[Imc] Re: [Imc-info] More re Larrabee- sorry about the length.

Mon Feb 18 16:40:28 UTC 2002

Hi Mark,

The Urbana-Champaign IMC has contacted Mr. Larrabee on several occasions
in an attempt to work out a mutually agreed upon solution to the problem
of his postings and his disregard for our web use policies.  Given his
recent blantant commercial postings that again break the agreement that
his organization made with us, the Urbana-Champaign IMC Steering Group
decided by consensus to hide all future posts made by him or his
organization.

This decision was arrived at after several months of debate and multiple
offers to work with him, and only after many instances where Mr. Larrabee
demonstrated an unwillingness to abide by agreements he himself made with
our organization.  It is unfortunate that this is the outcome, however, it
is also important that users of our website abide by our web-use policies
in order to protect the open-publishing commons.

If other IMCs would benefit from learning about how our process leading up
to this decision worked, let me know.

--Sascha Meinrath
Urbana-Champaign IMC

On Sun, 17 Feb 2002, Mark Demartini wrote:

> More correspondence with ourchurch.com, who actually seem a reasonable
> bunch. Their reply to my original is at the bottom, my reply to them is at
> the top.
>
> Just thought you'd like to be posted.
>
> BTW, did I ever mention that I work for Larrabee Sound Studios in L.A., one
> of the top recording facilities in the industry, I might add. Maybe that has
> something to do with why this bird irritates me so much. Every time I see
> one of his spams I can't help thinking "Oy, there's another 50 search engine
> hits someone looking for our site will have to wade through".
>
> Regards,
>
> Mark De Martini
>
> Dear Mr. Steinbrueck:
>
> Thank you for your thoughtful reply, which has prompted me do do some
> thinking and research. Let me see if my thoughts address your concerns.
>
> With regard to points <1> & <2>, the issue of relevance, I find it difficult
> to envisage how an article written in English concerning U.S. politics could
> have enough local relevance to merit simultaneous posting in Russia, Belgium
> and India, for example.
>
> In addition, posting in a manner which makes it obvious that one is simply
> walking down the list of available sites creates a reasonable presumption
> that the poster is not giving any consideration to the question of
> appropriate venue but is rather doing the cyber equivalent of sticking
> posters or flyers on every surface which presents itself.
>
> Finally, for material of global interest, there is a global IMC Website,
> located at www.indymedia.org, which supports posts in several languages. The
> newswire there is very fast moving, and it might be necessary to repost
> after a day or so if one wants to make sure a good number of readers have
> the opportunity to encounter the headline on the front page; as far as I can
> tell this would be within the guidelines on duplicate posts I have been able
> to find. A good rule of thumb would be that if one cannot decide that
> an article clearly belongs on a specific local site, post it to the global
> site and let it flicker.
>
> Regarding points <3> & <4>: I also notice reduplicated articles which tend
> to give reading IMC sites a dreary air of sameness. I have not contacted
> these authors for several reasons:
>
> a. These spammed posts are more often than not one-time affairs, and it
> takes repeated irritation by one person to stir me to action.
>
> b. In most of the cases of repeated, sustained mass cross-posting, the
> person responsible is not reachable by email or in fact identifiable.
> Examples include Robert "Bobby Israel" Meade and "Ellen". "Bobby", who is
> infamous among IMC regs, posted from public computers and made it impossible
> to communicate with him save by commenting his articles. "Ellen" leaves no
> address and has never replied to a comment. Incidentally, both of these
> individuals have achieved a sort of IMC nerdvana: although the IMC format
> makes no provision for banning posters in the manner of moderated message
> boards, they have managed to invoke a sort of de-facto banning, with their
> posts being routinely bumped to the hidden files page by IMCs with a
> relatively strict view of the purpose of the newswire, such as
> Urbana-Champaign and Minneapolis-St. Paul.
>
> c. The breadth of Larrabee's cross-posting is to the best of my knowledge
> very rare and may well be unique. The spammers who are seeking publicity,
> such as the band and the photographer you mention, usually at least confine
> themselves to sites where their main language is primary, and usually go
> away once they feel their point is made. Not so with Larrabee. Not even
> "Bobby Israel" at his most persistent cross-posted to the ENTIRE set of IMC
> Web sites.
>
> With regard to point <5>: I am indeed sensitive to content; I like to see
> news, consisting of testable data, i.e., "facts", analysis containing
> logical, supported argument and opinion which, if I do not agree with it, at
> least stimulates thought about what I do agree with and why.
>
> Articles which demonstrate complete disregard for the basics of checking
> one's facts are a red rag to me, the more so when they are not original to
> the poster but forwards of others' work.
>
> Nevertheless, I'm able to tolerate fairly gracefully quite a bit of what I
> view as outright loonery on IMC, when the posters observe reasonably good
> Netiquette. By way of example, "Henk" is an enthusiast for Atlantean-style
> lost cities, Martian civilizations and the reading of occult symbolism into
> modern events. "Henk" also contents himself with posting to the global
> Indymedia site, so I content myself with commenting to correct his bad
> Egyptian and post an occasional link to the Bad Astronomy Web site. "Dwight
> Heet" likes "black helicopters" conspiracy theories, but since he restricts
> himself to the U.K site, I'm happy to leave it to his fellow Englishmen to
> answer him if they wish.
>
> Larrabee has simply broken the camel's back for me by combining all of the
> possible irritants.
>
> Regarding your last point, the IMC organizational model is decentralized and
> determinedly non-heirarchical, being committed to the "consensus" model of
