Why not just get involved with this one? The meeting times are widely available. Become this KC Indy Media. The problem stems from lack of participation. You can't just leave one person to doing most of the work and then show up mid game, complain about that person, launch personal attacks and accuse them of authority and power when they've been wanting help this entire time. Go to a meeting and join the group, work free from hostility and without other points to prove other than advancing alt media and find that all your problems disapear and you didn't even have to go through all the trouble of what you are proposing.

You know, this website was little used and then went offline until Chuck came to town. He did an extrodinary amount of hard annoying work, and now because one person flew off the handle and started an anti-chcuk campaign (authoritarian behavior for sure) based on personal nonsense. Don't jump on the band wagon. I feel like I'm in gradeschool.

Censoring is a Free Speech issue, not a personal one. To call it otherwise just doesn't fly.

The "work" involved in setting up and maintaining a free website is really minimal, and can in fact be done by one person over the course of a week-end, if that. Since this site would be censorship-free, the "work" that is involved with constantly scanning, reading, and then contemplating whether to censor an article or post would not be a factor.

I didn't write that above. Somebody is using my name and it's a little fucked up. Use your own name for your own opinions coward.

Hello, my name is Vlad. My grandfather Vladimir Rostropovich is my namesake. I was unaware that one could not use one's name on indymedia if someone else has the same name. What is the basis for this?

Now the joke that used my name has had their post deleted! Why when I log in does this post not exist but a whole bunch of others do and when I log out all those others disapear but this one can be seen again?

What is going on with this site?!!

It's kind of silly to propose the creation of a new KC IMC, when local folks won't get involved in the current one. Getting involved is not that difficult. Meetings are announced on the front page of the website. They are also announced on our email list, which anybody can join by subscribing here:
lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-kc-announce

People can easily submit stories, opinion, photos, video and audio by clicking on the links above. (upload media | post an article | link to the otherpress)

KC IMC will be offering trainings in coming months which will show people how to use this website. Keep an eye on the front page for details about those events.

If you decide to get a website with Mutualaid, even for an unrelated project, tell them that Chuck sent you. I helped start Mutualaid after all. ;-)

Oh great...now my twin is back! LOL! I use an "A" rather than an "I". I would log in and post thus making clear our distinction as two seperate entities but unfortunately this whole posting disapears when I do. -Vladamir Aaron

Yeah...I was going to point out that irony too Chuck...funny huh! ;) -Vlad@mir Aaron

And anti-war anarchists are using technology developed by the Department of Defense (the internet). How ironic :0

It is very curious that while you are advocating for a new KCIMC due to Chuck's censorship, you are offering an application to mutualaid's free server, which is also under absolute control of Chuck. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of your post, uh 'Jenni'?

a reader,

read the whole article. What is the very next sentence after the sentence which points out the mutualaid website?

Kansas city really needs to import some better trolls, because many of the posts in this thread are silly, childish and simply inaccurate. First of all, you have some local sectarian leftist named "anon" or "nona" who is simply posting to trash anarchists. The post about anarchists using the Internet would be funny if we hadn't heard that one before.

"A Reader" is simply pulling stuff out of their butt. Accusing me of censorship is pretty dumb when this software has a built-in *moderation* system. If this person doesn't want to understand the difference between website moderation and government censorship, the best thing to do is ignore this person.

Mr. or Ms. Reader also claims that I have "absolute control" over Mutualaid.org. I haven't been involved with Mutualaid.org since late 2003. On the other hand, I was one of the co-founders of that project, which currently hosts several hundred email lists, websites, and Indymedia sites.

It's obvious that a few people around town have too much time on their hands. Instead of posting attacks here, why don't you try producing some independent media and post it to this website? Indymedia is, after all, about "being the media."

We do post articles on this current KC indymedia site. But then someone named Chuck Munson takes it upon himself to "moderate" the posts and place them in the "hidden" section of the website, which takes them out of readily accessible public view (as compared to the stories not so placed).

Hence the call for another KC indymedia site, one where such "moderation" does not happen.

All Indymedia sites moderate posts on the open newswire. You are accusing me of doing something that happens on every Indymedia website.

I plead guilty to doing my job when nobody else cared about helping with this website.

So how about making some media?

