Talk:Indymedia/Archive 1

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1/20/05 Just found this this definition, after another day of working on Indymedia. Indymedia is now over 5 years old. I'm glad there's first hand knowledge present, but you are writing for a "dictionary" audience, not just your friends. Too many trees and not enough forest. What is the significance, impact, or not, on media overall? What effect has Indymedia and open publishing had in relation to open software, the internet in general, in how people consume news, or produce news, leading to blogging, etc., etc. Please take a gigantic step back and add the big picture.

Rabble wrote a pretty good history, but I can't find it.

An Imcista for 4 years

Whoops! Thanks for the redirect. Now someone (me or other) will have to do a merge.... :( ouch. I hope there's something useful in my "new" version that can be extracted.

"In September 2002, a front organisation for the CIA, called the Ford Foundation?, proposed funding for an Indymedia regional meeting. This was refused because many volunteers in Indymedia were uncomfortable with accepting money from the CIA, which has been responsible for carrying out and/or funding many human rights violations? in Latin America during the second half of the 20th century, as well as training islamic fundamentalists? in Pakistan and Afghanistan in terrorist techniques."

Can we have some confirmation of this? Since when was the Ford Foundation a CIA front? Greg Godwin

Since the 1950's.

http://www.rebelion.org/petras/english/ford010102.htm

The Ford Foundation and the CIA: A documented case of philanthropic collaboration with the Secret Police

Lets stick to known facts, it is claimed that the Ford Foundation is a front for the CIA, it is not verified. (I personally believe it, but NPOV must rule for this encyclopedia) - Greg Godwin 15:40 Sep 26, 2002 (UTC)

I can't wholly agree... what's a "known fact"? The article above might be enough to make it a "known fact" that the Ford Foundation is a CIA front, depending on who you ask. This debate should be properly addressed on the Ford Foundation page, not here, but if there's no FF reply to the charges above that can be quoted, then I'd have to say it's a "known fact" that the FF is a front group. Graft 15:44 Sep 26, 2002 (UTC)

It could be claimed the article is biased, just because it takes the form of an academic report doesn't mean it is without bias. Lets just be sure to note that the CIA -> Ford Foundation link is a claim - Greg Godwin 15:48 Sep 26, 2002 (UTC)

Indeed. Putting the word "documented" in the title doesn't make it so. He quotes "Saunders", but doesn't give a bibliography. Essays that use one, uncited, source are not worth very much, I'm afraid. Which isn't to say I don't believe it, but one has to do better than that. And the FF say: Since its inception it has been an independent, nonprofit, nongovernmental organization, which sounds like a denial to me -- User:GWO

I think we have met in a middle ground... if you look at the FF entry, it says "the stated mission", and "critics claim" is fair enough. As I said, I believe the claim, but it just cant be verified independently. Greg Godwin 15:53 Sep 26, 2002 (UTC)

I don't think anything is without bias, try as we might to make it otherwise. I agree we should say this is a claim, but I think we all should be careful about what we are eager to contextualize and what we accept as a matter of course. We all leap out of our skins at suggestions that the FF is a CIA front group, but we'd be much less likely to do so for the equally questionable (but far more acceptable) contention that America fought to overthrow fascism in World War II. Graft

I agree Graft, and I'd have a problem with that generalisation too! But we can only deal with article at a time, but i'd happily work on fixing other non-NPOV inconsistencies Greg Godwin

Well if that wasn't what they were doing, we Europeans consider it a pretty fortuitous by-product -- User:GWO

Well said! Sebastian (another European)

Notes from my edits:

I am aware that Semitic also refers to Arabs, but anti-Semitic means anti-Jew (unless you're being pedantic). Look it up if you don't belive me. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=anti-semitic Indymedia vs Wikipedia is a tangential to the rest of this article. I've deleted the section, but worked non-redundant parts related to indymedia into other sections. I've made some NPOV edits. I've edited some overly vebose passages to use more concise, easily understood terms. I eliminated unnecessary jargon where I noticed it. One of the recent edits was poorly organized, I've tried to correct this by working out-of-place bits into more appropriate sections. Vanu 18:41 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Here's an idea: why not just stick to describing what the IMC is and to describing specific events that are related to it, and cut out all the (IMO, irrelevant) stuff that treats the IMC as an issue rather than an organization. I want to know what the IMC is when looking up an article on it, not whether people like it or not or what their opinions are of it. For those kinds of arguments, how 'bout starting up a new article like objectivity in journalism or the internet as news medium?

