“Reading an original article frequently provokes much ranting and ravings and vehement insults by a few repeat-commentators.

They want to monopolize the space and intimidate anyone else from commenting otherwise to that article that disturbed them, or with which they perhaps disagreed .

To name just one of the repeated perserverating commentators is called 'crazy inventor' and often there are others who each posted 3 or 4 of their own repeated self-contained-conversions - with each other - or these being those who want to ONLY agree with ONE disagreeing point of view [ and these sound like ego-blast postings].

[and notice if this same commentator or another pseudo-named one acts out the same negative way to this article...hmmmm]

apparently no Other Opinion is permitted then with so much space being taken up by the few [ who apparently have little else to do ? ]

- and those actions are intimidating and very lopsided, if not topsy turvied ... to anyone who genuinely is wanting to present an opinion, a topic, describe an experience or a a human condition, or even a political or religious point of view...their own. Not allowed.

Allowed by Indymedia, but not the heavy-use commentators who want to DOMINATE and thus obliterate all who think, want, say other than they want.

This is happening HERE, on a free-independent-site - where any diversity is being pushed DOWN because a few colluders cant stand balance or other than what their version of what is PC dominates...these are types who claim and imply they Wishing to Save their worlds... their way only, of course.

And all the while these commentators posting out-of-topic pix and exhortations are claiming to love everyone, they really sound angry and read like being outburst types -

These comments can be recognized by how much insulting anyone who dissents from Their_ Preferred_ Pt_of_VIEW occurs

.... only these types demand to be RIGHT, of course, no one else is allowed to differ....

and thus there is only ONE view [theirs only] that is allowable here - in order to not be attacked here on this open site. Unfortunately, no funding to monitor these hogging the comments is being limited nor revealed to be over-using or mis-using this valuable website.

Is that called being "just, fair, considerate" or is there only ego-blasting their own ideas the only ones, because anyone else or other would be drowned out by these repeaters ?

luckily for these commentators, the Indymedia site owners dont get enough donations to help insure that the 'few' repeat-commentators dont dominate and ruin the free-available-to-all-variety that may be intended.

And these same commentators then take over the 'free-post-your-own-view' site with ONLY their versions. Count the number of comments per person posting an article that does Not Fit Their Preferred LifeView... and see the repeated demands by these to be Dominant here.

Thanks Indymedia folks - - for letting everyone not only post dissenting or opinion-piece articles -- and it is not the site-holders fault that a writer will easily get barraged and harassed by those who dont like the original version expressed.

what happened to "free expression" ? when the results are overwhelmed and terminated as a result of a lot of negative attacks and criticisms including personal insults too ?

Oh.....hypocrisy reigns here too....Yes, the wishful-Saviors of Their worlds Claim to be ‘oh, so good and holy’ ...

and here they then act-out their hate and diseases to any dissenter or one they dont happen to like for their own personal reasons.

Or if one disagrees with these perseverating over-users of Indymedia, these men are using it as their personal website to be publicly read, hopeful, retribution and punishment results.

Anyone that thinks differently or has another version of what these abusers think is 'good' or 'appropriate' or 'helpful' or even questions the holier-than-anyone-else' -ers' exhortations,...

surely that writer/article will be inundated with angry responders - who want to win by mass-commenting - and bury others with their Own Versions of their truth, pretending to be holy as the Righteous ones think they are...and their ideas are .

oh well, what a fun place for serial-commentators to correspond to each other and get PUBLIC ATTENTION for free via Indymedia.

Wouldn't those who PUBLICLY converse by placing repeat comments, inundating the space for varied points of view, be better off by sending each other more private emails than posting it all here tho ?

For everyone else to see how you want to dominate all conversations and can do so on Indymedia at least.

1.) data, measuerments, samples and models are not 'points of view'

2.) this place is nearly dead, almost no one comments here and certain people would like to keep it that way because:

3.) when the facts are not on your side, attack the messenger


whining about facts not being equated with points of view *when most published stories get no comments at all* to begin with, (due to lack of interest) after being explicidly debunked and cited for it, is it'self an attempt to silence critics - see point 1




I'll tell you something

I have my own forum, not a blog, not a 'newswire' - a forum


every 'point of view' [that matters] gets challenged, but nothing is censored or hidden, there are no rules, nothing, noone and no subject or issue is off limits, anyone can say anything

if the subject is important the post may be cited with facts, measurements, samples and data


this 'news'wire is a sheltered place, and very few people (especially commenters honest enough to stick with one handle, like you) comment here at all about anything.

-myself because there's very little here that's interesting, matters or is actually current, plus with the past behavior of hiding *published stories* (As opposed to comments) the ability to discuss important issues is badly damaged, besides which no published story is ever syndicated or is placed on the front page.

- this is intentional, the sydication feed and the front page are themselves a form of censorship, since they promote certain stories to wider exposure at the expense of the other stories never so selected.


this means there's very little reason to publish since the story will:

get no comments

never be promoted to the front page or syndicated


IMC already very effectively does what it's funded to do - pretend to offer a voice to the voiceless while in reality drowning them out in a torrent of hit & fluff pieces, to fatigue and overload the reader, causing them to become apathetic and so continuing BAU where nothing that matters ever changes.

