these articles are still easily accessible through a page called 
"trash", sometimes you only find them if you have the exact url, 
sometimes they are displayed with white text on a white background.
All of these articles are still online, and therefore (legally) still 
published. google will find them.
this form of hiding is a way of moderating a newswire.

for example: portland's compost bin 
(http://portland.indymedia.org/en/compost/compost2004.shtml)
or belgium's list of hidden articles 
(http://belgium.indymedia.org/news/?display=f)

2) taking articles *off-line*: the articles are not displayed on any 
webpage, but they still are in the database. indymedia-admins/editors 
can still access them, but visitors of the website cannot see them. 
google can not find them. they are not published.
this form of hiding can be seen as internal documentation, like keeping 
a facist letter is a way of documenting threats.

3) *deleting* = actually removing something from the database. this is a 
valid and necessary action for example for child pornography where the 
actual possesion is a crimanal act, or for files that contain viruses.

I think we as sponsors should first of all to get our wordings right.

Then we should also have a look at the different software used, and 
maybe change the text if it says "delete" and means "take offline".

And maybe we should also contact the IMCs that Deja listed (and probably 
others) and ask them whether they actually mean "delete" when they say 
"delete" in their policies.

And of course we can also have a general discussion about taking 
articles off-line and deleting them from the database. But that 
discussion should better take place in the wider Indymedia network on 
imc-communication.

love and solidarity,
clara