I was going to suggest that y'all go over your editorial policy, but ooops, there's not one posted on your "info library" on the lefthand column of the site. Doing this might help to clarify a lot of things or at least help people know where they stand. I am not a policy wonk at all, but understanding the guidelines saves a lot of time and energy. It's way better to plow through the policy than deal with energy sucking vampires who constantly complain about a process that they don't understand. I'm not saying that about anyone on this thread. It actually seems fairly civil so far -- but when the flaming shit hits the fan, ugh, it's the worst thing ever.

Thanks! We talked about the editorial policy at last week's meeting. There is more work to be done on updating the policy and making sure that more people understand the technical and editorial processes that underlie our Indymedia project. We need to make all of our documents more visible and accessible.

here's the editorial policy:


EDITORIAL POLICY
Editorial Policy Statement for KC Indymedia Our editorial policy is to:

1. Encourage community members to contribute opinions and information to the web site.
2. Encourage contributors to provide documentation of their contributions.
3. Encourage contributors to make reasoned arguments for their opinions.
4. Encourage contributions that are focused on issues, policies, practices, actions, and events more than on personal characteristics of people involved.
5. Encourage a wide variety of views and try to present them in ways that help readers to compare and analyze alternative views and information.
6. Encourage contributions that stimulate thoughtful responses.
7. Encourage contributions that entertain as well as inform.
8. Encourage contributions on a wide variety of issues.
9. Contributions that seem blatantly racist or sexist will be transferred to a file which requires administrative privilege.
10. Contributions that are essentially ad hominem attacks will be hidden. Criticisms of the policies or actions of another person or organization will be published.
11. Generally, only full articles will be published, rather than just a summary and a link.
12. To provide needed information to persons who participated in protest events, strong efforts to provide follow up on such events will be made. This will be especially true when events result in injury or jail to the participants.
13. Make a special effort to publish contributions on important issues that are not covered in the mainline media.
14. Discourage pseudonyms
When we publish a feature, the editorial committee prefers to know the identity of the writer. We will withhold a writer’s name if he or she believes the submission must remain anonymous.

Our editorial board is always looking for features that:

* are significant and informative
* have better quality writing
* cite sources from writer’s research
* appear credible
* contain analysis
* are locally and regionally based
* include eyewitness accounts
* feature reporting on underrepresented groups

Potential features should meet some, but not necessarily all, of these criteria. When we get a lot of submissions, we reserve the right to choose articles that display more of the above. Upon request, we will offer feedback and/or guidance to posts if they need a little extra to make it from newswire to feature. These editorial processes will be followed as much as possible:

1. To encourage wide diversity of content and avoid censorship, all contributions will be posted directly to the web site.
2. An editorial board will arrange to have frequent review of posted contributions to assure that they promote attainment of the mission and do not libel or slander.
3. If a reviewer questions whether a contribution does promote the mission and avoid libel or slander, the reviewer will put the contribution in a hidden file and request that other members of the board review the contribution and decide what action to take.
4. If the board decides that a contribution is not appropriate, the contribution will be removed from the open web site and transferred to a "hidden" file. This file will be accessible to administrative privilege, but the contribution will not be listed nor displayed in the open web site.
5. The author of a contribution so "hidden" will be notified. He or she can present an argument to the board explaining how the contribution supports the mission and is within the editorial policy. This statement will go to the executive board of the web site. Their decision will be final.
6. Contributions will be posted for a limited time. After that, they will be moved to archives that will be accessible. One year after posting, most contributions will be removed from the archives.
7. If any reviewer believes a contribution to have little or no information or opinion, the contribution will be "hidden." The procedures described in items three through five above will be followed.
8. When a large amount of email containing much the same information is received, a feature story may summarize the email and respond to it. The volume of spam will be archived and available for a limited time.
9. If an issue generates a lot of controversy, the editorial board will review it and decide whether action is needed.

and what's the mission of KCIMC? Here's the statement:

Mission Statement
Drafted 12/15/2002

Kansas City Independent Media Center joined the global network to provide regional residents with an alternative source of news reported by the citizens who see and make it happen. We demand a forum for unadulterated information that people can use to solve problems and make lives better. We have good ideas and important things to say, and we will no longer settle for the twisted truths and blatant distortions passed off as news in our local corporate media. We believe chain newspapers, canned radio broadcasts and television news that promotes fear and disinformation do not serve our community well. We can make a difference by raising our voices, conveying our thoughts through unfiltered words, documenting what we see with our cameras, and refusing to sit down and shut up.

