Not content to merely delete certain posts that don't toe the party line around here, the indymedia Gestapo is now deleting entire threads.

Whatever thread contained the several posts of johnk calling me a racist and my clear refurations from just last night has been purged.

Johnk, how is it over there at the ministry of truth?

Don't you feel just a little bit silly?

Postings that are racist, fascist, sexist, homophobic, threats, insults, advertisements, propaganda, ultra-nationalist, and the like are hidden

Sounds good to me. Enforcement is the problem.

"Postings that are racist, fascist, sexist, homophobic, threats, insults, advertisements, propaganda, ultra-nationalist, and the like are hidden

Sounds good to me. Enforcement is the problem. "

that's not true at all. Or at least not with any consistency.

This place has numerous posts threatening SOS members (giving out addresses and cajoling readers to harass private residences). Countless claims of groups being "nazis" and what not.

And insults??!? Come on now. That's pretty much all that any dissenting views from the narrowly prescribed leftist partyline is met with.

All that said, to delete an entire thread because one of the ministry's minions was getting schooled is really embarassing.

Your guidelines are silly and worthless. Give up pretending your running anything of any importance.

...since I last spent any appreciable time here:

"Report this post as off topic double post advertisement hate/insult"

That will certainly aid the Thought Police in their efforts, because, of course, anything that does not perfectly align with the established groupthink is automatically "hate/insult".

Nice to know tolerance and acceptance is alive and well at la-imc.

So it's not the guidelines but the consistency at which it's enforced.

They need to be enforced consistently.

I agree.

You're surprised? This site has nothing to do with fair and independant reporting. Its a hate site where communists, anarchists, and other radicals gather to spew their anti-American agenda. Is amusing to watch some of these clowns scream racist while they hold up signs that say F white America. Hypocrites!

Or the ones who call for the death of individuals and whole people, nations or religions because they are labeled as enemies of America or the present war cheerleaders.

In other words- WWAAAHHH! you wont let us foul the page with our hate and racism.

The mainstream media spreads lies, supports a very corrupt (alleged) government organization in spreading lies, and are kids have died for what ?

What's the difference Juan, and what are you doing to challenge the MSM ?? Probably nothing except to complain here on IMC along with the rest of you pyops numbskulls.

See: http://la.indymedia.org/news/2005/12/141289.php

Softdrink from the 70's, AKA fresca has taken the time to reconstruct a hidden post from the "hidden" section. Note times.

Nice trick.

Ya picked up on that huh?

Nothing gets passed you.

Of course I reposted it. The indymedia ministry of truth hid it right away.

The topic and thread are in NO WAY affronts to the "guidelines".

Evidently the Big Brothers of the left aren't as tolerant as they would have you believe.

I mean seriously, isn't the level of control and censorship, not to mention the oh-so-Patriot-Act technique of allowing readers to actually snitch on each other, just a bit high.

it's incredibly ridiculous and very illustrative.

"Hidden posts" are not really hidden. Have you noticed this? Mostly they just move them to the hidden section where you can still see them. They could delete them completely and sometimes they do but mostly they get moved to the hidden section it seems. Sometimes the thread continues there anyway after being hidden.

You're right but, there seems to be some new bit of PhP that enables a hidden post to accept new replies but does not show the thread growing in the latest comments area.

Look at the original thread....



http://la.indymedia.org/news/2005/12/141289_comment.php#141294



There are more than the two comments the latest posts shows it to have. Once it was hidden it stopped displaying and therefore will quickly slide off the latest posts list regardless of how many people respond.

Tricky huh?

Those evil wizards @ LA IMC!

Good going, gang.

:>)

I see what you saying, its hard to know the php code is by design or default. But have you noticed this: comments to hidden posts show up on the commentary page. Check out the hidden post "Peace in Iran" with a comment for example.

Also the "most commented articles" link at the top shows the posts with longest threads. It seems that once a thread gets long enough the admin people just let it go on and the post stays up.

For me the most commented articles link is the best place to watch the comments traffic on this site.

here:

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2005/11/1722251_comment.php

You call that a discussion? Come on........ , It's more like a personal theatre for justifying one particular persons' view on content control.

And the peculiar thing is that the very people who have got the gall to infer that certain other people can't take criticism can't in fact see their own, in my view, petulant inability to do anything but expound on their own infallibility . Without addressing any of the embarrassing points of 'discussion'.

