[Imc] steering group minutes 2/9/01

[John Wason]

At 01:57 PM 12/09/2001 -0600, Mark Enslin wrote:

>attending Michael F, Mike L, Mike W, Orion, Aaron, Mark, Brian, Paul R
>Jenny, Sascha, Ellen, James

I don't know if I get to have an opinion on any of this since I didn't
attend the Steering Group meeting?  As you have probably guessed by now, I'm
gonna express a couple anyway.


>Revision of Guidelines for web site: two issues: spamming and other misuse.

>(Mike L) Example 1-- pastor larabee that started off with straight
>advertising
>
>Mike suggests checking if someone posts to all imc's
>Ellen hesitant to make posting to all newswires a category that merits
>hiding--we couldn't differentiate news stories that are cross-posts. Our
>guidelines already prohibit advertising. If we expand to posting to all
>other IMC's then too many are covered by that.
>Sascha agrees. I view prosyltizing as advertising for a religion. 

How do you define proselytizing?  Is a Buddhist essay about 9/11
proselytizing, or an invitation or announcement for people to visit a mosque?

And what about proselytizing for a political agenda - e.g., the legalization
of hemp?  Very slippery slope.  Virtually everyone proselytizes/advertises
for SOMETHING.  When you start banning the "advertising" of ideas you've
totally lost your focus as to what the IMC is supposed to be about.  And
whether you, gentle reader, want to acknowledge it or not, religion is about
ideas, thoughts, and the freedom to express said ideas and thoughts.  A few
of us, being less enlightened than the rest of you, might actually be
interested in religious ideas.


>ME if say a Nation writer puts up a url of a story
>Paul--our guidelines already cover spam.
>Mike our guidelines are vaguer about daily posts
>Do you want us to have a discussion every time we decide to hide something
>Paul I want there to be a discussion when we decide to hide the posts of a
>person in general. I don't want to make prohibitiions overly broad. We're
>not at the point where ad hoc is overwhelming.
>Sascha i'm between on this; to have this discussion repeatedly is
discouraging. 
>Paul this is 
>Mike W let the shit fall to the bottom; let the comment process 
>Mike F that's the slashdot model, but we don't have the software
>Brian ranking news is a problem
>Mike W We should be local. I have a 
>Ellen the software we have doesn't do that, so it's not a viable option
>Mike L We've discussed that and decided not to.
>Paul R proposed hiding all of Larabee's posts: advertising and posting
>daily.
>James has anyone tried to contact Larabee?
>Mike L through comments on his posts
>Paul R is willing to email him to let him know--if we don't hear anything
>back in seven days, we'll started hiding his posts on a blanket basis.
>Brian what if he decides to start posting news?
>Paul R I'll tell him that he can appeal by emailing
>info at urbana.indymedia.org

I saw the subsequent e-mails on this.  What if a person were limited to one
non-commercial post per day?  Would that be a significant problem?  Is it
technically feasible?

I'm curious how you monitor the frequency of posts without logging the posts
and somehow having the computer count them.

At any rate, I can't imagine that one non-commercial post per day would
overwhelm the UC-IMC.  And that's a simple, equitable guideline that doesn't
restrict content, other than the "non-commercial" requirement.


>issue 2:
>Whether to log emails of Bobby Meade; people tend to hope he'll go away.
>but he seems not to be
>
>discussion continues (too difficult to take notes on, sorry) and is
>eventually tabled. Further discussion on the
>IP logging issue at the tech meeting 6-7 Wednesday.

Just one question and one comment here.  

Question:  Is it possible to log ONLY Bobby Meade's posts and not everyone's?  

Comment: If we log everyone's, I have a real problem with it.  Personally,
I'm more afraid of the FBI than I am of Bobby Meade.  If Bobby Meade shows
up at the UC-IMC with a shotgun, just give me a call.  I'll come over and
pretend to be M.L.  I'm being grandiose here - it would be better to call
the local cops, of course - but I'm being grandiose for a reason.  I'll take
the risk of Bobby Meade showing up before I'll take the risk of having the
sources of all the posts on our web site accessible to any government agency
that feels like looking at them.  That's MY paranoia, not Bobby Meade.

John