Moderation

Indymedia or IMC (Independent Media Centre) has no editors. It is a platform for reporting and background info on political and social themes. The articles, audio, photos and videos are created by you and posted on the site by you. Moderation collectives administrate the flow of news. They attempt as openly as possible to organise contributions so that nothing is overlooked. The Moderation collectives try to check contributions and sort them in respect to the Moderation Criteria.

The Moderation Criteria sets out which contributions go on the front page and which contributions should be removed. For example, contributions with sexist, racist, anti-semitic and/or fascist content have no place on Indymedia.

In order to avoid the development of positions of power, the collectives change and implements the Moderation Criteria by consensus. The Moderation collectives work on a voluntary basis and unfortunately cannot guarantee that all contributions are checked. If you stumble upon articles that obviously should not be there, then please inform us at imc-germany-kontaktlists.indymedia.org.

The current version of the Moderation Criteria written below. Further information about Indymedia can be found under principles

Indymedia is a grassroots democratic news channel. Indymedia wants to promote the emancipatory connection of information and media. We work out of love and respect for the people who strive to make the world a better place. The idea behind Indymedia is that the media consumers become media makers.

So it is not about compiling all the interesting information from the commercial mass media, but instead countering this with your own views of events and to report on events that the mass media ignores. The Moderation collectives try to support these forms of contributions.

Indymedia is fundamentally open to all opinions, unless they contain sexist, racist, anti-semitic and/or fascist content. There are many left internet projects that offer good event calendars, offer the possibility of self expression or archive left publications. Indymedia doesn't want to be competition to these projects. In contrast to projects with a clear political position, the Moderation collectives will not hold political positions themselves, but instead promote the emancipatory use of the media.

Left info portals, events calendars and discussion forums can be found in the link list.

Anyone can publish contributions on Indymedia sites with the “Posting form” web form. All contributions go directly to the Open Posting page. The Moderation collectives work as hard as possible to check the majority of these contributions. Contributions that don't pass the Moderation Criteria are sent to a rubbish archive. All other contributions are sorted in:

1. the category “Newswire” on the front page
2. the middle column on the front page
3. the themes
4. Contributions will not be ordered, but remain with all the others in the Open Posting section on the second page.

Placed on the front page are primarily self researched and on-the-ground reports from individuals and small collectives. Through this Indymedia highlights this form of reporting. This without doubt creates a hierarchy of information. The selection is not made from the “felt importance” of an article, but instead – as much as possible - by means of structured criteria. These look currently like this:

Here are the unsorted contributions. The Moderation collectives check these articles when possible, but generally don't alter them. They try however to make the articles readable: 'Spelling errors' can be corrected and for example 'links' or notices can be added to contributions.

Because Indymedia is a platform for self made reportage, certain contributions will not be placed on the front page. These include:

• Events and demo callouts (Because we know that these are very important for the Mobilisation, we link to different internet projects that have good event calendars. Events and callouts for current campaigns are generally linked to in the middle column).
• Articles published elsewhere.
• Articles copied from commercial media (translations of articles and announcements from not easily available articles are an exception).
• Group statements, press releases, discussion papers, group emails. This is also about the access to this information. Contributions from groups that have already been published on numerous web sites or papers will not be moved to the front page. It is not the purpose of Indymedia to collect all relevant information, but to provide a platform for self made reportage. We see press releases from small groups as self made reportage.
• Supershort announcements.
• Commentary without news value.
• Contributions from hierarchical groups and parties.

If an article or a comment does not meet the Moderation Criteria then it is moved off the website to a special 'rubbish archive'. The Moderation collectives reserve the right to delete contributions from the database that breach third party privacy rights, or remove the personal details. Double postings, empty articles and obvious Spam (advertising) will also be removed.

For the sake of transparency, the archive can be emailed on request (send a short email to imc-de-requestsquat.net). Many articles are hidden because they are duplicate posts or have been updated to a new version by the author. Because of this the archive is very large – with requests please also give the time period that you would like to see (e.g. from day X until day Y).

Here are primarily self researched and on the ground reports from individuals and small collectives.

All contributions can additionally be organised into different themes. In the theme sections are also contributions that were not placed on the front page. This affects contributions such as widely distributed texts (e.g. callouts, press releases, invitations, mass emails and discussion papers), as long as they contain news or background information. New themes will be created when many contributions are made about topics where there is no existing theme. The type and quantity of the themes will not be set by the Moderation collectives, but instead in relation to the posted contributions.

Some contributions are additionally posted on the middle column. These contributions are primarily especially well researched articles or large overviews where the background, links and current reports of an event are summarised. Overviews are frequently compiled from posted articles. Middle column articles are often added to: for example with photos, background info, links and updates. We want to make the decision of what goes in the middle column as democratic as possible and that everyone takes part in the discussions. If you think that an article should be included in the middle column, then you are welcome to discuss this on imc-germany-editoriallists.indymedia.org.

Indymedia is a tool that wants to be used by you – and the possibilities are many...: if you write articles, make video or audio, want to found a moderation collective or get involved in an existing one – whatever, the main thing is to fill the structure with life! Of course critique of moderation decisions is part of this too – texts are living forms that only sometimes let themselves be squeezed into the above categories. If you have another opinion as the Moderation collective, then send us an email.

It pleases us each time a person in any way feels with us responsible for the website contents. This is exactly what we mean when we say: destroy the 'media maker vs. media consumer' relationship, to create an information tool 'from everyone for everyone'.