[Imc] GLOBAL INDYMEDIA "OPEN PUBLISHING" PROPOSAL (fwd)

Thu Apr 12 15:04:54 UTC 2001

i've already responded that we've received this proposal.  we should talk
about this at sunday's meeting.

--sascha

# CONTENTS #
------------

# WHAT IS THIS?
# WHAT TO DO, PLEASE!

# EXPLAINATION & HISTORY
------------

# PROPOSAL 1
# PROPOSAL 2

# !YOUR RESPONSE!
------------

# SUMMARY of DISCUSSION of PROPOSAL 2

------------
------------

### WHAT IS THIS?
----------------

This email contains two #proposals# on the subject of "Open Publishing"
(OP).

*THE OBJECTIVE OF THE TWO PROPOSALS IS TO BEGIN TO DEFINE THE MANY CRITERIA
FOR BEING AN 'Independent Media Centre' AND PART OF THE PRESENT IMC
COMMUNITY, BY SEEKING LOCAL IMC AGREEMENT ON "OPEN PUBLISHING" AS ONE
NECESSARY CRITERIA*

The process that led to these two proposals is described in the
"EXPLAINATION & HISTORY" section.

Please read carefully through this email. Much thought and work has gone
into the process of creating these proposals globally by many people through
long discussion. The "SUMMARY of DISCUSSION" section is helpful to see some
of the development of ideas involved in the proposals.

# Please now read the "WHAT TO DO, PLEASE!" section.

--------------------
### END what is this

# WHAT TO DO, PLEASE!
--------------------

1) Please *acknowledge receipt* of this message by email to
imc-communication at lists.indymedia.org  .Put the words "OP proposal RECEIVED
[your group name] IMC" in the subject line of the email.

2) Please pass on this complete mail to your local IMC group for discussion.

3) We ask that *your local IMC group give a response* to the #proposals# in
this mail:-

# Please read the "!YOUR RESPONSE!" section.

-Send the response by email to imc-communication at lists.indymedia.org
*before* 19 May 2001. Put the words "OP proposal RESPONSE [your group name]
IMC" in the subject line of the email.

4) There will be an IRC (online) meeting on Saturday May 19 2001. In this
meeting you are invited to talk about your group's response; and to give
feedback on the process of agreeing to these proposals. There will be
technical help available for this meeting.

5) If your group has any questions about the proposals, please send them to
imc-communication at lists.indymedia.org  .Put the words "OP proposal QUESTION
[your group name] IMC" in the subject line of the email.

Thank you.

--------------------------
### END what to do, please

### EXPLAINATION & HISTORY
--------------------------

i) EXPLAINATION

There are two proposals: Proposal #1 and Proposal #2.

Proposal #1 is a general definition of Open Publishing (OP) for all
websites.

Proposal #2 is specific. It relates only to one model of OP - the model used
by most indymedia.org websites. This model meets the criteria for OP as
defined in PROPOSAL #1.

Because Proposal #2 is very specific, on its own it excludes all other
possible implementations of OP that might be created in the future. For this
reason there is an option (3) of agreeing to both proposals jointly: see the
"!YOUR RESPONSE!" section.

ii) HISTORY

# Proposal #2

Proposal #2 is the outcome of a series of global IRC (online) meetings.
These meeting have been attended by between 20 and 40 people from all over
the Indymedia world. The meetings have in effect been ongoing working group
meetings. The aim has been to address various important subjects within
Indymedia.

The last two meetings 25Feb01 and 17Mar01 have had the subject of Open
Publishing (OP) as a focus. The last meeting on 17Mar01 was completely
focused on the subject of OP - from which Proposal #2 was gradually drafted
during and after the meeting as agreed.

Logs of IRC meeting on 17Mar01:
http://global.indymedia.org.au/front.php3?article_id=168&group=webcast

Minutes for IRC meeting 25Feb01:
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-communication/2001-March/00066
3.html

# Proposal #1

After the last IRC meeting of 17Mar01 another discussion took place on
email, *to try to define a more general definition of OP that did not
exclude all future possible forms of OP, and also incorporated present
ones*. This discussion is summarized in the "SUMMARY of DISCUSSION" section,
with the participants details given.

------------------------------
### END explaination & history

#### PROPOSALS #######

#### PROPOSAL 1 ########
------------------------

A working definition of Open Publishing (OP).

Open publishing means that the process of creating news is transparent to
the readers. They can contribute a story and see it instantly appear in the
pool of stories publicly available. Those stories are filtered as little as
possible to help the readers find the stories they want. Readers can see
editorial decisions being made by others. They can see how to get involved
and help make editorial decisions. If they can think of a better way for the
software to help shape editorial decisions, they can copy the software
because it is free and change it and start their own site. If they want to
redistribute the news, they can, preferably on an open publishing site.

