[Imc] draft website "appropriate use policy"

[Paul Riismandel]

As promised -- comments, additions welcome.  Please note that the "Libel" 
section is blank because I would prefer we be driven by a legal definition 
rather than my hackneyed approach at writing something coherent on the subject.

Here it is:

Urbana IMC Website Use Policy
Draft ver 2, P. Riismandel, 9/29/01
I.      Explanation
II.     Guidelines for Hiding Posts
III.    Guidelines for Editing or Deleting Posts
IV.     Procedures for Hiding, Editing or Deleting Posts

I. Explanation

The Urbana-Champaign IMC website newswire is an open publishing system, and 
its use for both posting and reading messages is available to anyone on the 
Internet.  The newswire is primarily intended for the posting and 
discussion of news, opinions, ideas and experiences that relate to current 
events and news, particularly that of interest to people in the greater 
Urbana-Champaign area.  The Newswire is especially intended to be available 
and useful to peoples, ideas and news that are overlooked or systematically 
excluded from the dominant media.  These are necessarily broad categories 
of postings that include a wide diversity of approaches, however there are 
types of posts and posting behaviors that are not included.

The newswire is a virtual commons that the IMC intends to be open fairly 
and equally to all who would want to use it.  As a commons, there are basic 
ground rules that allow the commons to be fairly available and useful to as 
many people as possible.  The principle guiding these rules is that the IMC 
discourages postings that compromise the availability and usefulness of the 
newswire as a commons and the IMC reserves the right to hide or remove such 
postings.

When considering posts containing speech that may be unacceptable and 
detrimental to the newswire's status as a commons, the IMC Steering Group 
should  keep in mind principles of free speech which advocate for using 
more speech to counter unacceptable speech.  This principle must be 
balanced against the real harm that speech can do both to individuals and 
to the usefulness of the newswire itself, with an attempt to gauge if more 
speech can actually counter any real harm done.

In all considerations it must be recognized that the IMC newswire is only 
one amongst many hundreds or thousands open posting forums available on the 
Internet, and therefore the IMC cannot fully silence any voice on the 
Internet.  Commensurately, it must also be recognized that the IMC 
newswire's strength is its openness, and the significant hiding of posts 
will weaken its use and goals.

The IMC Active software that runs the newswire has a feature allowing posts 
to be hidden from view on the newswire without being deleted from the 
system.  These hidden posts can still be viewed through the "story 
administration" page that may be easily linked to.  The IMC Active software 
does not provide a provision for deleting posts, however it does provide 
for the editing and deleting of text within a post, and such changes are 
permanent.

In most cases where posts are deemed as unacceptable they should be hidden 
from view on the newswire, with an explanation for the hiding attached to 
the post.  Posts should only be edited or deleted in the few cases outlined 
below in which their appearance anywhere on the site threatens the 
financial or legal status of the IMC.


II. Guidelines for Hiding Posts:
The following are types of situations and posts which may be hidden by the 
IMC Steering Group, along with guidelines for determining what should be 
hidden.