> decision-making. Consequently the collectives which run the individual sites
> tend to be loath to put up a document and say "THIS IS A POLICY". The only
> IMC I've found so far which has an accessible link to a formal site-use
> policy is Urban-Champaign. I have found a few items which are relevant to
> getting a sense of the intended use of the IMC sites:
>
> First, this bit from the Indymedia FAQ (
> http://process.indymedia.org/faq.php3#all-wires ) demonstrates the general
> IMC philosophy regarding cross-posting:
>
> "Can I post to all the IMC newswires or e-mail lists with the touch of one
> button?
>
> No. The site is set up to encourage you to post or e-mail your information
> to the specific newswire/e-mail list that it concerns."
>
> There is also a document specifically addressing cross-posting (
> http://process.indymedia.org/letter_to_spammers.php3 ), which begins:
>
> "Form Letter to People who cross post on indymedia sites:
>
> It seems to be an increasing problem that people are cross posting articles
> on numerous indymedia sites."
>
> (This is a long document, which is why I'm just giving the link and a
> teaser.)
>
> To give a rare example of a formal public policy on IMC, there is:
> http://urbana.indymedia.org/website_policy.php3 , "II. Guidelines for
> Hiding, Editing and Deleting Posts". The section on "Duplicate posts"
> appears to be relevant. The fact that several IMCs had already bumped
> Larrabee's most recent post onto the hidden file page by the time I started
> surveying its extent is indicative that these sites had decided either that
> it didn't belong there or that they could safely bump it to clear space on
> the newswire front, since there were dozens of duplicates available on other
> IMCs.
>
> For some background on the difficulties of policy-making within the IMC
> organizational model, you might find the document at
> http://process.indymedia.org/policy.php3 informative.
>
> I would also offer this email which I received from a member of the U-C IMC
> collective as demonstrating that Larrabee's posting habits are raising
> significant concern among the volunteers who run the sites:
>
> "Thanks for taking the time to compile this e-mail -- you obviously have
> put in the time and thought to back up your position with a lot of
> evidence.  The UCIMC has definitely had several run-ins with Larrabee and
> he did indeed violate the agreements he made.  We've written to him after
> he violated his agreement with us and he has been abiding by them over the
> last several weeks.  However, the extent to which he is cross-posting to
> other sites definitely raises concern in my mind that he is not posting in
> good faith and is simply spamming all the IMC websites.  I will forward
> your e-mail to the UCIMC collective and will have the issue added to our
> steering group meeting agenda."
>
> I hope that knowing of the responses his posting habits are drawing will
> help inspire Larrabee to exercise the self-control needed to stop being part
> of the problem and become part of the solution, better regard for public
> fora.
>
> Thank you for your time and diligence.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Mark De Martini
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >From: support at ourchurch.com
> >To: mu_law256 at hotmail.com
> >Subject: Re: [OCC] Gary Larrabee's SPAMming
> >Date: 15 Feb 2002 15:57:53 -0000
> >
> >Mark,
> >
> >I have contacted Gary Larrabee and received a prompt reply from him.  I
> >have also reread your message and visited the indymedia.org website.  I was
> >hoping you could clear up a few things for me.
> >
> >1) In the definition of "excessive cross-posting" you included in your
> >original email it says, "it is highly unlikely a message would be
> >'appropriate' in so many different newsgroups."  That seems to indicate
> >that excessive cross-posting is defined by a person is posting articles
> >which are irrelevant to the newsgroup or website they are posting.  Would
> >you agree with that?  If so, that means it OK for someone to post to
> >multiple sites/newsgroups if their post is relevant to all of them, right?
> >
> >2) If someone is writing articles concerning global issues, is it not
> >relevant to people everywhere and therefore independent media groups around
> >the world?
> >
> >3) I looked at some of the IMC sites you said Gary Larrabee has posted
> >articles to this morning.  Interestingly, I found several articles posted
> >on multiple sites, articles such as "How giving a free cd evolves into a
> >revolution" and "PHOTOJOURNALIST HANS BENNETT DOCUMENTS ANARCHIST BLACK
> >BLOC SINCE SEATTLE '99"  Have you contacted the authors of these articles
> >and their website hosts concerning their cross-posting?
> >
> >4) If you have not contacted the authors of these articles, why not?
> >
> >5) If you object to some people's "excessive  cross-posting" but not
> >others, what are you really basing your objection on?  Is it that you
> >simply don't like the content of the articles?  I noticed one of the
> >comments in the Urbana link included the following, "IMCs should not be
> >enabling this sort of behavior by allowing him to advertise on the IMC
> >network."
> >
> >6) Has Gary Larrabee actually violated the rules or policies of any of
> >these websites?  If so, could you provide a quote of and link to the
> >rule(s) he has violated?
> >
> >Mark, as I said in my previous reply, we take spamming very seriously at
> >OurChurch.Com.  We also take fairness and due process very seriously, which
> >is why I'm asking for clarification on what really qualifies as spam or in
> >this case more specifically excessive cross-posting.  It's unclear to me as
> >to whether Gary Larrabee is really spamming or if you are just complaining
> >to try to silence someone who you disagree with.  I personally disagree
> >with nearly everything in the articles he has posted, but that by itself is
> >not cause for termination in our terms of service agreement.
> >
> >I look forward to your reply.
> >
> >Paul Steinbrueck
> >OurChurch.Com
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail.
> http://www.hotmail.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> Imc-info mailing list
> Imc-info at urbana.indymedia.org
> http://lists.cu.groogroo.com/cgi-bin/listinfo/imc-info
>