Can Indymedia be saved/transformed into something better?

[free spirit]

forgot to add...

if you don't agree with the mission statement and working practices, then I'd strongly suggest that you just continue to use the newswire to publish articles about issues you feel strongly about, and if you want to do more than this, then either set up your own website / blog, or possibly discuss with indymedia the idea of you setting up an alt IMCUK group using the IMC software... not really sure how this would go down though, particularly if you were proposing to run it on hierachical lines.

 

[butchersapron]

step one...

ask yourself whether you agree with the indymedia Uk mission statement




Step 2... ask yourself if you could work within IMCUK's working practices as summarised below, then check the long version here.



Step 3... (only move onto this step if you agree with steps 1 and 2) find your local IMC group and meet with them to discuss getting involved on an editorial basis with them. I'm not entirely sure how your local group would take it, but I'm thinking if you went along with a fairly clear idea of the sorts of issues and campaigns that you would have liked to have got greater coverage, and said that you were willing to put in the work to make it happen, then they'd be cautiously willing to let you get involved.

Careful how you go though, as the bull in the china shop type approach is unlikely to get you good results. Bear in mind that you'll be talking with people many of whom will have dedicated serious portions of their lives to this project, some will have been arrested for it, some beaten into hospital for it, some had servers seized etc etc. so there's likely to be a fair amount of emotoinal attachment to the project, and a reluctance to take criticism from an outsider unless it is particularly well put.

It's problems summed up really.

 

[butchersapron]

It's already irrelevant, discussion needs not be centred on it. 'Something else' just need to be got on with.

 

[audiotech]

Indymedia is a well established resource for use available to the working class, to utilise and reconfigure as they wish to.

 

[In Bloom]

yes i agree but there a a lot of activists who fall in both camps and see their activism fall beneath the HLS news avalanche ..

so do we really have to set up another news site??!!!

Can't really see the point of trying to "reclaim" what was never really ours though. Indymedia has always been an activist based thing, short of a total takeover of local and national editorial collectives and a new, stricter editorial policy being introduced, I can't see that changing.

Anarkismo, which has a clearly set out set of principles which contributers agree with, sounds like the sort of thing you're talking about, though the politics are woeful on certain issues.

 

[editor]

Indymedia is a well established resource for use available to the working class, to utilise and reconfigure as they wish to.

I wonder what percentage of its contributors are working class.

 

[danny la rouge]

I see "no" has already been said. There's nothing more to say on it, really.

 

[audiotech]

I wonder what percentage of its contributors are working class.

Presently, a small percentage.

 

[butchersapron]

Can't really see the point of trying to "reclaim" what was never really ours though. Indymedia has always been an activist based thing, short of a total takeover of local and national editorial collectives and a new, stricter editorial policy being introduced, I can't see that changing.

Anarkismo, which has a clearly set out set of principles which contributers agree with, sounds like the sort of thing you're talking about, though the politics are woeful on certain issues.

Let's be honest, no one know or cares. It a news service to anarchists. To different activists. These all show the distance between anarchism and popular culture. Don't worry about being the culture, do enough right and you are the culture.

 

[durruti02]

god it looks even worse today .. have been told be ex indies that most people have left and it is bascially being run by a one AR guy .. very sad

 

[ska invita]

The conspiraloons pedalling their nutbobbins shite was the final nail in the coffin for Indymedia for me.

It was an important resource once, but thanks to obsessive fuckwits, disinfo merchants and trollers posting up so much shite, it's lost its struggle for credibility. IMO. It's a real shame.

The London one does a lot better in that respect:
http://london.indymedia.org.uk/

i dont think the UK one is that bad at all - yes, the newswire is a bit of a problem (that a tiny bit of modding would fix), but everything else is all good.

IndymediaUK ...
DOES this represent what is going on in the UK today? does this represent class struggle or community issues? does this represent all the thousends who are struggling for rights, dignity a new society, whatever?

If the thousands struggling for rights, dignity a new society, have a story to share or an action to report Im sure Indymedia would love to hear about it. I dont think its any fault of Indymedia per se. Do you?

 

[durruti02]

The London one does a lot better in that respect:
http://london.indymedia.org.uk/

i dont think the UK one is that bad at all - yes, the newswire is a bit of a problem (that a tiny bit of modding would fix), but everything else is all good.



If the thousands struggling for rights, dignity a new society, have a story to share or an action to report Im sure Indymedia would love to hear about it. I dont think its any fault of Indymedia per se. Do you?

the issue is that the features section . what dominates the front page si dominated by people of a very narrow political mind

 

[ska invita]

the issue is that the features section . what dominates the front page si dominated by people of a very narrow political mind

im not saying your wrong, but from what i understand its on a voluntary basis, with anyone who wants to get involved pretty much able to do so.

i would imagine that if someone wanted to write up a feature on their particular work/struggle Indymedia would be sympathetic to running it. It would be down to the initiative of the group to do the work though.