Duplicate Posts  if a single post is duplicated during a relatively short 
time period, all duplicate posts may be hidden.  In determining duplicate 
posts it should be understood that it may be appropriate to repost 
information in order to bring information to the attention of website 
visitors after a reasonable amount of time has elapsed since it was first 
posted.
Threats and Intimidationthe IMC newswire is not intended to be a forum for 
primarily publicizing hate nor for making direct threats against 
individuals, groups or classes of people.  The IMC recognizes that such 
speech can be harmful in and of itself and may create at atmosphere in 
which physical action becomes more likely. In any post under consideration 
the threatening speech should be weighed against other ideas or expression 
in the post.  If the majority of the post nonetheless is intended to 
contribute to discourse or debate, then the issue of hiding it should be 
considered very carefully.
Flooding or Spamming of Posts  this is when a single individual posts 
multiple times in a short period in a manner that indicates that the 
poster's purpose is to flood the newswire or push other posts off the front 
page of the IMC website, which typically only contains ten to twenty of the 
most recent posts. This type of posting behavior can only truly be 
identified after several occurrences, and depends heavily on the amount of 
volume of posts.   It can be difficult to stop because posters can change 
screen names at a whim.  Therefore the utmost care must be taken to make 
sure that only posts that are made by a known "spammer" are hidden.
Off-Topic Posts  this is perhaps the most difficult category of 
inappropriate posts to judge, since the IMC Newswire intends to be a forum 
that is open to a broad range of topics and ideas.  Nonetheless there are 
posts that are baldly and clearly inappropriate, whose purpose seems 
clearly to be other than informing, educating or adding to a public 
discourse.  In the worst cases their appearance on the IMC Newswire may 
indeed discourage other visitors from using the site.  Isolated posts are 
typically not problematic, and so the problem of off-topic posts is usually 
related to flooding or spamming.  Therefore the frequency of off-topic 
posts of a particular type should be considered when deciding whether to 
hide them.
Commercial Solicitation  the Newswire is not intended to be used for 
commercial purposes, therefore commercial solicitations and advertisements 
for commercial products should be hidden.

II. Guidelines for Editing and Deleting Posts
The following types of posts may be edited or have text deleted by the IMC 
Steering Group.

Illegal Speech  very few kinds of speech are considered illegal in the US, 
however those that are must be dealt with seriously.  One example of such 
speech is a threat against the US president.  The appearance of such speech 
on the IMC website can bring unwanted and unnecessary scrutiny and 
harassment from police and the government.  Any conceivable benefit or 
contribution such speech might make is far outweighed by the threat it 
presents to the health and existence of the IMC.
Libel --
Direct Threats  -- These constitute direct threats on specific people or 
small, easily identifiable groups of people.  The purpose behind editing or 
deleting such posts is to not feed into the violence threatened.

III. Procedure for Hiding, Editing or Deleting Posts:

The Steering Group shall rely upon the IMC website editor or editorial 
group to monitor the Newswire and alert the IMC volunteers when 
inappropriate posts appear.  Additionally, any IMC volunteer, member or 
website visitor may call attention to a post believed to be inappropriate 
by e-mailing the general IMC mailing list or info at urbana.indymedia.org

Hiding Posts:
When the Steering Group is made aware of posts that should be hidden, it 
should make a reasonable attempt must be made to contact the author of the 
post in question and to explain the IMC's appropriate use policy, asking 
for cooperation and compliance.   In the event that a post in made 
anonymously, or no valid e-mail address is posted, then no effort can 
reasonably take place to contact the author.

If after attempting contact with an author posting inappropriately the 
Steering Group is unable to reach a resolution with that poster, the 
Steering Group may hide any of that author's posts as they deem necessary, 
according to this policy.  The Steering Group may instruct the website 
editor or editorial group to hide future posts from such an author.

Whenever a post is hidden a comment from the Steering Group explaining whey 
the post was hidden should be added to the hidden post.

Editing and Deleting Posts:

Only posts which pose an immediate threat to the welfare of the IMC and the 
IMC website may be edited or deleted.  Because of this, the editor or 
editorial group may, at their discretion, hide or edit a post if they 
believe it inappropriate according to the guidelines of posts that may be 
edited or deleted.  Whenever such a post is hidden or edited, the editors 
must immediately inform the IMC General e-mail list of the action and the 
rationale for the action.

The Steering Group will address the post in question at their next regular 
meeting following editorial action.  At this meeting the Steering Group can 
affirm, modify or reverse any editorial action.  Only the Steering Group 
may decide to delete a post  the website editor or editorial group may not 
take this action with Steering Group approval.

If a post is edited, a comment must be added to the post explaining why it 
was edited.  If a post is deleted then there should be no record of it in 
the IMC website and website database.


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/imc/attachments/20010929/0a85e97f/attachment.html>