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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Domestic Policy Cartoon |
Current rating: 0 |
by charles amsellem
Email: blackreb (nospam) earthlink.net (unverified!) |
08 Apr 2002
Modified: 10 Apr 2002 |
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c2002 by charles amsellem |
 c2002 by charles amsellem |
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dont be a Bush monkey! |
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IMC Network Spam |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
08 Apr 2002
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I just wanted to note that Charles seems to be creating a pattern of IMC network spam. This is his fourth post across the IMC network in the last week, using the same posts as have appeared here. IMC policy generally discourages this sort of behavior. While psots scroll quickly off the global IMC Newswire, at most smaller IMCs this sort of behavior creates the impression that the poster intends to dominate our slower moving Newswires and drives local posts off with items that have limited or no relevance to what our readers come to our site to read.
Please consult the appilcable IMC policy at the link below if you are unclear about what I'm referring to:
http://process.indymedia.org/letter_to_spammers.php3 |
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YOU ARE Full of Crap! |
by charles amsellem
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
09 Apr 2002
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"We seek to generate alternatives to the biases inherent in the corporate media controlled by profit..." Quoting from the url you posted. The idea that it is spam is insulting. It is a definitely relevent editorial cartoon and the articles I post fall well within the statement above as well. Why are you afraid of my work?
Are you trying to say the same about good cartoonists like Latuff who also post here, frequently and widely across indymedia? The above editorial cartoon is OBVIOUSLY 'an alternative to the biases inherent in corporate media controlled by profit,'so your assertion that it isnt relevent is ridiculous. Often these kind of comments are thinly veiled attempts at censorship. My articles have contained highly controversial material about the activities of the inteligence establishment and there has been an effort to debunk my posts and I believe this may be one of them. Im not necessarily accusing you of being one of the disinfo douchebags that come here to debunk and flame responsible posts, but that activity certainly exists on indymedia.
My cartoons accentuate the newswires I post to the same as editorial cartoons enhance the reading of any newspaper. I have a great deal of respect for all of indymedia.org and take a lot of time to create quality graphics to post here. If I believed that I was causing the slightest harm to this wonderful medium, I would discontinue posting. There are plenty of fascists, extremists, and others that TRUELY spam and deliberately try to upset and disrupt the responsible posts on this wonderful network. If you bypass them and place your ridiculous comment here you are clearly full of crap! |
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Spam Is Behavior, Not Content |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
09 Apr 2002
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Charles,
Please note that what is at issue is not content, but behavior. We all certainly share your concern with postings that are at odds with the views of most of our readers. However, we have to have a certain amount of tolerance for such material because of the nature of our mission to allow a variety of views. When we do find patterns of behavior as I noted that you are engaging in, regardless of the content, we do act.
Note that nothing was said about your posts initially, even though it was already abundantly clear that they violated the IMC policy I referenced above, because the same material was posted at multiple IMCs by going down the list of links to other IMCs on the left of this page. On the fourth such instance within a week, I thought it was appropriate to bring to your attention that you were skating on thin ice. At our IMC, just as like at many other IMCs, we have acted in the past against repeated, flagrant violations such as this. Two notorious IMC network spammers who previously ignored this policy to their regret are Robert Meade and Gary Larrabee. I am sure you do not wish to be included in such company and had hoped that you would see the reference above about IMC spam policies as a friendly reminder in case you were not already aware that it exists.
Trying to turn this into a converstaion about censorship simply doesn't reflect the facts. I hope that you consider the impact of your behavior on the many IMCs that have slower moving Newswires. If you already have a cartoon on a particular Newswire, please refrain from posting another until it scrolls off the front page. In most such cases, people will not invoke the spam policy against you, even though you would still be technically in violation of it if you are posting the same material to most (or all) IMCs. Work with us and we'll work with you. Spam us repeatedly and you may not like the results. |
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You may not be full of crap. I have to find out if you are truely full of crap |
by Charles Amsellem
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
09 Apr 2002
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If I am in any way causing problems for anyone in indymedia I will work with you gladly to resolve it. I will comply with any reasonable requests from anyone that truely represents indymedia's best interests. If you are not, then I wont use the explitives that I am thinking of to describe you out of respect for the newswire.