You do what you feel is necessary over there but please don't think that the readership is so dull, so ignorant, so in need of a certain individual's perspective that he is entitled to tell someone who is actually trying to engage in a constructive 'discussion' that he is told to "give it up" showing a total lack of respect for other's opinions that don't conform to their model of what they think the IMC is all about. One tries to help and one gets dissed in such a closed loop of logic just because the editor doesn't believe that the other's viewpoint is sound. It just demonstrates the peerless leader w/o any respect, syndrome. No thanks.

Damn! I never noticed it before! You're right, Fresca! It's a world-wide Commie conspiracy, by golly! Part of that flying saucer business down in New Mexico and the truth about what's _REALLY_ on Mars, now that you've exposed the truth!

Well I for one aren't going to stand for it. I'm going to boycott IndyMedia. I'm going to do more: I'm going to carry on your fight to expose the secret International left-wing conspiracy to silence just you.

I'm going to take it to the alt.conspiracy newsgroup and whip up the masses, then I'm going to call the FBI, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and -- this'll show 'em! -- I'll contact the people overe at Capitol Hill Blue and clue them in on the commie conspiracy.

Let's go, fellas! Who's with me?!

Here's what I recall hiding.

There was the racist post by fresca. The post was reworded and reposted by fresca, and that was up, and stayed up a few days. Then, the thread that was triggered by that post (which I participated on) grew, veering off topic. (The topic was Tookie.) So I hid the posts that went offtopic. This included my own posts.

At around the same time, I added the "offtopic" button. Comments not related to the main post are considered offtopic. I think that if the threads stay on-topic, the discussions will be more productive. (This is a warning to the usual suspects [myself included of course]. Stay on topic.)

Also, I now base a lot of hiding decisions on what's reported via the "report this post" buttons on each article and comment.

I got a kick out of the SF thread. Nessie keeps talking about "quality control" and I named the "report this post" module "qc". It's a coincidence. I don't read sf.indy that often.

johnk... we've been over this before in another thread... fresca didn't make a racist statement (and you agreed with my argument). Now you are back to making the same claim. Did you not learn anything? How many times does it need to be explained to you? I thought liberals and leftists were smarter than everyone else?

I'm sure that the people who are hired to infest this newswire can be intelligent.

So is Kissinger. But that creature is plain evil. And racism is just hate speech towards a certain group who are not all involved in what ever the criminal actions are that they are assigned to have been involved in.

All encompassing words like

Jews, Muslims or Christians are like this.

There are good people and bad people of all colors and religions .

Casting a '"bad" net over any group who are not all involved are racist.

Not like rapists, murderers, thieves and liars who are all of the same class.

Scum.

>>johnk... we've been over this before in another thread... fresca didn't make a racist statement (and you agreed with my argument). Now you are back to making the same claim. Did you not learn anything? How many times does it need to be explained to you? I thought liberals and leftists were smarter than everyone else?

I was being sarcastic about your definition of racism.

Maybe I needed to add a few of these>> :-) :-) :-) :-)

Fresca used the term "koranimals", which is racist, in a generally racist context attacking all Muslims. That's why it was hidden. Then, he reposted without that word, and it was left up (until the entire tangential thread was hidden because it had nothing to do with the main topic, Tookie).

Your later comment narrowly defined racism as a belief that one group is genetically superior to another. I responded to that one sarcastically.

I agree with the last poster about what constitutes racism.

Great idea :>) Too bad you can't see to call it a 'snitch link' but it's still a great idea. Now I KNOW I can be annoying, but it is a dead link on my system.

This might be the answer to all of our troll problems with the active involvement of the readership.

Most of us who rely upon this IMC network only want to be informed and assist in the pursuit of truth.

Thank you.

I don't understand why so many right wingers go on this clearly left-wing/progressive/communist/socialist/anarchist site, post so often, and have such strong feelings about it. I've been to Front Page, World Net, Stormfront, SOS, Tech Central Station, and some other sites, but don't feel like I need to establish some kind of ongoing relationship with the site or its readers.

I've been censored off of TCS (which has fully moderated postings). That's their prerogative. If they wish to be a "libertarian echo chamber", so be it.

I think IMC is one of the least censored far-left sites around. You wouldn't be able to get one communist paper to publish material by another communist paper, much less any dissenting criticism. No paper in the world would accept some of the hateful ravings that have been posted to indymedia.

Dang. I didn't even know about the "most commented" link.