I've been watching this happening, personally, here, for over 10 years..


If you look at the traffic stats and number of IMC websites you see they're slowly dying and this decline has picked up since blogs became common (blogs largely provide the same function) and since the first wave of the occupy tactic, most organisation has been via blogs and social media.

The IMC model has been left in the dust, and the IMC charter - like pacifica - has become a running joke.


But I don't just bring facts to the table, I also link to real people having real conversations about real things that really matter - to provide contrast of where people are today and what they're concerned about:


http://www.guymcpherson.com/

http://collapseofindustrialcivilization.com/

http://arctic-news.blogspot.fr/

http://ohtarzie.wordpress.com/

These people ^ are light-years beyond this walled garden and it's handful of mushrooms.

I have to admit, i have some of these problems in that "debate" category.

Sometimes, i'm a little loopy when i get into it.

But then I read other peoples' posts and go "whoa".

BOA was directly involved in attacking both wikileaks and the bankrolling the occupy rally raids, 'liberated' stratfor emails show

..I've noticed how much of the 'alternative' media re-frames right back to the corporate media

"Another left media group--the Independent Press Association--is also being heavily funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. Between November 25, 2002 and December 1, 2003, for instance, the Rockefeller Foundation gave four grants, totaling $445,000, to the Independent Press Association. A $100,000 individual grant was also given to an exeutive director of the Independent Press Association-NY by the Ford Foundation in 2003.

Like the left media, left think tanks have also been receiving large amounts of money from liberal foundations since the 1990s. As Roelofs observes:

"There are some think tanks considered left wing or Progressive. They do important work, especially in documenting the activities, and consequences of corporate and government policies. Nevertheless, almost all are funded by the liberal foundations; their challenges to the system are muted…There are several possible explanations for the mellowing that has occurred, including foundation funding and, sometimes, foundation staff joining the boards of funded institutes."



In a 1998 article that appeared in The Nation, the Institute for Policy Studies [IPS]'s executive director and "fund-raiser-in-chief" for six years, Michael Shuman, noted that "foundations that support progressive causes actually have lots of money, more than their conservative counterparts." The former IPS executive director also observed that "over the past fifteen years, I've raised more than $12 million from foundations."

According to Shuman, by 1998 the lPS left think tank had received grants from four of the ten largest U.S. foundations. In 1995, for instance, the IPS was given two grants, totaling $100,000, from the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Two more grants were given to the IPS by the MacArthur Foundation in 1998: a $525,000 grant "to develop global affairs agenda for U.S. and to mobilize constituency for its support"; and a second grant of $50,000. In addition, the IPS left think tank was given a $110,000 grant by the Arca Foundation in 1996 and a $123,060 grant from Bill Moyers' Schumann Foundation in 1998.

Following the 1998 publication of its former executive director's Nation article, the IPS has continued to receive large grants from liberal foundations. In 2000, for instance, grants given to IPS included: a $50,000 grant from the MacArthur Foundation; two grants, totaling $233,370 from the Ford Foundation; a $200,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation; and a $100,000 grant from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The following year, an additional grant of $350,00 "in support of the Foreign Policy in Focus Project" was given to the IPS by the MacArthur Foundation and two additional grants, totaling $95,000, was given to the IPS by the Ford Foundation. In 2003, the List Foundation also gave a $10,000 grant to the IPS for "general support" of its "Democracy Action Project."

Also in 2001, former Institute for Policy Studies executive director and "fund-raiser-in-chief" Shuman wrote an article, entitled "Why I Won't Sign", for Progressive magazine that endorsed the Bush Administration's post-9/11 military attack on Afghanistan. In his November, 2001 Progressive magazine article, the former IPS executive director and "fund-raiser-in-chief" stated:

"I applauded President Clinton's intervention in Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo…If alliances are built with strong internal opposition to the Taliban, force can certainly weaken the terrorist network thriving in that country…I support the steps President Bush took to freeze financial assets and get Saudi Arabia to break diplomatic ties with the Taliban…There was a serious debate on which progressives should have engaged, and it's not whether force should have been used. It's what kind of force…People like me…offer qualified endorsement of the use of force…"



A few months later, in the February 18, 2002 issue of Rupert Murdoch's right-wing Weekly Standard magazine, a second article appeared by former IPS executive director Shuman, entitled "My Fellow Lefties…Stop It With the American-bashing," in which the IPS's "fund-raiser-in-chief" between 1992 and 1998 argued:

"I believe it's time for my fellow leftists to engage in a truly radical activity--serious self-criticism…Contrary to predictions from leftist skeptics, the Bush administration did not respond immediately with a massive counterstrike [after 9/11]. It took several weeks to build its case against bin Laden, to offer the Taliban peaceful ways out…The position of the Bush administration--that the best way to prevent a humanitarian disaster was to quickly oust the Taliban regime--turned out to be correct…

"…The attempt to draw moral equivalence between the terrorists and U.S. troops is reprehensible…The former increased the chances of civilian deaths by hiding among civilians; the latter sought, however, imperfectly to avoid civilian targets…The vast majority of progressive opinion leaders were wrong in almost every respect…They predicted that American soldiers in Afghanistan would find themselves in a quagmire…The vast majority of women, blacks, Latinos, the elderly and the poor all understood the purpose and justification of U.S. military action. Only the leadership of the Left confused its hatred of American militarism with the legitimate self-defense."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

a perfect example of how 'independent' media is steered, infilterated and rotted out, while the mechanisms of a platform of a voice for the voiceless continues to turn, absorbing audience and crowding out true independent media and journalists (one of the spectra of information dominance)

..a quick look at the 501C will bear this out

Stratfor began as a corporate public-relations firm who's clients included Big Tobacco, the chemical industry and Big Agriculture.