-------------------------------
###### END proposal 1 #########

###### PROPOSAL 2 ##########
----------------------------

This is a description of an #implementation# of OP currently used by most
indymedia.org sites. It meets the criteria for OP as defined in PROPOSAL #1.

This proposal relates *only* to those IMCs that choose to use the "Active"
code http://www.active.org.au/doc/ ,which is the code version most
indymedia.org sites are currently using, and which is free software.

If such an IMC modifies or changes the Active code it is using from
http://www.active.org.au/doc/ so that the new code alters the way or extent
to which filtering takes place, then this website will no longer be subject
to the specific PROPOSAL #2, but will still be subject to the general
PROPOSAL #1. i.e. this establishes a static 'reference' code version that
can be revised continuously but is fixed at any one time.

# Implementation #

For these sites there must be Open Publishing (OP) on the main Newswire.
This means that material uploaded to the Newswire is not pre-filtered or
edited. Everything gets published on the site. The editing or filtering
process happens *after* stories are published to the site, *not before*.
Articles may be "hidden", after they have been uploaded, according to the
published editorial policy of the local IMC group.  An article may only be
hidden *after* it has been posted on the newswire, *not before*. The
articles will not be actually deleted from the newswire, but will be
"hidden" on another page.  This will enable people to read them if they wish
to, and read the reasons why they were hidden in the first place.  This
keeps the process as transparent as possible.

#OPTION A:  The OP Newswire must be on the front page of the website.

#OPTION B:  The OP Newswire may be one click away from the front page of the
website. But the necessity for putting the Newswire on a separate page must
be explained.

# Notes

- When your local IMC discusses PROPOSAL #2 they must decide which #OPTION
they agree with: #OPTION A or #OPTION B.

- PROPOSAL #2 is to be interpreted in the narrowest possible sense:
*nothing* may be implied that is not stated. For example, setting up a
capatalist society on planet Jupiter is *not* disallowed by the proposal
becuase the proposal does not explicity state this, and so it may not be
implied from the proposal.

-----------------------------
###### END proposal 2 #######

    ##### END of all proposals ###

### !YOUR RESPONSE!
-------------------

This section explains what your local IMC group's response to the two Open
Publishing (OP) proposals might be.

Send the response by email to imc-communication at lists.indymedia.org *before*
19 May 2001.

Your Local IMC group has the following six response options:-

**WHEN YOU REPLY PLEASE QUOTE WHICH NUMBER 1,2,3,4,5 OR 6 YOU CHOOSE**
**WHEN YOU REPLY PLEASE QUOTE WHICH NUMBER 1,2,3,4,5 OR 6 YOU CHOOSE**

1) Agree with (general definition) Proposal #1 only. And so not agree with
(specific) Proposal #2.

2) Agree with Proposal #2 only. And so not agree with Proposal #1.

3) Agree with Proposal #1 *jointly* with Proposal #2.
*This combination gives a general definiton of OP for Indymedia, AND also a
guideline for current and new indymedia.org sites (open to continuous
review).

4) Not agree with Proposal #1. Not agree with Proposal #2.

5) Question or request changes in either or both of the proposals:  *please
state what these are*.

6) Decide not to participate based on the process by which we are making
this decision. *But if your local IMC group decides not to participate, then
please give your reasons, and positive suggestions for improvement*

# Note

- Proposal #2 contains two options - one of which must be chosen.

-----------------------
### END !your response!

### SUMMARY of DISCUSSION
-------------------------

@@@@@@This is a summary of the discussion that took place after the IRC
meeting 17Mar01, off list via email, between four Indymedia volunteers, as
individuals:

Lisa Sousa (from IMC San Francisco)
lisa at media-alliance.org
Matthew Arnison (from IMC Sidney)
maffew at physics.usyd.edu.au
Richard Malter (from IMC UK)
richard at indymedia.org
Sheri Herndon (from IMC Seattle)
sheri at indymedia.org

@@@@@@@@@@ The 1st worded proposal was the result of an IMC Network IRC
[online] meeting on 17Mar01. The focus of the meeting was Open Publishing
(OP) as an Indymedia membership criteria, and to clarify the definition of
OP in light of the previous IRC meeting on 25Feb01.

/////////////////////1st (draft) PROPOSAL    @Lisa Sousa

Please discuss this in your local IMC group and decide which model you agree
with Option A or Option B.

An IMC website must have an open publishing newswire. A simple definition of
"open publishing" is that material is not pre-screened or edited, everything
gets published on the site. The editing process happens *after* stories are
published to the site not *before*.

Articles may be "hidden", after they have been published, according to the
editorial policy of the local imc group. In accordance with the criteria for
open publishing, the article may only be hidden *after* it has been
published on the newswire and not *before*. The articles, however, will not
be actually deleted from the newswire, but rather will be "hidden" on
another page. This will enable people to read them if they want and read the
reasons why they were hidden in the first place. This keeps the process as
transparent as possible.

