Sydney Indymedia Charter and Editorial Guidelines
Mission Statement
1. IMC Sydney is a news activist collective and an open publishing website.
2. The goal of the website is to have a place where articles produced by independent journalists can be published. One of the main reasons for having an IMC Sydney website is that it is a source of news not normally attainable in mainstream and commercial outlets with a distinct local to Sydney and NSW flavour.
3. IMC Sydney is committed to freedom of speech and non-censorship.
4. Our goal is to have an open transparent independent media network. The ideal is to be open about all our policies and practices. We aim to differ from the mainstream and corporate media by being answerable, open and progressive as well as realistic.
Posting Guidelines
A set of posting guidelines for the website is required for both articles and commentors. The guidelines are used to:
1. Make the website a more useful tool for activists in Sydney, New South Wales and the rest of Australia as well as activists abroad interested in local issues.
2. Ensure that the website does not become cumbersome with flame wars, personal attacks and an overabundance of foreign news.
3. Protect the members of the collective from potential defamation and breach of copyright court actions.
4. Provide clarity as to which articles can remain on the website without the collective being accused of censorship. All of us in the collective are anti-censorship but this policy is open to abuse and thus some guidelines are required.
Featured Stories
Articles from the newswire can be promoted to a feature on the front page of the website by the editorial collective.
Feature Guidelines
1. Any newswire story can be proposed.
2. Sydney/NSW stories are preferred.
3. Proposals should be emailed to imc-sydney-content@lists.cat.org.au with the word PROPOSED: in the subject field followed by the newswire items title. The body of the email should contain the URL of the newswire story.
4. Anybody, not just people who are part of the editorial collective, can propose a feature.
5. 12 hours must pass after the posting of the proposal before the story can be promoted to a feature. This is to allow time for dissent.
Removal Guidelines
Newswire stories and comments are subject to be hidden if they meet any of the following.
1. They do not contain an element of news or journalistic commentary.
2. Contain Pornography.
3. Contain a threat of personal attack. This is to protect the individual threatened and to protect the collective from threats of legal action.
4. Contain direct personal criticism. Intelligent debate will not include 'ad hominem' attacks; in other words, debate the issue, not the person. Any criticisms which refer to personal attributes such as gender, race, religion, sexuality, fashion sense, spelling acuity or the like may be hidden.
5. Is non-original material. The collective will always be in favour of original material. Links are to be provided to whole articles rather than being copied in their entirety. These links are to be within the context of a new/original article or discussion.
6. Is posted more than once. Duplicate copies will be removed.
7. Is posted by foreign sources across multiple IMC websites.
8. Are among an abundance of articles about the evils of particular foreign nations.
9. Are among an abundance of articles from a particular foreign source.
10. Uses HTML to disrupt or interfere with the functioning of the website.
11. Is inflammatory to the point that any journalistic content will become overshadowed, and is likely to create a flamewar
12. Calls for removal of a story or comment. These calls should not be posted to the newswire. The avenue for this is to email imc-sydney-content@lists.cat.org.au with your complaint.
13. The author is impersonating an IMC admin. If the user is a registered user, their account may be disabled.
14. Contain Commercial Advertising.
Notes:
Perceived offensive material eg. racism, homophobia and sexism, if it is in the context of a news article will not be removed. The editorial collective believes in the spirit of free speech. Such denigrations against large chunks of humanity are better out in the open where they can be argued against than hidden away. Note that posts that are deliberatly inflammatory and contain no journalistic content will be hidden under other guideline clauses.
Contributors who wish to promote or announce upcoming events should use the Active Sydney website: http://www.active.org.au/sydney/. Posts to indymedia which include events announcements should be posted to Active Sydney also.
Editors Removal Guidelines
1. An editor should only hide an article if they are certain that it falls within one of the removal guidelines.
2. When an editor is unsure if an article should be hidden, they should email imc-sydney-content@lists.cat.org.au and ask the collective for feedback. If there is no response within 1 hour, the editor should hide the article.
3. When an article is hidden from the newswire the editor should email the collective at imc-sydney-content@lists.cat.org.au with "HIDDEN" in the subject header, provide the link to the article and state the reason from the list above.
4. The editor should put their name and reason for hiding at the top of the story/comment they hide.
5. Hidden stories will be taken out of all the categories it was in.
Notes:
If an article has been hidden and the original poster feels it fits within the posting guidelines, the poster is invited to contact imc-sydney@lists.cat.org.au and raise the issue.
Categories
Sydney Indymedia allows you to place your story in one or more categories of two types - geographical and topic.
Geographical - you must place your story in one or more of these.
Local - the story relates to Sydney or NSW.
Australia - the story relates to the Nation, but outside of NSW.
Asia-Pacific - the story relates to the ASIA-Pacific region, but outside of Australia
International - the story is relates to any area outside of the ASIA-Pacific region.
Topic Categories
It is not mandatory to categorize your story in this area, but if certain categories relate to your story, placing them in this category will help other people find your story. You may place your story in one or more categories.
Categories are used for sorting stories according to the topics or geography listed. The categories you choose should be directly relevant to the content of the story.
Re-editing
IMC collective members may sometimes re-edit a story. Such reasons may include (but are not limited to): correcting spelling errors, fixing HTML, re-categorising, and removing peoples names.
When a collective member re-edits a story they should email the editorial collective at imc-sydney-content@lists.cat.org.au with "EDIT" in the subject field and state the URL of the edited story and what they did.
Public Email Lists
Sydney Indymedia organises online openly using email lists that are accessible from the web. Anyone is free to join the lists.
The IMC Sydney list is the main organising list. It can be viewed at:
http://lists.cat.org.au/pipermail/imc-sydney/
The IMC Sydney Content list is for newswire management and feature creation. It can be viewed at:
http://lists.cat.org.au/pipermail/imc-sydney-content/
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