Created a three-step formula to *divide and conquer activists* by breaking them up into four subtypes, as described in a 1991 speech delivered to the National Cattleman’s Association titled, “Take an Activist Apart and What Do You Have? And How Do You Deal with Him/Her?”

The subtypes: “radicals, idealists, realists and opportunists.”

*Radical activists* “want to change the system; have underlying socio/political motives’ and see multinational corporations as ‘inherently evil'.

Their principal aims are social justice and political empowerment.

(this is what all these community-based organizations (CBO’s) pretend to be and present themselves as)


*The “idealist”* is easier to deal with. Idealists want a perfect world. Because of their intrinsic altruism, however, [they] have a vulnerable point,” he told the audience. “If they can be shown that their position is in opposition to an industry and cannot be ethically justified, they [will] change their position.”

The two easiest subtypes to join the corporate side of the fight are *the “realists”* and *the “opportunists.”*

By definition, an “opportunist” takes the opportunity to side with the powerful for career gain, Duchin explained, and has skin in the game for “visibility, power [and] followers.”

*The realist*, by contrast, is more complex but the most important piece of the puzzle, says Duchin.

“[Realists are able to] live with trade-offs; willing to work within the system; not interested in radical change; pragmatic.

(these are what really run the show and also the wingnut trolls that come here - but notice the sell is on the radical brand, which represents the working poor, the public will - actual change.. 'O-bomba sold his brand using this sell too. The first wave of the occupy tactic was a demand for this kind of change.)




The realists should always receive the highest priority in any strategy dealing with a public policy issue.”

Duchin outlined a corresponding three-step strategy to “deal with” these four activist subtypes.

First, *isolate the radicals.*

Second, “cultivate” the idealists and “educate” them into becoming realists.

And finally, co-opt the realists into agreeing with industry.

“If your industry can successfully bring about these relationships, *the credibility of the radicals will be lost* and opportunists can be counted on to share in the final policy solution,” Duchin outlined in closing his speech.


“*Corporations wage war upon activists* to ensure that corporate activities, power, profits and control are not diminished or significantly reformed,” said Stauber.

“The burden is on the activists to make fundamental social change in a political environment where the *corporate interests dominate both politically and through the corporate media*.”

Once more the proof and reality of original article above is confirmed. Someone who DOES NOT LIKE AND WANTS TO OVERWHELM AND OBLITERATE ANY OTHER THAN HIS COMMENTS, to dominate the article-site has taken over =

called 'crazy' yes, 'inventor' who knows ? see 4 comments above,
and how cleverly disguised a long off-topic comment adds 2 lines
at end to connect it sort of to main article topic.
hmmmmm

that there is freedom means some people take ADVANTAGE for THEMSELVES only of that gift.

that there is here at Indymedia a site to go public and offer opinions, sometimes 'facts' tho seldom does a reference or validation corroborate any statements on this site....that is a gift.

that a few will then make it off-putting for the majority who want to share or learn from each other, that continues to happen, anyhow.

No, we dont expect to get a free public site and service of reducing the overreach of the few that make it cluttered....
and thus when other readers find INDYMEDIA they dont continue to read or follow it because of such gross overtaking and usurping
by the greedy.

Yes, greedy and maybe needy...need attention and here is an easy way to post comments and pix and have one's name repeatedly seen as if that 1 overuser were more important than all the other contributors to this precious resource.

Oh well, we dont doubt the problem will continue. Just like in any arena when a few ruin it for the many, or destroy the 'image' or reputation of a larger contributing many.

it happens with minorities where a few are more criminal and visible and identified while the rest are then suspected and blamed equally. Same effect occurs with this 'problem'.

How to select and share FAIRLY, without a few ranting and being angry in retorts repeated in a variety of guises, but still saying basically the same: NO ! another version or point of view or another dissident or differing person is not allowed because theywill be drowned out by the self-selected armed [on computer] vigilante,
the one who thinks he is Righteous, Right, Authorized and Wanting to kill off any other views or facts or opinions or writings that do not meet his likes.
UGH!

such is life, not just here, in LA INDEPENDENT MEDIA [tho the crazy inventor indicated he may live elsewhere too ? ]
but in other aspects when any gifts are given. The greedy aggressively take as much as they can and leave little to be shared with alllll the rest.

Ruining.... which is a lot easier than creating and sharing.

count the # of comments on the recent article about [homeless spaces and other articles also ], even those 'off topic' or just adding 1 sentence associating to topic at end of long commentary of other disparate thingies..