If you want to see the code, click on the sf-active link to the left, and download a copy of it for yourself.

We just installed and use it, if you can't tell. LA only adds a few things here and there, just to see if they work. Maybe this snitch link tool will pan out.

"At around the same time, I added the "offtopic" button. Comments not related to the main post are considered offtopic. I think that if the threads stay on-topic"

Okay. Let's just put aside politics and ideaology for a moment.

I have to say that the whole notion of deleting or hiding or in any way redirecting a thread because it got "off-topic" is, well, to be kind, counter-productive at the least.

The very nature of a good conversation or communication in general is that it flows and morphs as new ideas, tangential to the original and new concepts are formed.

Recently I went to a talk or lecture or, well a discussion really, at the Skirball Center between Brian Eno and Danny Hillis. Just a coupla geniuses talkin'. Just talking. No particular topic. But because of that they eventually covered a whole array of subjects.

Now, I'm not saying that we often have that level of discourse within a thread here but to rigidly or even informally stop communication when it's deemed "off-topic" seems very confining and limiting.

"I don't understand why so many right wingers go on this clearly left-wing/progressive/communist/socialist/anarchist site, post so often, and have such strong feelings about it. I've been to Front Page, World Net, Stormfront, SOS, Tech Central Station, and some other sites, but don't feel like I need to establish some kind of ongoing relationship with the site or its readers."



Do you really not understand it?

I'll tell you why I come here. It's for several reasons. Initially I came here because I wanted to interact with "the other side". I really have no interest, actually a strong dislike of talking politics with the few people I know on the Right.

At the end of the day, Most of the Right embarrasses me and most of the Left enrages me. Damed if I do and damned if I don't.

So I came here (and Portland, and SF) to try and converse with openminded people on the opposite end of the spectrum. And when that happens, which is rarely, it's very cool. One of my best friends makes KPFK look like neocons (the rest of my friends are just liberal) but we have the best conversations, They get heated sometimes but that's what makes them great. We work together and pretty much just drive aound all day drinking coffee and talking politics.

However, most of the time I'm met with very closeminded fools (much like the goofs who I assume hang around the freerepublic site) who, I'll admit, fill another need.

These people present a chance for me to directly interact with and vent towards a segment of society that I hear about on KPFK, read about in the weekly and see hanging around Eagle Rock and Colorado every Friday but can't have access to. haven't you ever seen someone interviewed on TV that drives you nuts and you wish you could just scream at them for 5 minutes. This is what you get here.

Truthfully, I'd much rather have a cool discussion with some leftist but one of the two is always present here.

Assuming "hate speech" actually exists (and it doesn't), "hate speech" in and of itself does not constitute "racism". The Left enjoys conflating and equivocating these two things, but they are not the same thing.

If I call Charles Manson a "psychotic puddle of social sewage and a steaming pile of fetid worm shit" that doesn't make me a racist. Technically it can't be because both myself and Charles Manson are white. But the statement is clearly what liberals would call "hate speech".

Now, if I used those same terms to describe Tookie Williams or anyone else of another race, suddenly I would be branded a racist. So apparently its not the statement but the object to which the statement is directed that makes one a racist. But that doesn't work either. If I say "I think Ray Charles was a great american and a hero" the object is still a different race, but the statement has changed. Now, if I agree with both statements (and I do), how can I be a racist?

The fact of the matter is that the Left constantly has its finger on the racism trigger, always ready to pull the trigger at the driop of a hat. This always occurs if someone has a disparaging word about someone from another race, justified or not. It's juvenile and stupid.

The real difference here isn't race... its culture and behavior.

As for so called "hate speech".... it doesn't exist and never has. It's an invention of the political correctness police (thought police) designed to correct a problem that has never existed. It's definition is too arbitrary to be of any serious use for anything. But thats a different conversation.

If you aren't one already and you can try and sue LA IMC for DOS. I've read your hate filled swill. You don't add anything to the wire save nasty ideology.

Try coming up with something sourced that can be deconstructed instead of your personal wrath towards the voices of reason and peace. Your 'leftist social sewage' are not that willing to allow you to propound your kind of 'wisdom' . Try 'Free' Republic if you feel the urge and must vent.

And quit sniveling.

Insulting Manson only insults Manson and his adherents.

Insulting a whole group by race is different. By leaving those posts up, it creates an environment that's hostile to people of that group. IMC's pretty lax about hate speech, but, there are limits, like specific words.

