# The long, drawn out, and unlamented death of Indymedia



## Tom A (Nov 24, 2016)

As someone who was once heavily involved in Indymedia before burnout took its toll and it started going really weird, I occasionally have taken looks at the site to see how further downhill it has come. I knew the rot had set in when comments calling bullshit on conspiraloons were being continuously being censored hidden and stopped considering it a useful source about five years ago, and I am aware of all the coups and the issues surrounding one particular individual.

Anyway, at the time of writing, there has not been a promoted article on the UK newswire since May 23, no open newswire articles since July 16, and no middle column features since last September (and only three since September 2014) - and it is now impossible to post any new articles to the newswire, but there is nothing to say that it has closed, it just died and no one has noticed, only one blog that is highly critical of Indymedia due to issues of anti-Semtism and conspiraloons, something that dogged Indymedia throughout its life, has bothered to mention anything (which is the reason why I am posting this now). It is like just like IMC-UK became so obscure that its death became unnoticed - and in its later years it had become totally irrelevant, what content that wasn't from the cranks was regarding the same issues it had reported on ten years previously, with little from issues that are now pertaining to now (although to give it kudos, it did report on Maximus and the protests against the Work Capability Assessment as a middle-column feature last year).

But it seems Indymedia UK is finally dead (although the much-maligned "Mayday Collective" half of the 2011 'fork' outlived the BeTheMedia half by several years if only though sheer bloody-mindedness), succumbing to infighting, power struggles, and failing to keep any relevance when movements and campaigns found they could reach many more people by promoting themselves on corporate social media (for better or worse). In a way I am glad, it had become a broken, empty shell of its former self and had long become an embarrassment to itself and anyone wanting an outlet for campaigns that were overlooked or deliberately ignored by the mainstream media. However it seems the whole IMC movement is in decline, the open newswire on the global site is no longer taking any new posts, and on the aggregator wire there is little that is about issues that affect people today, for their faults Facebook and Twitter reach out to far more people than Indymedia did, and these sites, as "evil corporate capitalist" as they are, do not have to deal with editorial collectives bickering on what should and should not be allowed on there, since it is not trying to push any political or ideological agenda, it is not solely for hardcore activists.

In a way it's a shame, everyone knows the downsides of corporate social media and it can be argued there is still room for an online space that is by and for activists. However such a space needs to be a lot more open ideologically (Indymedia tended to biased towards anarchism and movements organising along anarchist lines, indeed one of their editorial guidelines expressly excluded "hierarchical" groups in a ham-fisted way to keep out the SWP et al), and encompass the diversity of views held among all those who have a legitimate grievance against the system whilst still excluding those that want to promote hate and oppression. But such a space would have to supplement Facebook, Twitter, etc rather than be run as a complete alternative to it, otherwise its outreach will be limited to preaching to the converted. It would also have to avoid falling into the trap of pushing sensationalist clickbait, which is the bane of many other "alternative media" websites today.


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## editor (Nov 24, 2016)

It is a real shame because for a while Indymedia was shaping up to be a really useful alternative news source, but they seemed to lose thei rway years ago and the loon stuff was seriously off putting.

I doubt if the seriously outdated design (*much like a large chunk of the old urban75.com pages, to be fair) helps either.


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## Tom A (Nov 24, 2016)

Indymedia never really cottoned onto "Web 2.0", and to implement integration to Twitter, Facebook, etc would have been seen as "selling out" to the anti-corporate and "free and open source" evangelists that tended to be predominant in the editorial collective, although it would have been very difficult to do without having to make major alterations to its outdated content management system - something that as you pointed out made it look dated and was vulnerable to hacking, indeed I wonder if that is why the open publishing is broke (though I tend to think that it got broke and no one bothered to fix it, or it's deliberately disabled, either way no one seems to care) - indeed the hacking of Bristol Indymedia lead to it's demise about two years ago.


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## SpookyFrank (Nov 24, 2016)

Apart from occasionally looking up archived stuff from way back when, I stopped looking at Indymedia long ago. I suspect the consipraloon probem mirrors the more general conspiraloon infestation of various activist groups in the last five years or so, and probably has a simillar cause ie if you put in lots of work on something you will gain status within a group even if you're a dangerous idiot.

There was always a lack of transparency with indymedia, and clearly a lot of politics behind what got promoted or bumped up to the main news feed. 