11 written by a crazy person who wants to also be an inventor
called "crazy inventor". dominating the space allowed for a variety of other people's opinions.

and a few other commentators do the same trick, post replies that are tangential, irrelevant or just plain angry venting.

is this an abuse of Indymedia space by 1 person attempting to drown out what he DOES NOT LIKE PERSONALLY and thus not allow divergences, differences, variety, or any other views than his very own?

why the submergence of what is 1 person's views well written and valid for them or even for other readers, to be overwhelmed and all the spaces occupied below the article by mostly 1 person attempting to TAKE OVER the original writing ?

and then 2 others also are corresponding there as if they were emailing each other but instead do so publicly and while these too are writing EACH OTHER mostly, they did not continue on and on and on...

is this a subterfruge for usurping some writers that some ONE PERSON disagrees or Dislikes ?

Is this allowed ? Is there no equality, fairness, sharing of space and allowing for differences ? is this dictatorship by abusing the Indymedia site ?

yep.

yep. count them

4 more angry outbursts by some crazy guy calling himself an inventor too - he can call himself anything he wants but to
try to DOMINATE and OVER TAKE the site for his own personal
attention needs is not civil nor fair nor right.

see above for the attempts that commentator keeps attempting to drown out all who are not of his liking or those who he wants to not just disagree with but to obliterate with his own stuff, pix and long writings off topic too.

why is this happening here...more than 1x ?

and he is not the only 1 but a very obvious and tacky one.

why ? surely he will not admit his own emotional reactions and neediness publicly but he will continue to attack via multiple continual postings to overwhelm and usurp any one else's views, opinions, dissents, or writings.

who are these mean people ?
why are they taking advantage of the free space of Indymedia to vent their anger and dominate with ONLY their own writings ?

what is wrong here ?

whining the exact same thing over & over again will not ease the deep butthurt

accusing of me being multiple sockpuppets while simultaneously also accusing 1 person 'dominating' the comments (but ignoring actual published stories, ignoring that most stories get no comments at all, and ignoring facts, data, samples and measurements, is a nice touch.

what goal is being presented here?

reducing the site from _very few_ comments, to NO comments at all?

hey I know

whine some more!

Should we move to another software?

WordPress?

Drupal?

Another IMC cms?

Something else?

There are other IMC CMSs, but for various reasons, sf-active-based sites have done better than others. They're all old codebases, too.

and a prominent climate section

I'm kind of iffy on registration. I think sites that don't require it do better.

Aside from that, climate would be good to add.. though i think the categories are moribund.

Replacing the software is a must, but it's also one of those things: a lot of IMC sites have gone, and it seems the wordpress and drupal ones die the fastest. So it's risky too.

On my forum anonymous comments with no registration are allowed, and in fact I post anonymously myself (not as admin, mod, or a registered handle) but for those who want to, a name can be staked out and no one else can spoof it.

Offering registration _for those who want it_ is a way to improve the comments.

- people tend to be more responsible when they stand behind a known identity, which I do anyway.

But notice the hit pieces posted, even published here, by nameless personas..


The forum is a portable phpBB package only 8.MB which includes the database SQL and php backend and webserver. It can be run anywhere, auto configures it'self and runs with 1 click.

It was in French so I had to change it to English.


Indymedia techs intentionally restrict the functionality of the IMC websites to maintain a chasm between those who attend consensus meetings and everyone else, (including the e-mail and listserv walls) and do things in convoluted complicated ways, then claim no real changes are possible or required.

Including lack of IMC websites accessible over Tor hidden services (only one is)

I've studied the your sf-active and the drupal codebases and know what your and their priorities are. One of the main ones is to fool people publishing 'unwanted' stories and posting unwanted comments into thinking they're accomplishing anything while walling them off in what the CMS presents as an 'alternate' version of the content the general public sees, using poison cookies, session ID's and other tricks.

- doing so without the obviousness of 'hidden' stories and the problem of hiding comments to stories without the current deletion-only option. To present illusionary 'customized' personalized versions for people being tracked (which isn't anonymous) so they don't realize they're effectively only _posting to themselves_ - that the general public and other people don't see what they see.

And this attitude towards the public is a microcosm of the entire IMC network, and locks it into obsolete and time sinked inflexibility.


There no real options being presented - since only the insiders's suggestions are taken seriously and acted upon anyway.

The CMS is only designed to serve IMC staff - why pretend otherwise?

Pretending there is, is it'self a type of walling off, in an alternate version of who really pulls the strings, who really matters, meant to appease the public in intent without actually changing anything at all.


Meanwhile the real world is passing the IMC network by.

I was noticing that crazy_inventor said we're funded. We're not funded. It's paid for largely out of pocket by the various people in the collective, and I cover most of the hosting/server cost out of pocket. We had a donation thing, and that covered some of it. I'm trying to find some other donation mechanism because we had security breaches that caused the iframe to flag us in some scanning tools.

The overall cost isn't that high, so that's why this chugs along. That and the activists and writers and photographers involved in this.

I tend to agree that blogs have taken the place of the various IMCs. A notably good one is laactivist by Dan Blumel, which covers the same ground. There are also other ones like Witness LA and OLA ASM. Free Association of Anarchists is still going, but slowly – but they do put out a PDF print zine. There are a ton of sites that went up, and then kind of stopped.