Kansas City Independent Media Center will use our space on the web to further the efforts of the many individuals and organizations working to promote social and economic justice in our community. We will do so by giving everyone a way to communicate with a broader audience in a forum that is free of hate speech, slander and vitriol. We will work to break down the layers of apathy that make people give up, and we will try, using the power of information, to forge new alliances so that groups which have never worked together before can recognize the potential of their greater collective strength.

Hi,

just trolling the neighboring IMC sites. I am going to have to say that starting a new IMC seems like a pointless endeavor and a waste of valuble activist resources.

Surely the KC editorial collective has regular meetings and open membership. If Chuck's moderation bugs you, get access and help do the moderation yourself. It is a lot more work than you might think and I am sure he would be glad to work with a diversity of opinions.

An unmoderated IMC is a disaster...multiple postings, spam, KKK shit, no intelligence just rhetoric. Start it if you want, but I would be interested as to how much of a community tool it would be compared to a community joke.

Indymedia is all about creating new realities from old shells. In our new reality can we work together or do we have to tear each othyer apart instead of corporate media.

Just look at the current state of www.arkansas.indymedia.org to see what happens when ego and sectarianism split what could be a fully functioning indymedia collective.

chuck, as i mentioned in another thread, not all censorship has to be government censorship. journalists are censored by their editors, religious groups censor their members, businesses censor their press releases. censorship differs from website moderation imo because censorship addresses the ideas or opinions conveyed by the post. by comparision, classic web moderation just involves removing duplicates, flames, incomprehensible posts, or if a post has been miscategorized, putting it into the right category.

if you do not like the political opinion conveyed by an article and remove it, that is censorship. if you do not like a work of art that is posted, and you remove it calling it "bad art", that is also censorship. this site is not supposed to be so limited as to only let through content in line with your politics, opinions or tastes.

Sara, I really don't think you understand what censorship is really about. You've provided some poor examples in an attempt to stretch the definition of censorship beyond what it really means. Newspaper editors do not "censor" reporters, they "edit" and "coordinate" them. I have never heard the interaction between editors and reporters described as "censorship." Members of religious groups may be *censured* for actions or words, but this is different than what censorship means. Censorship can be stretched beyond the government version to include power institutions that engage in censorship. But small independent websites *never* engage in censorship.

Many Internet users don't understand this, but it's always been assumed around the Internet that people who visit a website agree to abdie by the rules and guidelines set up by that website. That means that people have to accept editorial and moderation decisions done by editors and moderators. Yes, this can include the removal of comments or speech that go beyond being dupes, flames, spam and so on. I commonly remove certain types of comments from Infoshop News, including comments from right wingers and some left wingers. When I do this, I am not "censoring" these people, I am implementing moderation in order to maintain a certain flavor for the website. If I allowed right wingers unfettered ability to post anti-activist hate speech on Infoshop News, I would not only be abdicating my responsibility to our community of users, but we would quickly see many people stop visiting the website.

Indymedia websites are no different. Each website sets its own policies and moderation can depend on decisions made by whoever is moderating the newswire. There are always gray areas that policy doesn't cover. One person's trollbait may be another person's treasure. But one thing I've observed over the years is that most IMCs eventually adopt similar policies, because they have a common mission and are confronted with similar headaches.

This IMC is in the process of going over its policy and training new editors and moderators. So you will see things evolve on this site in coming months. Personally, I hope that everybody will focus more on making media and less on what's on the newswire.

i found yet another online definition of censorship for you. this one mentions censorship by religious groups and corporations, two of the examples i also gave. as for an editor censoring a journalist, maybe we are envisioning different scenarios. A situation where the journalist invites revisions and works with the editor to improve her/his story would not be censorship. however, in many cases the story is submitted for publication and when the writer sees it later in print, the most controversial or challenging parts of the article have been deleted, without the writer's consent or knowledge.

why can't a small independent website practice censorship? because it can't, according to your definition? if so, your definition seems rather circular and self-serving to me. there are strong personalities, ideological factions and power politics in many groups, even an online news forum like this one. i do not see why censorship within such a group could not occur.

questions like whether your censorship conformed to the guidelines, or whether indymedia ought to be moderated like Infoshop News (with only certain politics allowed throgh), are better addressed in meetings because i am only one person giving my opinion.