You brought up class struggle or community issues

London indymedia did a lot to cover the occupation of a local school in Lewisham, and is good on community issues in general (http://london.indymedia.org.uk/ )

As to class struggle - well, I feat that there is little "class struggle" going on worth reporting. They covered Vestas and other occupations - does this count?

Bearing in mind that the features section is for concrete stories, and not opinion pieces, is there a particular thing that you feel should be reported that hasnt been?

I dont mean to be contrary here - Im just not sure its Indymedias fault.

 

[audiotech]

London indymedia

Enjoyable video section, thanks.

The video of the 'Royal Bank of Satan' representative will stay with me.


.
.

 

[durruti02]

im not saying your wrong, but from what i understand its on a voluntary basis, with anyone who wants to get involved pretty much able to do so.

i would imagine that if someone wanted to write up a feature on their particular work/struggle Indymedia would be sympathetic to running it. It would be down to the initiative of the group to do the work though.

You brought up class struggle or community issues

London indymedia did a lot to cover the occupation of a local school in Lewisham, and is good on community issues in general (http://london.indymedia.org.uk/ )

As to class struggle - well, I feat that there is little "class struggle" going on worth reporting. They covered Vestas and other occupations - does this count?

Bearing in mind that the features section is for concrete stories, and not opinion pieces, is there a particular thing that you feel should be reported that hasnt been?

I dont mean to be contrary here - Im just not sure its Indymedias fault.

what i understand is that the 'democratic' nature of the beast .. i.e. an open group deciding features etc has ended up with actually only one key individual deciding what are the features, as many of the original group members dropped out ..

instead of the group members seeing themselves as working for a whole movement it seems there was a balance of individual demands which when most dropped out left only one, afaiu, main and narrow minded individual.

as with most groups it is not that easy to just 'get involved'

 

[durruti02]

im not saying your wrong, but from what i understand its on a voluntary basis, with anyone who wants to get involved pretty much able to do so.

i would imagine that if someone wanted to write up a feature on their particular work/struggle Indymedia would be sympathetic to running it. It would be down to the initiative of the group to do the work though.

You brought up class struggle or community issues

London indymedia did a lot to cover the occupation of a local school in Lewisham, and is good on community issues in general (http://london.indymedia.org.uk/ )

As to class struggle - well, I feat that there is little "class struggle" going on worth reporting. They covered Vestas and other occupations - does this count?

Bearing in mind that the features section is for concrete stories, and not opinion pieces, is there a particular thing that you feel should be reported that hasnt been?

I dont mean to be contrary here - Im just not sure its Indymedias fault.

yes london indy is clearly very differrent ( people have said before they just use taht and ignore Indy UK) and truer to what indymedia is supposed to be .. but i would think that 90% of people in London use IndyUK so it IS an issue

 

[free spirit]

god it looks even worse today .. have been told be ex indies that most people have left and it is bascially being run by a one AR guy .. very sad

ffs... now I do see what you're getting at, that's fucking embarrassing having the top 3 features all about animal rights stuff, badly written AR stuff as well, that I'd have expected to be newswire items usually.

 

[ska invita]

yes london indy is clearly very differrent ( people have said before they just use taht and ignore Indy UK) and truer to what indymedia is supposed to be .. but i would think that 90% of people in London use IndyUK so it IS an issue

Dont get me wrong - I agree with you - I only really look at the London one as it seems the most relevant to me.

But it seems that the UK one is structurally ok, just lacking involvement at the moment. Hopefully some good people will sign up soon.

I definitely agree that its not fulfiling its potential.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Indymedia UK is awful. Occasionally useful but awful. Much of that dreadfulness stems from its politics - the refusal to delete shit on free speech grounds chiefly, but also its focus on the anarchist/libertarian "scene".

Irish Indymedia is a lot better. It started out with a much broader conception of its potential audience. It also gradually tightened up its editorial policy so that it stamped out conspiracy theorists and cross posting and, eventually, started to clamp down on trolling, message board style chatter and the like.

Irish Indymedia is amongst the best English language IMCs and that is directly linked to its much lower tolerance for nonsense. But even it has serious problems. One has to do with the changing nature of the internet. There are a lot more ways for people to publish or broadcast their opinions available now and the whole Indymedia structure is just less relevant than it was a few years ago. IMCs, good, bad or indifferent have been dying out across the world. Indymedia Ireland has fared better than the sites that have been taken over by oddballs or conspiracy freaks, but it is markedly less busy than it used to be.