Another positive development, in my view, is that there are a couple commercial sites out there: LA Progressive, and Morningside Park Chronicle, which write from the left. There are also the established papers like Random Lengths News, the English section of the Rafu Shimpo, and LA Weekly.

There are other blogs out there, but I won't list them, because many of them are just gentrification blogs or, explilcitly real-estate focused blogs. You can tell because the ads are about buying houses along the Hollywood to Downtown axis.

I think LA and southern cal in general needs some more progressive websites with specific focuses. They should form a federation and aggregate news for each other. Some should be commercial. IMC cannot be commercial due to the original agreements made with the users about non-commercial distribution of the material, so it will probably remain as-is, even through software changes. I think it has its role, and having more similar sites would be good.

That said, there is a role for advertising. Some sites mentioned above have ads, and they're still good sites.

The big role of progressive media should be to educate and create more progressive people.

To that end, what is missing for these websites and papers is a community of “signal boosters” or people who have websites, social media networks, and email lists to spread the info. The big weakness of websites is that they are a “pull” medium, and readers have to make a effort. It needs to be more “push”, like a newspaper subscription, where stories are pushed to the readers via email, social media, even alerting the radio about hot topics.

There are people who are good a this – but I find their writing is often weak, and their ideas are weaker. Look at sites like Medium or Thought Catalog. If Medium didn't actively syndicate from professional writers, they'd be ignored.

Some of the writers in the above blogs can't get any signal boost.

Comments

Something affecting comments here is the rise of two really good commenting platforms, which have drawn a lot of the hard-core comment addicts (like me) away. One is Disqus, which I find totally creepy because it's like the Google of comments in how it follows you everywhere – but I use it. The other is the Gawker network of sites, which I think has the best system. Both are satisfying, though Gawker is heavily mediated. Facebook also does comments.

With comments, though, I think they'll never make it here or on any small sites. Even a site like KPCC can't get many. I think it's because commenters are also attention-seekers. We want our comments, particularly critical ones, to get some exposure in a good venue. That means, for better or worse, the New York Times or NPR, which are not only basically national sites, but also attract the most desirable readers. The LA Times... well, it's a fucking mess in there due to mobs or right-wing lunatics camping out on the comments. They could do better if they actively moderated posts going up, and improved the commenting software. They should, because they're right up there with the WaPo and Atlantic in being able to get readers. The sites that can do OK are those with an empathetic editor who can stop ranting whackjobs like us from going overboard. :)

Now, despite my disses, I find the few comments here are preferable to the stream of idiots and racists at laist.com.

If I had the commenting system of my dreams, it would have dual streams – one for short quips (300 chars or less), and another for longer (100-word or more) responses. The responses would have hierarchy and also a review system whereby an editor could reject, but the writer could edit and resubmit. The long comments, in turn, could have quips, but not other long comments. The long comments would be about discussing the main article, not the other comments. This way, a serious reader could get to the point and counter points without going over conversations.

I don't know what the solution is for characters like PrionPartyy or his predecessors who were just all over this site.

Anyway... if you got this far, thanks for reading.

I'm confused here.

>I've studied the your sf-active and the drupal codebases and know what your and their priorities are. One of the main ones is to fool people publishing 'unwanted' stories and posting unwanted comments into thinking they're accomplishing anything while walling them off in what the CMS presents as an 'alternate' version of the content the general public sees, using poison cookies, session ID's and other tricks.

>- doing so without the obviousness of 'hidden' stories and the problem of hiding comments to stories without the current deletion-only option. To present illusionary 'customized' personalized versions for people being tracked (which isn't anonymous) so they don't realize they're effectively only _posting to themselves_ - that the general public and other people don't see what they see.

What's doing that? SF-Active only has hiding, and no personalization of what's seen.

SF-Active doesn't use cookies, except in this community moderation feature. If you click on of the flagging buttons, you get a random number cookie. That number is used to track your flagging.

Sometimes, things fail to publish because all the posts are supposed to generate pages or re-generate pages. That requires a number of reads from the database, and sometimes it's bogged down due to bots searching for terms on the website.

I managed to tweak things to speed it up – but it seems the like the bots just got more frequent.

I saw _your_ tie in to the slaptech hosting site and their cookies too (now gone) The discussions you were having with the other person that promoted sf-active 'nessie?' (now gone)

I also followed the drupal development team discussions, when it was being promoted a few years back (to see if running drupal was for me)

I also followed up on what became of the champaign-urbana free citywide wi-fi _grant funded_ project, along with the _grant funded_ community radio station, including the discussions, rules and fees.


The grant money just evaporates and the promises the grants were obtained for, are reneged on.


The monies are absorbed into 'operation expences' and ultimately nothing becomes of them..


- but career activists do pretty well for themselves..

Here's the info in case you're trying to map this out in detail:

Riceball is my personal domain,and I've had it since, I think, 1996. If you do a whois on it, my name, John Kawakami, should show up. The address is not current, and it's my mom's address. I should change it, but that's a PITA for various reasons. Slaptech is the organization that owns the server, and I'm in that along with other people, and it started in the mid 2000s. The group is kind of loosey goosey right now mainly due to work, but the server bills get paid by Slaptech, then it was asking for donations via that box that was there in the left column.