Having a lot of different sources on various different platforms has advantages over a single site used by lots of people, not least in terms of redundancy in case of fuckery like the seizure of those servers in Bristol. Dependency on corporate platforms is problematic though.


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## Tom A (Nov 24, 2016)

SpookyFrank said:


> I suspect the consipraloon probem mirrors the more general conspiraloon infestation of various activist groups in the last five years or so, and probably has a simillar cause ie if you put in lots of work on something you will gain status within a group even if you're a dangerous idiot.


What little 'activism' I do these days is thankfully relatively conspiraloon-free apart from the occasional oddball individual. However I do not have to go far to see them in action, Occupy and the anti-fracking movement both have their issues with them, and it seems that the groups based on "non-hierarchical" organisation seem the most vulnerable to being overrun by conspiraloons, it seems that those movements that eschew authority tend to attract those who see "authority" as some sinister Illuminanti/New World Order/etc. Also I have witnessed certain individuals come to high prominence in campaigns against homelessness (deliberately not naming names to avoid attracting unwanted attention) who turn out to be on a power trip and screw over those that want to help the campaign.



> There was always a lack of transparency with indymedia, and clearly a lot of politics behind what got promoted or bumped up to the main news feed.


Some campaigns were more equal than others for sure when it came to the middle column. Barring that one feature towards the final year of Indymedia UK's life, I rarely saw anything about fighting benefit sanctions, or attacks on social security, and plenty about animal rights (including promotion of some quite dodgy actions), Climate Camp, Faslane peace camp, Israel/Palestine (again at times going beyond legitimate criticism of Israel into dodgy anti-Semitic tropes), the Zapatistas (who seemed to be the model of living all should follow) and the anti-war movement. Shamefully there were more than a few cases of troother events and articles being put into the promoted newswire later on, whilst the collective used to attempt to ensure such nonsense was hidden, although they never really had an official line on the issue. Anarchists and allied movements always got a free pass, whilst it was difficult for anything with a even a hint of 'hierarchical' influence to get a snifter of support (note that this doesn't mean that I would have been comfortable with Indymedia being co-opted by the SWP etc). Local grassroots community action, something I thought the "Kollectives" should have considered at the forefront of their mission, often had very limited reporting, particularly outside of the major cities and activist hubs.



> Having a lot of different sources on various different platforms has advantages over a single site used by lots of people, not least in terms of redundancy in case of fuckery like the seizure of those servers in Bristol. Dependency on corporate platforms is problematic though.


Indymedia was hobbled by server seizures (in the UK at least) as far back as 2004 with the FBI seizure of servers hosted by Rackspace. This herein is the problem of self-hosting, and illustrates the importance of having a backup somewhere outside the jurisdiction of where ever your main server is based. No government can seek the seizing of Facebook's servers since Facebook doesn't exist primarily to promote protesting. However Facebook and Twitter can easily be leaned on to pass on personal information and to shut down accounts, and it is never a good idea to use it to promote actions that are reliant on not being instantly shut down by the police. That being said, as global businesses, and businesses that helped facilitate communication among protesters, particularly those struggling against authoritarian regimes, they have to watch out for backlash and outcry should say, DPAC find out that all their Facebook accounts are shut down.


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## Red Sky (Dec 3, 2016)

There are some very specific allegations on one of the links above , that a long standing member of the Mayday collective was a paid police informant. Was there ever an investigation into this?


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## Tom A (Dec 5, 2016)

Indymedia itself was very quick to dismiss the allegations (or at least articles on there about the issue were quickly hidden, but anything critical of how Indymedia was being run was swiftly hidden - it didn't help that for ages the only other recourse to them was to e-mail a mailing list where the archive was accessible to the pubilc). RationalWiki also mentions the issue but has no link to any evidence of it. To me it seems very plausible considering how many times Indymedia kept shooting itself in the foot and how the editorial collective became a fixed clique that was a law unto itself, but then only a few sources have "outed" him, and unlike higher profile cases he hasn't been widely shunned by the wider activist community. Regardless of the faults of Indymedia there WAS a concerted campaign of disinformation - whether it was mostly the work of state agencies or a bunch of sad trolls with too much time on their hands is up for debate, though I consider it to be mostly the latter.


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## eoin_k (Dec 22, 2016)

To be fair it was, along with websites like this one, a DIY precursor to web 2.0. At the time there was something exciting about being able to contribute content as a site user. Even before the  decline, though, there was an issue with the quality of the content. At times of heightened protest/direct-action activity it could be exceptionally good, but in between there were lulls when there wasn't the... human resources... to generate enough engaging content to keep the site fresh as a 'news' site.