Insulting Tookie Williams is more like insulting Manson. It's against one person. When insults against him are extended to all African people, it's hate speech.

I don't think it's a "Left" thing to be sensitive to racism. The main difference I notice about leftists and liberals is that they're more more sensitive to hateful speech against people not of their own race, but often, that's just a question of education and knowing what things offend people. Some conservatives are so averse to any change, that they won't even change to be nice to someone else, and when they're forced to conform to standards of politeness, they resent it. Also, most of the people I know who say patently offensive things are older people; I assume they're just set in their ways, and can't see beyond the hate and fear that they were taught. (Often, I don't really even understand what they're talking about.)

What *is* specifically "Left" is the effort to get beyond Eurocentrism, but that mainly comes from the history of the Left being in alliance with anti-colonial self-determination movements in the former colonies.

Personally, I don't think I've "pulled the racism" trigger too much. There was that one post. There was the whole SOS thing. There's all the posts by fascists/National Alliance/etc. I don't think there's anything else.

When I write about racism, it's often about specific laws and practicies that we used to have, or have today. Often, someone who is uninformed about American racism assumes that racist laws and practices of de-facto segregation have been eradicated from the books for a long time, when, in fact, they've only been unconstitutional since 1965. Also, people are generally unaware of the role of explicitly racist groups like the KKK in mainstream politics.

Where would I be without validation from an individual who feels it required to post pictures of naked, pony tailed ,obese boyfriends?

That's too bad you don't like the common use of the word "progressive". It's meant as a counterpoint to "reactionary" which describes someone who has a "reaction" to progress, and wants to go "backwards" to a time already past.

The word has heavy shades of the Marxist/Hegelian idea of history and progress being a forward-moving course of events leading to an inevitable conflict between classes.

It also refers to the progressive era, when reforms were legislated that reigned in capitalist excess, and gave working people a shot at sharing in the wealth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Era

Of course, some people want to go back to the progressive era, to the 1910s, when many non-progressive things were commonplace, like segregation, Jim Crow laws, racial exclusions from immigration and citizenship, government indoctrination of children from indigenous people, and other remnants of the bad old days.

One almost gets the impression that BA in here to act like chum in a shark tank.

Nah, he could even believe what he types. Weird as it may seem to a rational person.

He couldn't possibly be here to incite a flame war. (wink wink )

sure, BA, sure. Your debate style is ...strange.

And the pictures of your naked corpulent boyfriend is what part of this debate?

Not everyone uses this technique to debate. Not sane intelligent people anyway.

I'm curious as to what you think about my earlier posts regarding the off-topic editing and the answer to your question concerning non leftists coming here.

And I notice you use this one over and over again. You're rather disgusting, you know.

As I said before you're just chum to incite a flame war with , what was that you said, and I quote, "I'm here to add a bit of reason and logic to the debate."

No wonder you're banned from so often.

And you should be so lucky.

And furthermore I think we should follow Portland and SF to ban your input with an IP block. Then knock your posts into the dirt each and every time you attempt to give us examples of your 'wisdom'.

I thought the hyper sensitive Left was all about "open debate" and "freedom of speech" and "opening a dialogue". ... And you want to ban his posts? That's not very "democratic" of you!

Tolerance and openmindedness are NOT the strong suits of the left.

The fucking nazis were more tolerant of the Jews then the left is of the slightest dissent.

would you let spoiled children to urinate in your pool? Particularly after they have shown that they can't be taught that it's not fair to the other swimmers?

And they do so because they like to?

A. It's not your pool. It's a message board.

B. if anyone is spolied and unclean it's the fools like yourself who can't discuss any issue without piles of hyperbole and simple schizophrenic delusions being interwoven with cyber rumor and tripe.

C. combine that with the fact that no one who posts here resorts to juvenile insults as quickly as you do. KPC maybe, at one point, but he's been trounced one too many times I guess and split.

Face it sheep. We all come here for different reasons. Your's is to have a forum for your insane fantasies and conspiracy theories. You're tolerated because it's funny.

Please don't flatter yourself. Your views aren't that important. You're not disseminating any vital information and you're not gleening any critical data here either. You're just another scared nut with a computer and a physiologically closed mind.

If you want mellow, reasoned debate, you have to hold up your end of the conversation. Everyone here reaps what s/he sows. Sow anger, and you'll grow anger. (I'm definitely not excluding myself, because I've had my days and weeks of rage. It isn't cool.)