LA IMC is a different group and there's a little overlap of a couple people between LA IMC and Slaptech. LA IMC started in 1999, and got online in 2000 using a different organization's server.

As for Chicago IMC Urbana Champagne, they are a separate organization, and unlike us, they went nonprofit quickly, got a board of directors, etc. I don't know what happened with them. They seem to be focused on making videos.

LA IMC got a fiscal sponsorship from a nonprofit group, but eventually left them, then went with another, and then left them as well, and are now not under any non-profit umbrella. It's not ideological. It just doesn't make sense to be a nonprofit if your revenues and expenses are small.

Slaptech is not a nonprofit. It's a collective business, but it loses money at this time. I think it's categorizable as a hobby for tax purposes.

JOHNK ..

thank you for taking the time and effort to share so mich info..most of which we need to look at further...check it out......biut your pointing out more sources and directions is truly helpful.

how rare to receive a sincere positive reponse or comment here on la.indy.

the complaints others too have made that a monlogue is demanded by. few who prefer their own angry attacks, cursewords, with justa dash of some words associated to article's topic and concerns.

the danger of ever writing or saying anything that these self-righteous type responders wont try to obliterate by their continual repetitive barrage of attaks is what fits ONLY into,their personal worldview.

No Other views are allowed without these immediate attacks back, which intends to then submerge any dissentt to their own authoritative postings.

Ideally or even Progressively, this Could Be a site that regardless of writer or name, some additional elucidative educational info is also shared.

Differences Could be appreciated, or debated or discussions or even agree to disagree ....but stay civil, FAIR, and considerate.

Uncortunately that is a rarity, ....but still asked for, even now.

JOHNK did so above. commenting, sharing expanding info if it can be used by other readers too... so,it is not a 2-3 person publicized. back and forth only?...

a way to expand and not limit the value of the efforrts here to COMMUNICATE , like decent people living in this world together can do... help each other to help improve our worlds.
create, not obliterate.
not an original way or odea.

Finally we found at least 1 responsive answer that addresses and speaks to the article above. At least 1!

thanks for at least this time, this work, this sharing.

Finally . a positive comment and response. how hard is that to find again?

JOHNK ..

thank you for taking the time and effort to share so mich info..most of which we need to look at further...check it out......biut your pointing out more sources and directions is truly helpful.

how rare to receive a sincere positive reponse or comment here on la.indy.

the complaints others too have made that a monlogue is demanded by. few who prefer their own angry attacks, cursewords, with justa dash of some words associated to article's topic and concerns.

the danger of ever writing or saying anything that these self-righteous type responders wont try to obliterate by their continual repetitive barrage of attaks is what fits ONLY into,their personal worldview.

No Other views are allowed without these immediate attacks back, which intends to then submerge any dissentt to their own authoritative postings.

Ideally or even Progressively, this Could Be a site that regardless of writer or name, some additional elucidative educational info is also shared.

Differences Could be appreciated, or debated or discussions or even agree to disagree ....but stay civil, FAIR, and considerate.

Uncortunately that is a rarity, ....but still asked for, even now.

JOHNK did so above. commenting, sharing expanding info if it can be used by other readers too... so,it is not a 2-3 person publicized. back and forth only?...

a way to expand and not limit the value of the efforrts here to COMMUNICATE , like decent people living in this world together can do... help each other to help improve our worlds.
create, not obliterate.
not an original way or odea.

Finally we found at least 1 responsive answer that addresses and speaks to the article above. At least 1!

thanks for at least this time, this work, this sharing.

Finally . a positive comment and response. how hard is that to find again?

it also doesn't address anything I said

PS. I didn't post your RL info because it serves no purpose and I don't consider you an enemy, simply misguided and sheltered


to the nameless ayn rand clone:

so if I were to agree with your 'point of view' (as opposed to posting ANY citations, links, data, samples or measurements) basicly sucking up to you like you're sucking up to John, would that ease your major butthurt?

just asking

I've been homeless like the very homeless you're trashing, and have had to deal with people just like you. Living in the woods after being forced off the beach and STILL getting harassed _while doing hard manual labor at a shrimp boat for pay_

ended up living on the 'back beach' and still again getting harassed, so ended up in a large treehouse in the middle of a mangrove swamp (they were afraid of snakes - I wasn't)

and had people like you insulting me as homeless, jobless and lazy _while working full time as dishwasher and food prep_, and riding a bicycle 15 miles each way to work & back - sometimes walking (between ft myers beach and ft myers)

so I will NOT be sucking up to you

crazy guy wrote these - see- [quoted from comment above] =

" by crazy_inventor Monday, Feb. 24, 2014 at 1:56 PM

“to the nameless ayn rand clone ….
PS. I didn't post your RL info….”

"like you're sucking up to John,,,,
would that ease your major butthurt ….….

people like you insulting me as homeless, jobless and lazy…. … so I will NOT be sucking up to you “

[end of quotes taken from the above comment intended to either threaten, insult, attack or just be rude ? ]

- - - - - - -
The crude-rude and sexual references made there -= apparently in anger or defense by this self-labeled 'crazy' commentator is made to any other comments he does not like.

or does he take any posts as a personal affront when it has no reference to any single or named, implied human ? And his posting ID is mentioned when described as being dominating the spaces here or overwhelming any other writers.