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## taffboy gwyrdd (Jan 18, 2017)

Real Media are getting busy. It's not the same model as indymedia, but still...there's actual journalism and good, detailed content 

e.g

What Spycops Did Next - Real Media - The News You Don't See


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## Red Sky (Mar 4, 2017)

Just had a quick look at the UK site. Newswire is full of error messages. Can't someone just put it out of its misery?


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## flickerx (Apr 8, 2017)

Are there any decent functioning IMC sites left anywhere, at all? I mean ones with a proper collective still involved, with regular, diverse updates. Indybay looks reasonably healthy.


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## Tom A (Apr 21, 2017)

Indymedia finally issue a statement to say they are shutting down for good - it only took them the best part of a year to admit it. It's a pretty sad ending for the UK IMC, it may have not survived the era of social media anyway (as stated previously, many other IMCs have fallen by the wayside in the past few years), but very bad decisions were made and there was a huge deficiency of democracy in regards to decision making and editorial policy, especially in the later years.



flickerx said:


> Are there any decent functioning IMC sites left anywhere, at all? I mean ones with a proper collective still involved, with regular, diverse updates. Indybay looks reasonably healthy.



Portland is still going fairly strong with frequent middle-column features, although the open newswire and comments are still as full of the same cranks that plagued many other IMCs and it's still an ideological echo chamber for a certain type of anarchist politics - but it's no worse than on the UK newswire circa 2003. Good to get news on various protests and campaigns in the area I guess but still too one-sided for me. It seems the US newswires seem to be the ones most like to survive, although sadly that's not true of the very place that gave birth to the IMC movement in the first place, Seattle.

Indybay still seems to be as good as any IMC was in its heyday - which is pretty good considering how there some bitter disputes regarding Indymedia in the San Francisco area in the past with three separate collectives there at one point, although all seem to have merged into Indybay.


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## flickerx (Apr 21, 2017)

The Urbana Champaign IMC in the US is also healthy, reportedly.


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## JasonFelcham (Apr 22, 2017)

do you think it's maybe because it's shit?


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## likesfish (Apr 22, 2017)

non hierarchy's only really work if everybody is coming from the same place otherwise its a recipe for disaster as you get somebody who wont or can't play nicely and nobody wants to be the bad guy and tell them NO.
 thats when it folds.
  what you want is clear leadership thats responsible to the group difficult act to get right


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## Tom A (Apr 23, 2017)

likesfish said:


> non hierarchy's only really work if everybody is coming from the same place otherwise its a recipe for disaster as you get somebody who wont or can't play nicely and nobody wants to be the bad guy and tell them NO.
> thats when it folds.
> what you want is clear leadership thats responsible to the group difficult act to get right


Such organisations are incredibly vulnerable to "wreckers", who will rather see the group disintegrate rather than not get his or her way. That's of course assuming the wrecker isn't a state infiltrator who is deliberately provoking the group and sowing discord in order to undermine the effectiveness of the group. As time goes by I see a lot of value in having an elected committee that oversees decision making, and decisions being put to a vote, and if a vote doesn't go in favour of what certain individuals want they just have to live with it.


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## 8den (Apr 23, 2017)

My final straw with the Indymedia Ireland collective was after a succession of court dates involving police prosecutions involving me and Indymedia Ireland left me completely burnout. I noticed a story on our wire making anonymous allegations of police corruption involving a murder. And while the details were obfuscated within a couple of seconds on google I'd worked out who it was. While it was an important story I was really worried about the site's liability and because of the recent court appearances my exposure. I felt that if the editors wanted to proactively fact the story (which is something I was pushing for site to do more off, move to a more a wikipedia editorial model than IMC which was far less proactive), we should, but until then we should hide the story, in case it wasn't true. I was voted down, and between the court cases and everything else I was shot, and resigned. 

Funnily enough, in my resignation I specifically posted a warning about a user who was angling for editorial status, I thought he was a bully and troll and he'd be a liability to the site. He was accepted anyway and a few years later Indymedia Statement Concerning the Former Editor Pat  C - Indymedia Ireland

That was, in my opinion, the final nail in the coffin for indymedia ireland. Particularly letting Corcoran resign and not be expelled. There's been no news features since 2016 and barely any newswire posts in the last month. 