Indymedia vs Wikipedia is a tangential to the rest of this article.

I don't see why it's tangential - Indymedia and Wikipedia have a huge amount in common, so IMHO it's important to show how they are similar and how they are different.

Personally, I'd be happy to remove the reputation section - I agree with treating IMC as an organization rather than as an issue. But someone seems to feel that it's necessary to delegitimize IMC, even mentioning an incorrect perception (that IMC's have no editorial policies) without mentioning that the perception is wrong... But I'll leave others to decide on whether or not to remove the reputation bit.

Is Wikipedia about helping people to understand or not? IMHO, it is about helping people to understand, and subtitles help people understand.

I fail to understand why the "indymedia vs wikipedia" title was removed, so i'm reverting. Please let's try to discuss this here on the talk page.

We try to avoid this kind of meta-discussion. Please see Wikipedia:Avoid self-references for details. If you wish to discuss the differences between Indymedia and Wikipedia, we welcome you to do so, but this should not be done in the article namespace, but in the Wikipedia: namespace -- compare Wikipedia:Guide for Everything2 noders and Wikipedia:Guide for h2g2 researchers. You might want to create Wikipedia:Guide for Indymedia authors. --Eloquence 12:53 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

OK, in Wikipedia:Avoid self-references it's written:

If, however, you read about online communities,
the article may well discuss Wikipedia as an example
-- in neutral tone, without specifically implying that
the article in question is being read on, or part of Wikipedia.

So what I understand is to avoid making links -sqbracket-sqbracket-Wikipedia-sqbracket-sqbracket .

I also agree with the suggestion Wikipedia:Guide for Indymedia authors, but I still think it's relevant to mention the similarity within the article. So I'll have another go and let's see if we can consense on this... Please wait a few minutes...

The problem is that there is no particular reason to pick Wikipedia as a counter-example, and it cannot be assumed that the reader knows what Wikipedia is. If you want to compare Indymedia to other communities, you should start a section "Indymedia and other communities" and then have "Indymedia vs. Wikipedia" as a subsection of that section, and briefly explain what Wikipedia is in that subsection. It's OK to link to the Wikipedia article, just don't assume that the reader knows what Wikipedia is because he reads this article in Wikipedia, which he may very well not do. --Eloquence 13:39 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

OK, i did the first draft of Wikipedia:Guide for Indymedia authors and i'm starting to understand what is meant by forking. In any case, the changes are fine by me.

IMHO, wikipedia is probably the most similar online community to compare with, in terms of having the goal of information collection/synthesis for ordinary people and in trying to be international and multilingual. But other suggestions are welcome :).

A newbie question about GFDL in relation to Wikipedia: Imagine that someone, X, wants to distribute some section of the Wikipedia in printed form, e.g. all the articles on media and online communities, then is the following a correct interpretation of the GFDL Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License:

X can only charge for the cost of production + distribution, not for extra profit
it's OK to pick out just some small subset of the whole Wikipedia, as a modified version
the printed version must include a specific copyright and license notice.
If no transparent copy, i.e. machine-readable in a free format, is included with the printed copy, then it's called opaque
If the opaque copy is distributed in more than 100 copies, it's sufficient to include a link to a web site such as the wikipedia site which is very likely to remain accessible 12 months in the future. Or are there additional reasonably prudent steps which X needs to take?