Nor is any one named in original article or even in many other comments here under this heading. And other articles or comments elsewhere where the crazy guy does his take-over of an article or comment to obliterate any civil discussions of that topic.

What is going on here ?

Worse are the threats implied of revealing some information on any commentator he does not like or agree with ?

Is any one who comments on La.IndyMedia and does not please the crazy inventor’s like-list then maybe that their computer ID or NSA info exposed here = in some retaliatory way ?

And how does he have access to any personal information to any other alias named commentators ? Or are threats made just to intimidate and attempt to control other commentators ?

Is this an actual threat or am intimidation ?

Does Indymedia staff ALLOW this threatening insulting and thus abusive commenting to continue unchecked ?

Does free space means allowing anyone to do anything anyhow just because they feel mean and angry ?

how scary !

here fill this out ^ and someone will be along to help you ;)

Infoclosure.com filed a lawsuit against me, this website, and Kurt Francis, a poster on this site who wrote a critical article about Infoclosure.

If you look it up, you'll find my current address and more info.

(I think it's a nuisance suit, but not knowing better, followed up on the bureaucratic stuff and it's costing me some money.)

There are some rules on what can be hidden, but the general rule is, yes people can be mean to each other online. It's not like there are enough people with enough time to curate the posts.

Also, the OP was not exactly nice.

c_i is weird, and a little mean, but he's entitled to post, just like you are entitled to post.

The meta-discussion is boring. Can we discuss the OP's stuff?

since the OP keeps switching pseudonyms and nothings in place here (optional registration for example, which I've requested several times over the years) to even prevent spoofing. (we had problems with that here before and it even carried over to the moonofalabama blog where someone spoofed my pseudonym (I didn't see the posts before the blogger deleted them) but where I had supplied an old e-mail that nobody knows, so I reminded him of that, and specifically said if he saw a post from my pseudonym lacking that e-mail, then it wasn't me.

Can't even do that, here..


If I were to take an educated guess however, based on the OP's writing style and the timing of the published stories, I would say it's the OP who published the homeless bashing story.


Lets not go into some other events of the past such as KOBE HQ which was a major thorn in IMC's side, also with lawsuits threatened or at least perceived as.

I'll consider the weird smear another thanks, like the 'uberhacker' one delivered at the time, when IMC staff stood by helplessly afraid of lawsuits, leaving it up to someone else to track down, publicly expose, and _put a stop to_ the abuse.


As I've stated many times, here, over the years, I'm _intentionally_ crazy, intentionally mean. I intentionally rock the boat, intentionally abrasive, and this is nothing compared to what I say on my own forum.

Likewise on the three radio stations to the mayor, city council, the utilities, other stations, gun nuts, state politicians, tea baggers, the landlord, etc.

My on air rants have been called 'vulgar' and so on, in youtube videos that listeners bothered to record while driving around town, another local station cluster 'stole' one of my frequencies (so they would have a valid interference complaint - that frequency they bought the license for remains empty) and contact with the national cluster here at the house, all in the same year. This and other factors led me to switch the stations to baseband (full) digital, when they don't even have a single IBOC station here.

So now that it's been established and (reminded on here) that it's all intentional, that leaves the question of why.


Maybe you didn't see what I already quoted in the other story's comments (though I bet you have) and so I'll re-quote it here in order to answer that burning question:



"I understand some people have called you insane.

They are quite right.

By the standards of the prevailing establishment you are completely insane. You are as insane as those abolitionists who opposed slavery. You are as insane as those antiracist activists who fought for civil rights. You are as insane as those Germans who opposed Hitler.

If everyone was as insane as you, there would be no wars, there would be no poverty and humanity would not be headed for extinction."

(this was directed at professor McPherson but applies to me as well)



PS. I've never been mean to you John, unless you've visited my forum, you don't know what mean is.



The lawsuit is very telling, it confirms who's really been running this show the whole time, when actions like moderations (selective hiding of published stories and _deletion_ of comments and pictures) were ascribed to 'consensus'. On my forum I delete nothing, even spam, scams and commercial posts are at worst only moved to the spam/scam sub-forum.

My primary role is investigative journalism, whistleblowing, muckraking (on air as well). Anyone is fair game, however I weigh certain factors in deciding who and how far to pursue, such as benefit to the common good, the subject's sphere of influence, who the subject associates with and other metrics.


well gotta go - I have nearly 100 pigeons to feed this morning

I didn't say you were mean to me. I said you were mean. There's a difference. You are mean to others.

As far as hiding - we don't push hiding through consensus. We try to use the guidelines.

And as far as registrations - yeah, we've flipped back and forth about that. There was a moment some years back when we went anti-reg. Mostly, though, it's inertia that has prevented it. Today, most blog comments don't require registrations, but they do track via cookies, and basically know you when you visit.

An interesting alternative might be some kind of digital signature with public and private keys.

Another possibility was to use a password to produce a hash with the username, and then publish that hash. The hash would verify the username. It wouldn't require any major changes to the database.

The way that would work is, I enter my username into the Author field. There's a javascript function that accepts a "password". The password is combined with the username, and a hash value is produced. The hash value is appended to the username, like this: "johnk "

From that point on, that username is unique, and can only be generated by someone who know that secret password.