OPTION A:  The open newswire must be on the front page of the website

OPTION B:  The open newswire may be one click away from the front page of
the website. If your IMC agrees with this option to vary from the
"traditional" newswire, the necessity for putting the newswire on a separate
page must be explained.

/////////////end 1st proposal

@@@@@@@@The next thought was:     @Matthew Arnison

"I would rather we didn't set in stone the fine details for how
members go about open publishing. I would like to see different groups
exploring completely different approaches and software."

"I wanted to help define it in a way that's independent of the particular
software. It's crucial to support diversity and decentralisation."

"For an *example* of open publishing software, check out the active code
http://www.active.org.au/doc/, which is free software, and what most
indymedia.org sites are using."

@@@@@@@@@@The next thought was:      @Lisa Sousa

"if we define open publishing very loosely then pretty much anything could
be considered open publishing - since the website is a definite technical
thing - i think it is good to be precise.   Some people think that if an
open newswire is not on the front page, no one will even see it - how open
is that?  So we could post some vague philosophical idea about what open
publishing means that we can all agree on, but what good is that actually
gonna do?  I could say "yeah, i trust the people etc etc, but i'm still
gonna bury their content so no one can see it"

@@@@@@@@@@The next thought was:     @Matthew Arnison

"By the defintion that I wrote, most news websites that I visit are clearly
not open publishing (OP). CNN is not OP. slashdot.org is not OP. Indymedia
websites are easy to see as being OP (except for climate.indy and quebec and
maybe one or two others). kuro5hin.org is OP. In that sense I think it's
quite functional in helping us distinguish different approaches to news
publishing."

"So basically my proposal would be something like:"

////////////////2nd PROPOSAL

The main newswire on an indymedia site should use open publishing.

Open publishing means that the process of creating news is transparent to
the readers. To be eligible to tell a story, they merely need to think they
have a story to tell. They can contribute a story and see it instantly
contributed to the pool of stories publicly available. They can see
editorial decisions being made by others. They can see how to get involved
and help make editorial decisions. If they don't like the way the software
is shaping the editorial decisions, they can copy the software because it is
free and change it and start their own site. If they want to redistribute
the news, they can, preferably on an open publishing site.

/////////////end 2nd proposal

"the defintion includes extra things that I think are *very* important to
indymedia, including the use of free software and redistribution of
stories."

@@@@@@@@@@The next thought was:   @Richard Malter

"We send out *both* proposals together."

"What this achieves:

a) We don't close any doors on the imagination about OP.
b) We achieve OP as a criteria for Indymedia.
c) For existing IMCs that use the Active code (which is nearly all or most
of them) we get a definite criteria that we can be helped by immediately to
address internal OP questions like CMAQ, and decide easily external
questions like a new group wanting and waiting to be an IMC and that intends
to use the Active code (in the short term until they come up with something
they prefer)."

//////////////3rd proposal (2 parts)  = 1st proposal + 2nd proposal

Part 1 [2nd proposal] effectively asks for agreement on open publishing as a
criteria for being an IMC; but without stopping the possibility of all new
methods of open publishing that might ever be imagined.

Part 2 [1st proposal] addresses *only* those IMCs that *choose* to use the
code (currently used on most of the indymedia.org sites) called 'Active'. It
says in essence that for such IMC sites there must be a Newswire with no
pre-filter.

/////////////end 3rd proposal

@@@@@@@@@@The next thought was:    @Matthew Arnison

"but what happens if we change the active code so it offers something more
complex but still open publishing (depending on your definition)? there's
certainly been plenty of talk about different ways to approach the article
filtering issue while keeping it as open as possible."

@@@@@@@@@@The next thought was:    @Richard Malter

"I think it could be addressed by including some piece of language that says
Part 2 relates only to those IMCs that choose to use the 'Active' code >>>in
the state [weblink of static model 'A'].  If the code is modified or changed
so that it differs functionaly [define how?] from the static model 'A' then
this new code will no longer fall under Part 2 of the definition, but still
under Part 1.<<<< "

"i.e. introducing a static reference 'A' that can be revised continuously
but is fixed at any one time."

@@@@@@@@@@The next thought was:     @Matthew Arnison

"we send out both proposals as alternatives, and include the option of
combining them."

"i think that the inspiration for OP (or whatever else we agree on as common
ground for indymedia) is a great place for diversity - for
different people to explain in entirely different ways why it's important to
use the methods we use. but if we can agree on common ground with our
methods, that i think is the easiest place to start, and even then we are
still only talking about the English version of an OP definition. :) "

"we've been doing OP now since 1999, but this is the first time we've tried
to crystallise what the concept of free info (taken from free software)
means for news and journalism. i think this is extremely important for our
movement."