I'm not asking for a legal opinion, I'm just thinking aloud... But it seems to me that if a major distribution journal (e.g. a weekly) publishes a wikipedia article, and all it does to ensure redistribution is to publish a link to the wikipedia site of the same language, then it implicitly accepts responsability for maintenance of that wikipedia site for at least 12 months. :))) This might be a way to force funding of local language wikipedia sites from mainstream publications... :)))

Not to rain on your party or anything, but a major weekly would not publish a wikipedia article, given the current attitudes in the traditional publishing world. Any implicit requirement to maintain wikipedia would probably put a significant financial strain on whoever decides to distribute >100 "opaque" copies. Vanu 05:54 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Hi Vanu. I believe that you are mistaken in your summary of the GFDL. Specifically:

There is no restriction on making a profit charging for copies. Where do you get that from?
Local publications have no need to fund a wikipedia mirror.
The GFDL says that if you distribute more than 100 copies without distributing the electronic source, then you have to take reasonable steps to ensure that the host web site is viable for at least 12 months.
We are absolutely *not* looking to "force funding" of anything from downstream content reproducers. We are producing open content so that it may be used, not so that we can trick people into helping us.

If you have more questions/comments, I suggest you take them to Wikipedia talk:Copyrights, where more people will see them. Cool to have you here, and I'm going to check out your guide for indymedia writers (I am one) soon. Peace, DanKeshet 15:36, 30 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to summarize the GFDL, I was trying to show that, if the person who I responded to was correct, then the outcome he described wouldn't be the result. Since he was incorrect, everything I said was moot. Vanu 06:46, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Here is summary about an Indymedia debate, the present, issues, the future, the 'brand' Indymedia, and more http://www.indymedia.nl/nl/2003/09/14038.shtml translated from a Dutch summary which is also linked from there. - NN

Vanu:

I don't understand why you think that the term anybody with internet access is obfuscatory but the term anybody is not obfuscatory.

Maybe misleading is better to describe the use of anybody without a reminder that poorer people in rich countries and most people in poorer countries have very poor internet access. Independently of whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, it's a reasonably NPOV fact, IMHO.

Wikipedia is biased against one sector of the world population. Indymedia tries to be biased in favour (in terms of participation) of the same sector. Both are honest and up-front about this and neither deny it. Denying this complementarity isn't NPOV, IMHO.

I also don't understand why you think the term leftist is non-ambiguous but that terms like overtly biased in favour of human rights, environmental rights is obfuscatory.

Please just look at some local Indymedia sites or at some of the organising documents and you'll see that virtually nobody defines leftism as a requirement for participation. Maybe not everybody would agree with the general categories human rights and environmentalism to describe the biases of Indymedia, but they are at least as clear as leftist.

Leftism is obfuscatory because it's confused with the communist regimes of the USSR and PRC.

De-spinning the article better describes what I meant to say than "reverting to non-obfuscatory terms". When I was new to wikipedia, I spun a couple of articles in a similar way, and those edits were always reverted, so I do the same now when I see similar behavior.

"Leftist" or "left-wing" are the best terms to describe indymedia and it's biases because: 1) they're compact, 2) they're about as de-spun as you can get, 3) they're readily understood.

I agree that "leftism" is not a requirement for participation, but left-wing or leftist are terms which broadly define the sites. They primarily champion what are generally considered to be left-wing causes, and what little that isn't left-wing appears in comments or the unedited news wires, and is clearly in the minority. Vanu 06:08, 12 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Rather than using complicated words like "de-spun", surely what we want is articles which are clear and have minimum ambiguity.

There is as little point in using the term "leftism" to describe indymedia as it is to describe wikipedia. As i said above: terms like "leftist" are highly ambiguous, and in the ex-communist countries (i live in one), the issues of economics are especially confused with dictatorial politics and submission to a colonial power - which is completely different to indymedia in practice. Anyway, i'll have a look at the history and maybe we'll be able to consense on something... Boud 19:57, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)