[Imc-web] Re: UCIMC Website Posting Guidelines

[Marti Wilkinson]

Hi Mike:

Danielle did invite me to become a member of the working group and I am
willing to get involved. My only limitations are that I have classes in
Charleston on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. One of the things I stated on
the Illinipundit site is that both the UCIMC and IP moderators have the
right to engage in editorial decisions.

I have also found the site to be somewhat user-unfriendly from a design
aspect which is one reason why I haven't participated much on the site
lately. Again this is something I'm willing to address. By addressing the
concerns of former IMC posters my intent is to be part of the solution and
not the problem. Just simply ignoring a criticism isn't always the most
effective approach in a discourse. This is because I believe there are
people who can benefit from participating in the discussions on both sites.

Because the internet is an electronic medium we don't have the benefit of
seeing the facial expression or body language of participants. Another
downside is that often people are going to feel safe engaging in mean
behavior online simply because the perception is they can get away with it.
In many respects we are still navigating uncharted territory and I see us as
the guinea pig generation of internet usage.

When a recent story came out in the mainstream press about a young teenager
who took her life as a result of internet cruelty that really hit home for
me. Being the mother of a teenage daughter I've had to talk to her about
internet predators and trolls. This is not something that my mother had to
do. I don't censor my daughters internet usage or stand over her shoulder
constantly, but I do encourage her to engage in critical thinking and to use
common sense. I have to admit I am so glad to not be a teenager and I can
really feel for my daughter sometimes.

With all that being said if you wish to add me to the working group I will
do what I can to help.

Peace, Marti

On Feb 1, 2008 2:39 PM, Mike Lehman <rebelmike at earthlink.net> wrote:

