> <URL: http://www.indymedia.org.il/imc/israel/webcast/44197.html >
>
> - --
> Michael Pugliese
That's an interesting article. I suspect that blog killed the indymedia star.
I raised similar issues with Sydney Indymedia for about a couple of years before finally giving up on that project. I made the mistake of taking the idea seriously and spent hours doing stuff like translating piles of material from the first WSF, posted it and voila, someone follows it up with a picture of someone taking a shit, and a pile of antisemitic nonsense. This happened repeatedly, and I got the feeling, probably subjective, that the spamming was worse the harder I worked. I tried persuading the IMC people that this sort of atmosphere would destroy any motivation people may have had to take part in the project, but I was met with a very nasty reception. I think I was called everything south of being a Trot. Any editing, including putting the newswire in the back of the site, would be censorship. Finally someone put a very moving obituary for a local hobo, and immediately this was defaced in a pretty nasty way. I suggested the editors take the slanders away, they didn't, and I don't have much to do with their site anymore.
The whole experience left me thinking that there ought to be a reasonably high cost of entry into the media, otherwise you end up with piles of crap written by people who haven't a clue, or who are simply malicious. (Oh...the wonders I would do to Time and the nightly news if only I could put advertisements on it for free!!!) That puts the burden of organising material on the reader, which isn't always a very good thing. I suggested having the Indymedia people set up interminable and pointless forms for people to fill or just having a 10 minute wait before they could post stories, or any other negative incentive for vacuous posters they could think of... But alas...
Thiago
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