[Imc-tech] Hidden Post/IMC as a Vanity Press?

[Mike Lehman]

I hid this post from Adrian More:
<http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display/8217/index.php>

It is a near-duplicate of:
<http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display/7940/index.php>

The issue in my mind is that this is essentially a duplicate post.
Others may differ on whether it should be considered a duplicate post.
Here's some background.

Mr. More began posting these on the global IMC wire after 9/11. For some
time, he tried to keep them up on the Newswire there almost constantly,
both by constantly reposting them and then by making near-daily, minor
changes when the reposting was objected to and, at times, hidden by the
crew at global.

He now has a group of these which, thankfully, are not updated daily
there, but which still appear in batches several times a week on global.
Recently, he has branched off into spamming the network with his
still-growing group of eleven stories. This seems to be a random
operation, with no effort to check whether he has posted the near-same
story recently on any particular IMC. And considering he rewrites these
constantly, he could at least link-check them so that the old links to
his numerous references haven't gone dead.

The first copy of this story was received on Oct. 19, less than two
weeks ago. people can look for themselves and judge whether it is close
enough to being a duplicate to fit the editorial policy that we have. I
would be interested in hearing whether others agree with my call on this
one or not, as it is a gray area.

Since he has plenty of other (similarly rewritten) material available
that we haven't seen, I think if he must spam and use IMCs as a peculiar
sort of vanity press, he could at least use something just a little more
original. My guess is that most people will read these at most once and,
considering the length and near identical character, basically ignore
them after that. Our readers have had a chance to do that with this one.

I would write to More encouraging him to use other material which he has
instead of a near-duplicate repost, but I thought it best to gather the
opinions of others before doing so. We'll discuss this at tomorrow's
Steering Group meeting, but please reply onlist if you can't make it in
person.

Mike Lehman