Indymedia it is dead - long live indymedia
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Tuesday December 05, 2006 23:31
by eeekkkk
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/12/357535.html
Indymedia-Italy, after 6 years since its birth, needs to rethink it's method of being the media, and to do that it needs silence, to be quiet, and needs to restart without the web and to widen the discussion 360 degrees.
Indymedia was born from the streets and from the piazza, places that have found space on the different parts of the site: the newswire the center column, the thematic categories, the original reports, but also on the forum and the mailing-list.
Through it all, Indymedia has always maintained its nature of a local/global network that now returns to the streets and to the piazzas to close the circle.
With the passing of the years people and tools entered into conflict, and the most revealing case was right there on the newswire, the area of open publication, direct and without filters (concepts at the bottom of open publishing), and around that you could find constant arguments about what was hidden and why, about the publications of photos or films that show the faces of people or their personal data.
The mailing-lists also entered into crisis, between scarce participation and/or difficulty in the discussions, and the search for consensus, or what is really the harmonization of different positions and undercurrents, it became increasingly difficult.
All of this was the subject of continued reflection because self-criticism forces us to put ourselves (again) in discussion, as always, but the background noise is deafening and so there needs to be silence. It is a way to be able to listen, to observe, to consider, and to concentrate all the energy on the ideas that otherwise would risk being submerged. The silence is useful for this. Of energy and ideas, let's talk about them together, starting from scratch.
Indymedia Italy closes to start over again.
translation from italy.indymedia
Comments (2 of 2)
Jump To Comment: 1 2OK - so that's a slightly theoretical / analytical piece above, but can anyyone fill us in on what actually happened with indy italy? Was it a case of a breakdown in the decision making process, or being swamped with idiot trolls, or some persistent harassers driving everyone crazy and making operating the site a living hell?
Just curious.
It was a mixture of all 3,
The broadband penetration is much higher in Italy so Indymedia was a heavily utilised forum for Political debate. This rattled the MSM and MS body politic, who then bombarded the site with trolls and gerenal nuisances.
This is a common practice with the right. The appalling behaviour of conservatives in the USA this election is all the evidence needed to illustrate it.
Its happening here too, so as the editorial guidelines advise, dont feed the trolls.
They are easily spotted after a couple of posts, thier original rational language becomes ambiguous and loaded with facts and figures which have nothing to do with the debate/original post.
They are there only to steer the commentery off topic and bog it down with non-sense, Simply go through the thread and find which poster made the most irrelevant post (admittedly sometimes they can be clever, so some diligence is required) and there's your shyster!
Classic give away as well is a long rant on freedom of speech or the baseless justification for steering the debate off message if challenged.
Another sign is the poster who simply wont go away or is hellbent on the last word, that is ego massaging, not debate.
There ya go, hope that helped.
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