My example used pointy braces, and they got stripped.

The thing should look like this, more or less: "johnk [Bs38d]"

So anyone looking at my name could see that the hash value is consistent, and that verifies that I am the poster.

about rainbow tables



the easiest way would be a non-published e-mail which validates the name. I accept your cookie to post here but then immediately dump it.

JS, cookies, failbook, twit-er and google pus are all blocked here - those 'social sites' are even blocked upstream:


.mozilla.org
.fbcdn.net
.statcounter.com
.indigo.ca
.amazon.ca
.barnesandnoble.com
.fnd.us
.fundrazr.com
.createsend.com
.house.gov
.thehill.com
.cbc.ca
.washingtonpost.com
.ab.ca
.keystone-xl.com
.aer.ca
.ogp.me
.time.com
.disqus.com
.blogdns.org
.gamma-international.de
.cpmadvisors.com
.adnxs.com
.opera.com
.colbertnation.com
.comedycentral.com
.mtvnservices.com
.rp-api.com
.cloudfront.net
.jquery.com
.adexprt.com
.cdn.thedailybeast.com
.livefyre.com
.quantserve.com
.linkedin.com
.outbrain.com
.omniture.com
.paypalobjects.com
.brightcove.com
.feedburner.google.com
.googlesyndication.com
.googleadservices.com
.yahoo.com
.flickr.com
.facebook.com
.fbcdn.net
.scorecardresearch.com
.adblade.com
.hitbox.com
.slaptech.net
.twitter.com
.paypal.com
.macromedia.com
.fox.com
.foxbusiness.com
.foxconnect.com
.foxinternational.com
.foxinternationalchannels.com
.foxlife.com.br
.foxlife.tv
.foxmovies.com
.foxnewsinsider.com
.foxsearchlight.com
.foxsports.com.au
.foxsports.com
.foxsportsradio.com
.foxstudios.com
.fxnetworks.com
.golfchannel.com
.harpercollins.co.uk
.harpercollins.com
.harpercollinscatalogs.com
.harpercollinschildrens.com
.harperteen.com
.heraldsun.com
.hulu.com
.kdfi27.com
.marketwatch.com
.msg.com
.mundofox.com
.mxnet.com.au
.my20dc.com
.my20houston.com
.my24wutb.com
.my29tv.com
.my45.com
.my50chicago.com
.my65orlando.com
.my9tv.com
.myfox9.com
.myfoxatlanta.com
.myfoxaustin.com
.myfoxboston.com
.myfoxchicago.com
.myfoxdc.com
.myfoxdetroit.com
.myfoxdfw.com
.myfoxhouston.com
.myfoxla.com
.myfoxmemphis.com
.myfoxny.com
.myfoxorlando.com
.myfoxphilly.com
.myfoxphoenix.com
.myfoxtampabay.com
.myspace.com
.natgeotv.com
.news.com.au
.newscorp.com
.newsinternational.co.uk
.newsoftheworld.co.uk
.newsspace.com.au
.nypost.com
.perthnow.com.au
.realestate.com
.sky.com
.sky.de
.sky.it
.skysports.com
.skytv.co.nz
.smartmoney.com
.smartsource.com
.speedtv.com
.staplescenter.com
.theaustralian.com.au
.thedaily.com
.thegarden.com
.thestreet.com
.thesun.co.uk
.thesundaytimes.co.uk
.thetimes.co.uk
.truelocal.com.au
.tvguide.com
.vedomosti.ru
.webmd.com
.weeklystandard.com
.weeklytimesnow.com.au
.wogx.com
.wsj.com
.wsjclassroomedition.com
.nationalgeographic.com

..hundreds more but these are the ones I've added


as you can see I take even software phoning home very seriously (even though it goes through Tor)



re: mean

the most you can claim (for anyone other than yourself) is I appear to be mean, since you don't know where else I deal with the people in question (a few come here to my forum for example and more importantly, blogs I've linked to) and not knowing that and those details, you don't get the whole picture to make such a call.

but beyond that it's intentional as already pointed out

I called you "mean" because you were mean. I don't need to know you to comment on your behavior here.

I'll look into the PHPSESSID cookie. That's annoying. Not sure what code uses sessions. Tell me where you see it.

(OK, I looked - the session cookie should only be set for people touching the admin parts of the website- this includes the login screen to the admin. The other thing that sets a cookie is the flagging feature, but that should be setting the cookie directly. It's called "snitchip" and the value is random.

Anyway, maybe the thing to do is put cookie-removal code in the pages.)

I found one use of SESSION. It's used by the captcha, but it's not necessary.

Maybe there are others.

The shortness of the hash is a feature, not a bug. It creates some amount of deniability. If there are only 5 chars in the hash, there's only around 90 million hashes. It's possible to find the hash collision.

The thing is, for day to day use, when nothing really critical is being discussed, nobody really wants to steal your identity. If some wacko does, just make a new username, and the attackers must again try to find a hash collision.

Also, people are going to use short passwords for posting comments. I don't necessarily see people using password managers and long random strings. So hash collisions can be found by brute forcing on all the short strings.

Regarding entering email addresses - I just don't like it. It's a bad habit, and one that's hard to break.