Reposts

At the Nottingham network meeting in Feb 2008, an old proposal to have a separate Other Press wire (renamed there as Reposts) was agreed on. The proposal, as formulated by shiar on 25 Feb 2008, is:

1. To rename 'Other press' as 'Reposts';
2. To separate the Reposts from the open newswire, i.e. to have a separate Reposts wire (in the new design, this would be situated at the bottom of the middle column);
3. To have a new pre-publish form asking people whether their post is original or a repost, where clicking on either would take them to a different publish form (see below);
4. To draw up special editorial guidelines for reposts (see below).

Chrisc suggested a few amendments on 10 March 2008, which were taken into account in the final version below. The deadline for consensus was 15 March 2008.

New pre-publish form

Is your post original or a repost?

By original we mean a report or article written by yourself and preferably not published anywhere else before. By a repost we mean a report or article written by someone else and has already been published somewhere else (other alternative media or blogs) and you're simply re-posting it because you think it would interest Indymedia readers. Reposts of material published in corporate/mainstream media may be hidden as this contravenes the Editorial Guidelines.

Original report/article:

Your post will appear shortly in the Open Newswire. If it's a good action report, it will most likely appear in the Promoted Wire. If this is your first time here, please have a look at the Editorial Guidelines. If you're not sure what to do, please have a look at the Help page.

Button: original post

Repost:

If you come across an article on other alternative media, blogs or websites, which you think is particularly interesting to Indymedia UK readers, you can post it here using the Reposts Wire. We strongly recommend that you write up an original introduction or comment yourself (e.g. why you think the article is important) and give a link to the original, rather than copy-pasting the whole thing.

Reposts of material from mainstream/corporate media may be hidden, especially if it's a straight copy-paste. See the Reposts Editorial Guidelines.

Button: repost

P.S. There is already a pre-publish form at the moment asking people whether their report is text only or with attachments. I'm not sure having two pre-publish forms is a good idea. Perhaps we could merge the existing one with the main publish form like it used to be? Any other suggestions? -- Shiar

Reposts publish form

Step 1: Media

[same as existing publish form]

Step 2: Your Details

(Re)Poster (this will be displayed on the site)---

Your name or pseudonym - required

Your e-mail address (optional)

The original web address of the article (optional)

Step 3: The Article

Repost--

Title (required)

A short introduction to or comment on the article in your own words

(Please do not include it in the main text field below)

(not more than 5 lines)

Enter the text of / extracts from the article you are reposting

Step 4: Selecting Regions and Topics

[same as the current publish form]

Step 5: Publish

Please press Contribute only once!

Your article will appear in a few minutes on the Reposts Wire on the front page. Please be patient.

Reposts Editorial Guidelines

The Independent Media Centre (IMC or Indymedia) UK is an open-publishing platform for news, action reports and analysis on grassroots, non-corporate and non-commercial social justice, environmental and political issues. The main strive of Indymedia is to erode the dividing line between the reporter and the reported, between active producers and passive audience. People are here enabled to speak for themselves.

However, contributors sometimes find articles written by others and published somewhere else and re-post them on Indymedia because they think they would be of particular interest to Indymedia readers. To prevent Indymedia UK from becoming a dump site for material published elsewhere, the following guidelines for reposts have been introduced.

Any concerns or queries about moderation are dealt with on the imc-uk-moderation list.

Reposts on Indymedia UK are defined as follows:

Reports or articles written by someone other than the (re)poster and have already been published somewhere else (other alternative media or blogs) and the (re)poster is simply re-posting them on Indymedia UK because he or she thinks it would interest Indymedia readers. Material that has previously been published in corporate/mainstream media is not included in this category but is called corporate repost and may be hidden.

We strongly recommend contributors to write up an original introduction or comment themselves (e.g. why you think the article is important or interesting, why it's bad etc.) and to give a link to the original, rather than copy-pasting the whole thing.

Reposts may be hidden for any of the following reasons:

- Corporate reposts: Articles that are simply copy-pasted from corporate/mainstream news sites. Please write something original and only give a link to the original corporate site. Indymedia wasn't created to mirror corporate media!

- Repeated: Content that has already been published on Indymedia UK before.

- Non-news: Posts that are clearly purely comment, opinion or rants unrelated to a recent event, action etc.

- Inaccurate: Posts that are inaccurate or misleading.

- Discrimination: Posts using language, imagery, or other forms of communication promoting racism, fascism, xenophobia, sexism, homophobia or any other form of discrimination.

- Advertising: Posts aimed at promoting a person, product or entity, be it commercial, political or otherwise.

- Hierarchy: Indymedia UK is not a noticeboard for political parties, religious groups or any other hierarchically structured organisations.

- Personal attack: Articles and/or comments that contain abusive language against other activists or site users. Please make your point without resorting to personal abuse.

- Disruptive: Contributions by individuals who repeatedly breach one or more of the above-mentioned guidelines. Also posts where topical or regional selections disrupts the utility of the sub pages (i.e. spamming regional and topic selections).

-- ShiaR - 25 Feb 2008

-- ShiaR - 16 Mar 2008 did some amendments following chrisc's suggestions
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