melbourne indymedia

Decision Making Policy and Processes
Aims and Objectives
Newswire Protocol
Open Publishing
Hiding Posts
Copyleft

Aims and Objectives

1. To provide an open-publishing newswire in accordance with established Indymedia policies and philosophy.
2. To maintain the newswire and website as a space that welcomes members of disempowered or marginalised groups.
3. To acknowledge that words have the power to cause injury, but that instances of injurious speech or writing should also be seen as opportunities for a critical or insurrectionary response.
4. To preserve the quality of the website as a useful media resource.

Newswire Protocol
Melbourne IMC hosts an open-publishing newswire. Members of the editorial collective regularly monitor the newswire, keeping their eyes open for particularly significant, informative contributions to add to the centre-column features section.

Open Publishing
Open publishing means that the process of creating news is transparent to readers. They can contribute a story and see it instantly appear in a pool of stories. Readers can see editorial decisions being made by others. They can see how to get involved and help make editorial decisions. If they can think of a better way for the software to help shape editorial decisions, they can copy the software because it is free and change it and start their own site.

Local Interest and Elsewhere/Crosspost wires
Melbourne Indymedia divides its newswire into 2 sections: local interest and elsewhere/crossposts. A series of questions in the publish page that contributors answer aims to be the main way these different posts are sorted. MIM newswire editors however may move articles from one section to the other if they believe that the questions have not been answered correctly or that the post is not sufficiently relevant to Indymedia's project of positive social change. Editors are required to comment to the editorial list as to why they have moved the post.

Hiding Posts
The Melbourne IMC editorial collective, in order to maintain the integrity of the newswire and the media commons it creates for our community of participants, may "hide" posts to the newswire when the content contravenes the guidelines that have been put in place (see below). All hidden posts (exceptions noted below) must be notified to the collective admin email list so that the admin collective has the chance to agree or disagree with the hiding of the post.

Notifiable Removals

• Posts the author has requested be hidden.
• Posts which are obviously incorrect or misleading. This includes attempts to spread disinformation or to impersonate another individual.
• Posts that incite violence against disempowered members of the community.
• Threats to maim or kill.
• Posts which publish identifying information without the individual's knowledge or consent.
• Posts which use language, imagery, or other forms of communication to promote racism, fascism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism etc., or any other form of discrimination.
• text only posts less than 100 words long
• Persistent nuisance posts to the newswire or comments sections.
• Posts that are deemed to be devoid of content or analysis and appear to be published with the sole purpose of disruption.
• Abuse of others in the form of personal attacks. Indymedia is not a space for people to play out personal vendettas.

Non-notifiable Removals

• Unreadable formats (eg. photos posted as text).
• Duplicate posts.
• Advertising of products or for-profit services.
• Pornography, but not sexually explicit satire.
• Notification or cancellation of events. Please use the events calendar.

Hidden posts can be viewed here.

If you don't agree with a decision
We strive to make decisions in the most democratic, transparent and accountable manner. If you have any questions or concerns regarding our policy or our practice, or would like to work with the Melbourne IMC, please contact us

Copyright of Features and Articles
All posts made to the newswire are effectively covered by the principles of Copyleft. The author retains the moral right to be recognised as the author of the article in question, but the article is free for distribution for non-profit and educative purposes. Articles may be reproduced in full for any purpose and in any media provided the reproduction is subject to the same principles as laid out here, that is, the same representations of the copyleft of the article must appear alongside the article.

Under no circumstances may articles or features from the Melbourne IMC site be reproduced in full in a fee-paying or for-profit medium. However, for-profit media may quote from articles or features in accordance with Australian "fair use" copyright principles.

Specific queries about reproduction of an article or feature can be referred to the editorial collective here