"so the way i would think about where we are, is that my scribble is an
attempt to define OP, whereas the 1st proposal is a description of an
implementation that meets the criteria for OP."

@@@@@@@@@@The next thought was:    @Matthew Arnison

"one of the key ideas with open publishing i think is that we start from a
position of total trust in the audience to contribute good news stories, and
in their ability to edit and filter and sort through other people's stories.
for a site with a smaller audience you may need to only filter (hide)
stories once a month or less. you could even get away with none at all."

"however, as a site grows, we get more and more stories, and it seems that
statistically, we are more likely to need some sort of filtering process -
to help the audience help themselves in finding stories quickly that they
are interested in - assuming that most of the audience has limited time,
which i think is true. the extreme case is filtering out advertising spam -
spam is only a problem on the really busy sites. i've never seen spam on the
sydney OP sites."

"so the idea is that we only introduce filtering that is transparent and
preferably directly controlled by the audience, and we only introduce or
increase filtering after it is proven by experience that
it is necessary for a given site and audience."

"quebec breaks this one totally - they are nowhere near being a crazily busy
site yet."

"examples of filtering aids include: editing other people's stories (very
rare even for simple things like typos), hiding stories (very extreme),
highlighting stories (the centre column features on www.indy), comments
(help readers decide whether a story is controversial, provide a sounding
board for whether a story rings true), the search box is a kind of
filtering, and on some sites, user ratings help with filtering."

"so i think this encompasses the principle that the front page newswire
should be filtered *after* a story appears, not before. because according to
the principle of least possible filtering (to coin a phrase?) we don't need
to filter beforehand, so we don't."

"if a site gets 10 stories a week, then no filtering is needed. if a site
gets 2000 stories a day (!) then filtering is needed to help that part of
the audience that wants to find interesting things within 5 minutes.
otherwise we are saying that the only filtering we can have is that the most
recently posted 10 stories are on the front page. at 2000 stories a day,
that's the stories that happen to have been contributed in the last 10
minutes, which sounds like it would not be useful to most of our audience."

@@@@@@@@@so

////////////////NEW 2nd PROPOSAL     @Matthew Arnison

Open publishing means that the process of creating news is transparent to
the readers. They can contribute a story and see it instantly appear in the
pool of stories publicly available. >>> Those stories are filtered as little
as possible to help the readers find the stories they want. <<<Readers can
see editorial decisions being made by others. They can see how to get
involved and help make editorial decisions. If they don't like the way the
software is shaping the editorial decisions, they can copy the software
because it is free and change it and start their own site. If they want to
redistribute the news, they can, preferably on an open publishing site.

/////////////end NEW 2rd proposal

@@@@@@@@@@The next thought was:    @Matthew Arnison

"for example, im-ur.com might be seen as OP if you define it technically
similar to the 1st Proposal. but they break several things in the
definition: their editorial group / their management is completely opaque,
their software is closed so we cannot verify for ourselves how their system
operates, nor can we take it and use it elsewhere."

"the more i think about it, the more important it is that the software
running the site be free software - it's a key part of being transparent to
the audience."

"i don't think we're really going to be able to find a definition that
always gives a binary yes/no answer for a given site as to whether it's open
publishing. there will always be some sites that land in the grey zone. but
hopefully we can get something that sets off warning signals when sites are
drifting away from OP."

@@@@@@@@@@The next thought was:        @Richard Malter

"The 1st Proposal needs to have a 'clause' that says it is to be interpreted
in the narrowest possible sense."

"The reason for the 'narrowest possible definition clause' [removable
if wished] is to anticipate the wishes of people to add all kinds of
[valid] ammendments, qualifications, notes to the proposal, from fear that
it implies all kinds of things not actually mentioned. "

"with the 1st proposal - it has to be summary to a point and tightly
defined."

@@@@@@@@@@The next thought was:     @Matthew Arnison

"changed a negative to a positive."

////////////////NEWEST 2nd PROPOSAL

Open publishing means that the process of creating news is transparent to
the readers.  They can contribute a story and see it instantly appear in the
pool of stories publicly available. Those stories are filtered as little as
possible to help the readers find the stories they want. Readers can see
editorial decisions being made by others. They can see how to get involved
and help make editorial decisions. >>> If they can think of a better way for
the software to help shape editorial decisions, <<<they can copy the
software because it is free and change it and start their own site. If they
want to redistribute the news, they can, preferably on an open publishing
site.

/////////////end NEWEST 2rd proposal

-----------------------------
### END summary of discussion

[Imc] GLOBAL INDYMEDIA "OPEN PUBLISHING" *PROPOSAL* (fwd)

[Imc] GLOBAL INDYMEDIA "OPEN PUBLISHING" PROPOSAL (fwd)