> I saw that same thread and it's nonsense. The last time a reply was
> hidden for content violations of our editorial policy was November 10.
>
> You also need to follow the website closely in order to fully appreciate
> the context within which such decisions are made. About 99% of posts
> that fall astray of our policy are from anonymous posters. I'll note
> here that the complaining post that Marti quoted here was by an
> anonymous poster on IP. In the past, I have observed comments reflecting
> the same dismissive, trolling point of view posted within 5 minutes or
> less at both sites. That and extensive past experiences with these sorts
> of posts indicate that there is someone (or _someones_) out there who is
> purposefully trying to stir the pot, rile up people, and get them
> pointing their fingers at "those OTHER people."
>
> That said, the anonymous comment that Marti quoted was in response to a
> similar, but less inflammatory claim in a similar vein by IP himself.
> Knowing it had been a while since such a post was hidden here was when I
> discovered that it had been so long since that had actually happened,
> making it both am,using and irnoic to read. IP can wallow in his
> ignorance, get fooled by Wendy's highly subjective POV on the subject
> and generally stir his own trolls up if he wants to. It is clearly at
> variance with the facts.
>
> What I find interesting is that last fall, after we had pretty much shut
> down the troll here, he proceeded to go concentrate his efforts over at
> IP. Back when Wendy left in a huff last spring, the big deal they made
> over there was how cruelly unfair our policy was. The fact is we've had
> essentially the same policy now for about 5 years. It works well against
> those whose sole intent is to discourage thoughtful and respectful
> discourse at UC IMC. The Jack Ryan thing was where all this started,
> with that character going anonymous after even mention of his name was
> prohibited by our invocation of a software catch for any post mentioning
> his name. I'm sure that a few mean-spirited comments have been caught up
> by the policy as it has been enforced over the years. In fact, in a
> handful of cases the post -- which did meet the standard, BTW -- was
> restored after someone known to me took credit for it.
>
> What is really ironic about this is that IP has now adopted basically
> the same approach after growing tired of the same crap we put up with at
> UC IMC for longer than IP has been in existence. Last fall, he adopted a
> selective approach to dealing with such comments by deleting them.
> Please note that they are no longer visible in any form that I'm aware
> of on IP. This is in contrast to our more lenient policy that allows
> such posts to be hidden, but accessible to any reader. Our policy is
> actually more liberal at this point than theirs, although I don't really
> care to compare or to shape our policy to fit theirs. It was exactly
> that point which Wendy was insisting upon that caused her to leave when
> it was clear she was the only one who held that sort of view and that
> the rest of us had no intention of doing so. Of course, I'm still the
> one that Wendy and the troll both blame. I frankly don't care.
>
> I would be glad to have more people involved in editing. Frankly, I
> think the webpage is a vastly underused resource in general. But, no, I
> don't think any one is seriously interested in forming our editorial
> policy to resemble IP's.
>
> I would ask that Marti just ignore such discussions at IP. Quoting what
> was said here is unlikely to change any minds there and would inspire
> the troll to return here after he's given up bothering us in the face of
> his impotence. He used to read the Web list and may soon discover this
> anyway, but let him take his sweet time doing so.
>
> IP has his policy and I respect his right to have it. UC IMC has its
> own, one that evolved through hours of discussion over 8 years and the
> input of a number of thoughtful  people, most of whom have now moved on
> to other endeavors. I still think it serves us well, but I have no
> problem starting another conversation about it so long as we have a
> clear idea of where it's come from in order to avoid the trap of
> excessive idealism about what soon becomes the abusive posting behavior
> of a very few disruptive individuals.
>
> If people want to have an "anything goes" UC IMC blog, I stated quite
> some time ago I'd be OK with that, but I probably will NOT be posting
> there if there was such a thing. The issue of UC IMC being a "free
> speech zone" was settled within the first six months or so of our
> existence when we banned Bobby Meade. The first principle of UC IMC
> editorial policy since then is that it should foster thoughtful and
> respectful discussion that empowers those whose voices are silenced in
> the dominant media. That is exactly what makes us different from IP.
>
> Most of the voices at IP are those of people who buy into the fables and
> lies of the dominant media. They can tolerate a lot of the shrill,
> inane, and ignorant conversations that go on there precisely because
> that is the paradigm most there embrace. Time and time again, UC IMC has
> found that allowing such POVs to get the upper hand here discourages
> those who have already been disempowered by the dominant voices in most
> of the media.
>
> Wendy made this even worse by bragging that she'd violated the central
> tenet of a Indymedia editor's responsibility and, in fact, of ANYONE
> with sys admin privileges on a system that needs to have secure data --
> and one that she had just been clearly reminded of when she did --
> revealing that she had chosen to violate the anonymity of certain
> posters. We are still trying to overcome that issue among people who
> regularly posted here in the past. I don't  know all of them, but I do
> know a few because they chose to discuss their concerns with me.
>
> Wendy poisoned the well so badly at UC IMC with her violations just
> before she left that a number of regular posters have just recently
> started to again post, but only so long as they stay anonymous, since
> they haven't started suing their old accounts which still exist here.
> But you will NOT see me revealing them to the world, here or in person
> to ANYONE. That is the biggest editorial issue we have to confront. I
> think that the only way to do it is through time healing most wounds and
> continuation of a editorial policy that treats anonymous posters, as
> well as those with accounts, fairly even if they choose to remain
> anonymous. I think we already do that, but I'd be willing to reopen that
> discussion if people want to.
>
> But don't believe what you read about it at IP, because most of those
> who mention it there just don't know or care for much of anything other
> than throwing mud at the IMC.
> Mike Lehman
>
> Danielle Chynoweth wrote:
> > Hi Marti -
> >
> > Would love to have you join the web working group at the IMC to help
> > resolve the user problems with the site and address editorial
> > concerns.  I have raised similar editorial concerns in the past.  I do
> > not think we should hide off topic posts, only those that cross the
> > line to abuse, engage is racist or sexist slurs, or target individuals
> > for violence.
> >
> > I have not seen a lot of hiding of off topic posts and would ask those
> > who have raised concerns to provide 5-6 recent examples they disagree
> > with.
> >
> > Some work has been done to create a policy.  See hidden posts and
> > summary policy here:
> > http://www.ucimc.org/hidden
> >
> > Danielle
> >
> >
> > On Feb 1, 2008 11:00 AM, Marti Wilkinson <martiwilki at gmail.com
> > <mailto:martiwilki at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> >     I've been engaging in participating in one of the Rietz debates on
> >     Illinipundit and one of the biggest criticism's that the UCIMC
> >     site has it a perceived failure to allow differences of opinion on
> >     the website. Even though I was able to point out that anyone who
> >     moderates the site has the right to engage in editorial discretion
> >     someone did post this concern to me.
> >
> >     *On February 1st, 2008 at 10:36 AM, Anonymous (not verified) said:*
> >
> >     *UIMC allows zero difference of opinion. I am much more in
> >     agreement in geeral with its poltics than with this site, but I am
> >     astonished by the likes of ML censoring even the slightest of
> >     disagreements and labeling those authors "trolls" as if there is
> >     some litmus test. It reminds me of the Stalinists sitting in
> >     judgment of their close ideological revals, fellow socialists, as
> >     to whether they were Marxist enough.*
> >
> >     *While I disagree with much of the conservative posting at
> >     Illinipundit, I have never had a post deleted here*
> >
> >     Personally I find the UCIMC site can be so user-unfriendly
> >     sometimes it makes following what has been posted difficult. That
> >     being said I do believe the anonymous poster has expressed a valid
> >     and reasonable concern. I would like to offer a suggestion that we
> >     include specific posting guidelines on the site that is accessible
> >     to anyone who posts. That way if a post has to be deleted at least
> >     whoever is moderating the discussion can have some backup.
> >
> >     In addition I think it might be a good idea to perhaps not be so
> >     insistent that posters stay on a specific topic. Now if someone is
> >     being ugly and abusive then obviously that needs to be addressed.
> >     That being said the complaint that the IMC fails to invite debate
> >     is one that I do believe is worth looking into and if this is
> >     something that can be addressed please let me know.
> >
> >     Peace, Marti
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Support Urbana Parks - Vote Yes in February 5th Primary!
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > IMC-Web mailing list
> > IMC-Web at lists.ucimc.org
> > http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/imc-web
> >
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/imc-web/attachments/20080201/fd9a096d/attachment.htm