Another problem remains, in that there is a real tension between the concept of open publishing on the one hand and quality control on the other. Indymedia UK tends towards the open publishing end of that spectrum and is the worse for it, but even Indymedia Ireland has never satisfactorally dealt with that tension. Put simply, there is a real disincentive to publish a serious, well-written, well-researched, thoughtful piece if you know that (a) the articles before or after are likely to be of much lower quality, (b) because of the lack of quality control people regard anything on the site as unreliable or (c) you know that you article will likely be followed by a whole lot of anonymous vitriol in the comments section.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

I found a couple of topical interesting stories on Indymedia UK concerning the G20 protests in America - someone arrested for using Twitter to aid the protestors and also the one in the UK, the latter being an appeal for witnesses to the Spacehijacker's stunt with the armoured car.

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/10/439220.html

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/10/439215.html

 

[moon23]

Indymedia UK is awful. Occasionally useful but awful. Much of that dreadfulness stems from its politics - the refusal to delete shit on free speech grounds chiefly, but also its focus on the anarchist/libertarian "scene".

Irish Indymedia is a lot better. It started out with a much broader conception of its potential audience. It also gradually tightened up its editorial policy so that it stamped out conspiracy theorists and cross posting and, eventually, started to clamp down on trolling, message board style chatter and the like.

Irish Indymedia is amongst the best English language IMCs and that is directly linked to its much lower tolerance for nonsense. But even it has serious problems. One has to do with the changing nature of the internet. There are a lot more ways for people to publish or broadcast their opinions available now and the whole Indymedia structure is just less relevant than it was a few years ago. IMCs, good, bad or indifferent have been dying out across the world. Indymedia Ireland has fared better than the sites that have been taken over by oddballs or conspiracy freaks, but it is markedly less busy than it used to be.

Another problem remains, in that there is a real tension between the concept of open publishing on the one hand and quality control on the other. Indymedia UK tends towards the open publishing end of that spectrum and is the worse for it, but even Indymedia Ireland has never satisfactorally dealt with that tension. Put simply, there is a real disincentive to publish a serious, well-written, well-researched, thoughtful piece if you know that (a) the articles before or after are likely to be of much lower quality, (b) because of the lack of quality control people regard anything on the site as unreliable or (c) you know that you article will likely be followed by a whole lot of anonymous vitriol in the comments section.

It's a microcosm for web 2.0. Lot’s of idiots and conspiracy theorists sitting around in their pants thinking their three sentence opinions are worthwhile. Compare this to say the Left book club and I think we are actually regressing in terms of radical press. Of course you get the odd gem, and there are some advantages in terms of the speed in which multi-media can be used to hold authority to account eg. G20.

Your right the single-issue causes selected do always support the sites on agenda, which makes one question how Indy, Indymedia is.

 

[moon23]

Ok here is an example of a so called post?!? Thanks Indymedia for being such a useful source of informative news.


Counter the corporate adverts!
No Corps | 02.10.2009 14:38

Corporations blast us with adverts to get us to give them our money

So, do the opposite! The more they advertise-the more we urge others NOT TO BUY!

Pass it on!
No Corps

 

[durruti02]

ffs... now I do see what you're getting at, that's fucking embarrassing having the top 3 features all about animal rights stuff, badly written AR stuff as well, that I'd have expected to be newswire items usually.

and zippos circus .. yes it has seriously deteriorated recently and as i say i understand it is essentially in the hands of one individual

 

[durruti02]

Indymedia UK is awful. Occasionally useful but awful. Much of that dreadfulness stems from its politics - the refusal to delete shit on free speech grounds chiefly, but also its focus on the anarchist/libertarian "scene".

Irish Indymedia is a lot better. It started out with a much broader conception of its potential audience. It also gradually tightened up its editorial policy so that it stamped out conspiracy theorists and cross posting and, eventually, started to clamp down on trolling, message board style chatter and the like.

Irish Indymedia is amongst the best English language IMCs and that is directly linked to its much lower tolerance for nonsense. But even it has serious problems. One has to do with the changing nature of the internet. There are a lot more ways for people to publish or broadcast their opinions available now and the whole Indymedia structure is just less relevant than it was a few years ago. IMCs, good, bad or indifferent have been dying out across the world. Indymedia Ireland has fared better than the sites that have been taken over by oddballs or conspiracy freaks, but it is markedly less busy than it used to be.

Another problem remains, in that there is a real tension between the concept of open publishing on the one hand and quality control on the other. Indymedia UK tends towards the open publishing end of that spectrum and is the worse for it, but even Indymedia Ireland has never satisfactorally dealt with that tension. Put simply, there is a real disincentive to publish a serious, well-written, well-researched, thoughtful piece if you know that (a) the articles before or after are likely to be of much lower quality, (b) because of the lack of quality control people regard anything on the site as unreliable or (c) you know that you article will likely be followed by a whole lot of anonymous vitriol in the comments section.

yes pretty well this ^^