[New-imc] New Victoria (BC, Canada) collective: editorial policy

[Petros Evdokas]

BCC Bartolomeo, Luke W.



Bartolomeo wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I am new to the new-imc working group, so I don't have much experience with 
> editorial policies. Thus, I have one question:
> 
>>> Once registered a user can submit an article. All articles must be
>>> approved by site moderators before  being posted on the site.
> 
> As far as I understand it, this means that there is no open publishing on 
> vicindymedia.org. Isn't this a requirement for an indymedia site?
> 
> Best wishes, Bart


Hi Bart,

Thanks for bringing up this question, since it gives us a chance to 
reexamine our basic definitions.

So far we've been going according to the definition that "open 
publishing" for indymedia means that we provide to our communities the 
tools to publish online, enabling authors to do this without special 
technical skills, and that there is no censorship or restriction on 
expression, as long as some of the basic principles of the progressive 
community are upheld (for example no hate-speech) and general guidelines 
for simple decency are followed (for example no personal attacks, 
character assassination, or libellous materials).

How exactly this is to be accomplished, is left up to each individual 
editorial group. Some imc groups (the majority) wait to see what is 
published and then remove, hide, or delete offensive material 
afterwards. Some groups don't care and do not remove materials (which is 
a violation of indymedia's general policies, but we haven't had the 
ability to do an auditing process). And some groups ask that authors 
register with an email address or username/password before publishing.

This last measure tends to be the most successful in limiting 
inappropriate or offensive materials while still retaining the open 
character of open publishing. It retains anonymity if an author needs it 
(anonymous email addresses or pen-names are very common and easy to 
acquire, providing varying degrees of anonymity), while at the same time 
it discourages spammers and makes it easier for editorial groups to 
communicate with an author to clear up misunderstandings, or to discuss 
editorial questions, suggestions, etc.

Global indymedia policies leave it up to the local imc group to decide 
how to handle these things; we honor the principles of autonomy and 
non-intervention.

In the particular case of the reorganized New Victoria imc, it seems to 
me that open publishing is well enabled by the editorial guidelines the 
group sent to the new-imc group.

Thanks,
Petros
http://petros-evdokas.cyprus-org.net/Another-sort-of-Introduction.html
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