Urbana-Champaign IMC Website Appropriate Use Policy

Approved by IMC Steering Group, Sept. 30, 2001

I. Explanation

II. Guidelines for Hiding Posts

III. Guidelines for Editing or Deleting Posts

IV. Procedures for Hiding, Editing or Deleting Posts

I. Explanation

The Urbana-Champaign IMC website newswire is an open publishing system, and
its use for both posting and reading messages is available to anyone on the
Internet. The newswire is primarily intended for the posting and discussion
of news, opinions, ideas and experiences that relate to current events and news,
particularly that of interest to people in the greater Urbana-Champaign area.
The Newswire is especially intended to be available and useful to peoples, ideas
and news that are overlooked or systematically excluded from the dominant media.
These are necessarily broad categories of postings that include a wide diversity
of approaches, however there are types of posts and posting behaviors that are
not included.

The newswire is a virtual commons that the IMC intends to be open fairly and
equally to all who would want to use it. As a commons, there are basic ground
rules that allow the commons to be fairly available and useful to as many people
as possible. The principle guiding these rules is that the IMC discourages postings
that compromise the availability and usefulness of the newswire as a commons
and the IMC reserves the right to hide or remove such postings.

When considering posts containing speech that may be unacceptable and detrimental
to the newswire's status as a commons, the IMC Steering Group should keep in
mind principles of free speech which advocate for using more speech to counter
unacceptable speech. This principle must be balanced against the real harm that
speech can do both to individuals and to the usefulness of the newswire itself,
with an attempt to gauge if more speech can actually counter any real harm done.

In all considerations it must be recognized that the IMC newswire is only one
amongst many hundreds or thousands open posting forums available on the Internet,
and therefore the IMC cannot fully silence any voice on the Internet. Commensurately,
it must also be recognized that the IMC newswire's strength is its openness,
and the significant hiding of posts will weaken its use and goals.

The IMC Active software that runs the newswire has a feature allowing posts
to be hidden from view on the newswire without being deleted from the system.
These hidden posts can still be viewed through the "story administration"
page that may be easily linked to. The IMC Active software does not provide
a provision for deleting posts, however it does provide for the editing and
deleting of text within a post, and such changes are permanent.

In most cases where posts are deemed as unacceptable they should be hidden
from view on the newswire, with an explanation for the hiding attached to the
post. Posts should only be edited or deleted in the few cases outlined below
in which their appearance anywhere on the site threatens the financial or legal
status of the IMC.

II. Guidelines for Hiding,
Editing and Deleting Posts

Guidelines for Hiding Posts:

The following are types of situations and posts which may be hidden by the
IMC Steering Group, along with guidelines for determining what should be hidden.

• Duplicate Posts - if a single post is duplicated during a relatively
  short time period, all duplicate posts may be hidden. In determining duplicate
  posts it should be understood that it may be appropriate to repost information
  in order to bring information to the attention of website visitors after
  a reasonable amount of time has elapsed since it was first posted.


• Threats and Intimidation-the IMC newswire is not intended to be
  a forum for primarily publicizing hate nor for making direct threats against
  individuals, groups or classes of people. The IMC recognizes that such speech
  can be harmful in and of itself and may create at atmosphere in which physical
  action becomes more likely. In any post under consideration the threatening
  speech should be weighed against other ideas or expression in the post.
  If the majority of the post nonetheless is intended to contribute to discourse
  or debate, then the issue of hiding it should be considered very carefully.


• Flooding or Spamming of Posts - this is when a single individual
  posts multiple times in a short period in a manner that indicates that the
  poster's purpose is to flood the newswire or push other posts off the front
  page of the IMC website, which typically only contains ten to twenty of
  the most recent posts. This type of posting behavior can only truly be identified
  after several occurrences, and depends heavily on the amount of volume of
  posts. It can be difficult to stop because posters can change screen names
  at a whim. Therefore the utmost care must be taken to make sure that only
  posts that are made by a known "spammer" are hidden.


• Off-Topic Posts - this is perhaps the most difficult category of
  inappropriate posts to judge, since the IMC Newswire intends to be a forum
  that is open to a broad range of topics and ideas. Nonetheless there are
  posts that are baldly and clearly inappropriate, whose purpose seems clearly
  to be other than informing, educating or adding to a public discourse. In
  the worst cases their appearance on the IMC Newswire may indeed discourage
  other visitors from using the site. Isolated posts are typically not problematic,
  and so the problem of off-topic posts is usually related to flooding or
  spamming. Therefore the frequency of off-topic posts of a particular type
  should be considered when deciding whether to hide them.


• Commercial Solicitation - the Newswire is not intended to be used
  for commercial purposes, therefore commercial solicitations and advertisements
  for commercial products should be hidden.

Guidelines for Editing and Deleting Posts

The following types of posts may be edited or have text deleted by the IMC
Steering Group.

• Illegal Speech - very few kinds of speech are considered illegal
  in the US, however those that are must be dealt with seriously. One example
  of such speech is a threat against the US president. The appearance of such
  speech on the IMC website can bring unwanted and unnecessary scrutiny and
  harassment from police and the government. Any conceivable benefit or contribution
  such speech might make is far outweighed by the threat it presents to the
  health and existence of the IMC.


• Libel --


• Direct Threats -- These constitute direct threats on specific people
  or small, easily identifiable groups of people. The purpose behind editing
  or deleting such posts is to not feed into the violence threatened.
  
  (Note: Direct threats posted to the Newswire may be actionable under
  the IMC Website Abuse Abatement policy in order to ensure the safety and
  welfare of the IMC, its volunteers, members and users.)

III. Procedure for Hiding,
Editing or Deleting Posts:

The Steering Group shall rely upon the IMC website editor or editorial group
to monitor the Newswire and alert the IMC volunteers when inappropriate posts
appear. Additionally, any IMC volunteer, member or website visitor may call
attention to a post believed to be inappropriate by e-mailing the general IMC
mailing list or info@ucimc.org

Hiding Posts:

When the Steering Group is made aware of posts that should be hidden, it should
make a reasonable attempt must be made to contact the author of the post in
question and to explain the IMC's appropriate use policy, asking for cooperation
and compliance. In the event that a post in made anonymously, or no valid
e-mail address is posted, then no effort can reasonably take place to contact
the author.

If after attempting contact with an author posting inappropriately the Steering
Group is unable to reach a resolution with that poster, the Steering Group
may hide any of that author's posts as they deem necessary, according to this
policy. The Steering Group may instruct the website editor or editorial group
to hide future posts from such an author.

Whenever a post is hidden a comment from the Steering Group explaining whey
the post was hidden should be added to the hidden post.

Editing and Deleting Posts:

Only posts which pose an immediate threat to the welfare of the IMC and
the IMC website may be edited or deleted. Because of this, the editor or editorial
group may, at their discretion, hide or edit a post if they believe it inappropriate
according to the guidelines of posts that may be edited or deleted. Whenever
such a post is hidden or edited, the editors must immediately inform the IMC
General e-mail list of the action and the rationale for the action.

The Steering Group will address the post in question at their next regular
meeting following editorial action. At this meeting the Steering Group can
affirm, modify or reverse any editorial action. Only the Steering Group may
decide to delete a post - the website editor or editorial group may not take
this action with Steering Group approval.

If a post is edited, a comment must be added to the post explaining why it
was edited. If a post is deleted then there should be no record of it in the
IMC website and website database.

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