If you do not represent indymedia you can go to hell, but if you do, could you please tell me what the difference is between myself and other artists that post frequently and multiple times? What is your position at indymedia? If you do represent indymedia in any creative capacity then I do want to work with you but if you dont, you can go to hell. |
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The Concerns Are Not Mine Alone |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
10 Apr 2002
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Charles,
I am a member of the Steering group here at the U-C IMC. This group is the umbrella group which generally coordinates the work of other groups at this IMC. It also happens to be the group which makes the rare editorial decisions that we sometimes are forced to make.
I do not speak for the IMC network as a whole. There are links to the various email lists that speak for it on the bottom of the linkbar on the left of this page. My reference to the IMC policy above is to a policy that is meant as a general guide and is not necessarily binding on any IMC. Each IMC applies this policy as they see fit.
I do not even necessarily claim to speak for the U-C IMC Steering group. However, I am speaking of prior precedents set by the editorial decisions we have made in the past in regard to similar problems, as we see them. Each of these decisions is made on an individual basis, even with the prior precedents.
Generally, we have not invoked this policy against network spam by those who post at frequencies of less than one week. Specifically, in the case of Gary Larrabee, he agreed to post no more than once a week after extensive discussions with our Steering group about his own repetitive spamming behavior. Then we pulled his rights to posting here because he repeated his abuse even after the agreement. The case of Robert Meade is more complicated, but even in his case (which involved rampant homophobia, anti-Semitism, and death threats) it was mostly his posting behavior, and not what was said, that resulted in his banning from our IMC. Some of us feel that action should have been taken sooner in these cases, but we work by consensus. Once again this points out that repetition of behavior, rather than any one incident, is what ultimately causes problems for people here.
No doubt there are many people who abuse the IMC network. You won't see repeated abuses of such a sort here, however, because we mean what we say about repeated abuse of our Newswire. We don't like to be hardasses, but we do care deeply about the U-C IMC Newswire reflecting the interests of our local community.
There are exceptions made to this policy by local IMCs. Material that has direct and timely news content is generally excepted from this rule. We host one of the IMC network's great cartoonists, Darrin Drda. His cartoons often circulate widely on the IMC network, but you won't see him doing this any more often than once a week, in the absence of breaking news, either.
I can't guarantee that behavior technically in violation of the policy cited above will not draw attention. I can say that if your appearances here are not more frequent than once a week, it probably will not be of enough concern for us to take action against such behavior. Once again, the content of your material is really not the issue, but the frequency of non-local material can certainly be an issue when it becomes too frequent. There are a number of us who frequently visit the sites of other IMCs, so we quickly become familiar with the screen identities of those who abuse the IMC network by regularly spamming it. The patterns are easy to pick out when you come across the same stories clogging up local Newswires across the network. As I noted before, this is not such a problem with the fast moving Newswires, but it quickly leaves smaller, slower-moving Newswires looking like carbon copies of each other. This turns off readers who come here expecting to find at least some local news, instead of finding the same group of stories reposted everywhere.
Discretion is the better part of valor. We can all live together happily with respect for each other's positions and that is all we ask of you. |
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you are not full of crap |
by charles amsellem
blackreb (nospam) earthlink.net (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
10 Apr 2002
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I was under the impression that you were trying to censor my posts or insult my work. I dont believe this is the case anymore. I understand your concerns. I think that your concerns are reasonable. As I have stated I would rather not post than bring the slightest harm to any indymedia newswire. I truely respect and admire what you are doing. Thank you for your service to the community and I appologize for any harsh words. I was being protective of my work and my right to express it.
I will no longer post more frequently than once per week (except in rare exceptional unforseen cases) and I have written to other ucimc people to that effect. I will still post widely across indymedia once per week because the global imc newswire is happily getting more and more popular but that means posts vanish from the front page in a couple of hours or less. If there is any future problem, I will be willing to take appropriate action or refrain from actions that are considered uncool. |
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Thanks Charles |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
10 Apr 2002
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I wish that all those who came here were as open to understanding our concerns as you are. One of the positive things about IMC, in comparison to other media, is that it is a two-way street. There are still some who approach us with one-way minds, treating us like some newspaper that before would never print their letter to the editor and now seeking to deal with such angst by abusing our website.
We appreciate it very much when people like you are open to dialogue on issues such as this, instead of insisting solely on their own perspective. |