If you want a nicer environment for discussion, just remember that you're on the opposition's home turf, first. Then, know that most people do not like flamewars, second. Due to these new snitch buttons, the amount of hiding is likely to increase, probably even beyond what I'm personally comfortable hiding. (90% of the normal activist people out there hate flamewars and are repelled by them. I can tolerate, even relish it, because my parents fought.)

IMC started out with a lot of very good discussion, much of it mutually supportive. After it got a lot of attention on the right-wing sites, however, it's been overrun by angry people looking for a fight. There are some people who want to see it become more closed, at least to this element.

What's happening at Eagle Rock and Colorado every Friday? (I'm not being sarcastic. I really don't know.) And why can't you just talk to the people there?

Also, I can understand where you're coming from with the TV interview stuff, somewhat. My response is usually to write a short letter to the station, complaining about the bias or telling them their facts were wrong. Well, usually, it starts out as a long letter, but gets cut down so I don't come off like a raving lunatic.

Just for the record, around 2 years ago Bush Admirer was banned from LA IMC (so he can be IP blocked). I think fresca was also discussed, and I forget who else was brought up for banning, but only BA got singled out, mainly becase so much of his stuff stuff was bafflingly off topic. Another time, hex came up, because people were confused by his tech stuff and anger, and their Cointelprodar went off. This was years ago, though.

would you let spoiled children to urinate in your pool?

And just what do you call Leftists, which we supposed "evil" conservatives allow to live and continue to fuck up the gene pool?

"would you let spoiled children to urinate in your pool?"

It was meant to read this pool, the reader's pool. I hardly think anyone would want to F__k inside 'your' gene pool. One must have standards.

>hex came up, because people were confused by his tech stuff and anger, and their Cointelprodar went off. This was years ago, though.

So why's he still here? Why are any of these trolls still here?

If you look around you will see that LA-IMC is more open than most IMC sites. Also moving posts to the hidden section should not be called censorship because people can still view it.

Moderating a debate is not censorship. If this site were to engage in censorship it lose its traffic overnight. The only people here who cry censorship are the right-wingers. They do not come to this site to engage in debate or share information, they only come here to insult, disrupt and distract. The trolls posting and comments constitute an attack on the site. I think LA-IMC staffers have every right to block their IP address if that’s what it take to clean up the site.

Hex came up, but, I came to his defense and explained what he was talking.

I guess here's the latest snitch news.

1) Clicking on the button now gets you a pretty flower as a reward.

2) Usage has increased. Around half are legit -- bad posts, duplicates, racist. Most of the remainder are judgment calls because they seem to be about content on the edge, or they should not be hidden because they're legit. As predicted, more things are being reported than I would have hidden.

This whole snitch button thing was inpsired by several sources. I think Sheepdog did mention the idea here ages ago. An IMCer brought up the idea too, like a year ago.

Most recently, I got into some private email heat with News Junkie Scott, who was saying that we were hiding his posts, when, in fact we were not. He called me an FBI agent or something. Then I told him pretty much what FYI said, and that some people complain about the spam on the newswire and want it hidden. He called me a liar. Oh well. His mind obviously wasn't going to change.

Then at the same time, the Craigslist news thing came up... it revived the snitch links idea. We'll see how it goes. So far, so good.

To my PERSONAL opinion, Hex was here to

1 side track threads

2 attempt to act as a gate keeper on sensitive issues like U238+

3 pick fights with, Meyer London then myself

4 insinuate that I was the source of all ( or any ) the emod threads and resort to baseless insults.

5 lie about what I typed

After insinuating himself, or attempting to do so, into the good graces of the forum by advocating for progressive subjects, he began to try and trash sensitive issues like social tax support and global DU contamination.

In other words, an attack weasel in fake lamb skin who, through occasional phrases that mirrored the phrases of these individuals, coincidental emergence with members of KOBE, and apparently contrived pissing matches with the other 'campers', a vehicle to again provide a platform to allow the 'opposition' to expound their propaganda and revealed himself to be, in my opinion, one of their group.

That's my take on our good buddy Hex.

He seems to have split, again, after a verbal fight with "Rick Panna" over photovoltaic solar cells.

I was trying to recall the old Hex fights, and I think that he's just someone with fight in him. We have to figure out a way to avoid engaging your own fighting instincts.