In many ways to understand indymedia is to look at it as a web 1.0 start up that never adapted to web 2.0. During the start of the rise of antiglobalisation, there was no twitter, no youtube, no facebook and no myspace. There was nowhere to host your video, or radio, or a centralised node for discussion outside of mailing lists. As the web adapted users did to, and they no longer needed indymedia for hosting (which was a huge deal). If the Arab Spring had occurred in 2001 or 2002 I suspect local indymedias would have been activist hubs but by 2010 people had moved to twitter and facebook.


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## Tom A (Apr 24, 2017)

I left Indymedia UK in 2005 initially because I had become so burnt out (especially when having to work towards my university finals), but even then I was getting disillusioned about how cranks and conspiracy theorists were getting freer reign instead of being immediately hidden, something that by 2007 had deteriorated to the point where comments calling bullshit on conspiracy articles (especially 9/11 troofers and even chemtrails) were being hidden whilst the article itself remained intact. Then there was the apologism for all kinds of unpleasant groups and people just because they were antagonistic towards the US/"the West" (which to be fair, is not just an issue that affected Indymedia), where any challenge would lead to a wall of personal attacks, with very little intervention from the mods - in some ways Indymedia were promoting "alternative facts" before it was cool. Finally even in the good times it seemed to mostly cater for a certain type of anarchist, and I had dreams of Indymedia being a proper community news source where all kinds of campaigners - not just the activist ghetto - could promote their message, but any attempt to do something like that would get lost in a tide of "liberal bashing" (why bother saving your local library when you can be out helping the Zapatistas?) and people getting put off by seeing yet another flurry of crank conspiracy articles in the newswire.

I'm just glad I had long gone from there when the Atzmon affair kicked off, and especially after the 2011 "fork" which became a de facto takeover of the Indymedia name by the Mayday collective. But by then social media's ascendancy had come, and Indymedia had become a lot less relevant to the cause of the time.



8den said:


> In many ways to understand indymedia is to look at it as a web 1.0 start up that never adapted to web 2.0. During the start of the rise of antiglobalisation, there was no twitter, no youtube, no facebook and no myspace. There was nowhere to host your video, or radio, or a centralised node for discussion outside of mailing lists. As the web adapted users did to, and they no longer needed indymedia for hosting (which was a huge deal). If the Arab Spring had occurred in 2001 or 2002 I suspect local indymedias would have been activist hubs but by 2010 people had moved to twitter and facebook.



That's pretty much my take on why Indymedia generally is in decline, and even where an IMC is still managing to be in rude health it's no longer the main go-to point for activists. Indymedia could have tried to adapt to Web 2.0, realise that campaigners were going to start using Facebook and Twitter to promote events and try and contemplate that rather than go against it - I feel that Indymedia's opposition to anything with a hint of corporate influence rendered it inflexible in that regard, alongside its inability to reach beyond the activist ghetto. Also with Facebook you don't have to deal with the whims of an editorial collective (or rather, predominant individuals in the collective) hiding something that goes against their agenda, or having a thread about a local campaign getting hijacked by those wanting to go on about chemtrails or 9/11 being an inside job.


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## Brainaddict (Apr 24, 2017)

Yes, the stance against corporate platforms was understandable but at the same time the purism of it was a failure to read the way things were going. You can imagine it might have survived if they had allowed indymedia-twitter-facebook integration. As well as sharing buttons and so on, they could have had curated twitter/fb feeds, promoting the better articles on there.

But the feeling against the corporate platforms was too strong. I recently did a radio interview with some of the people who used to be involved in indymedia and I suggested people look up an event or group on facebook. They actually bleeped out 'facebook' in the edit, and at the time asked me if there was anywhere else people could get the information (there was, but in fact facebook had the most info). I thought it was pretty silly, when facebook has, for all its massive flaws, been a better organising tool than anything activists have come up with.


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## 8den (Apr 24, 2017)

Brainaddict said:


> Yes, the stance against corporate platforms was understandable but at the same time the purism of it was a failure to read the way things were going. You can imagine it might have survived if they had allowed indymedia-twitter-facebook integration. As well as sharing buttons and so on they could have had curated twitter/fb feeds and so on, promoting the better articles on there.
> 
> But the feeling against the corporate platforms was too strong. I recently did a radio interview with some of the people who used to be involved in indymedia and I suggested people look up an event or group on facebook. They actually bleeped out 'facebook' in the edit, and at the time asked me if there was anywhere else people could get the information (there was, but in fact facebook had the most info). I thought it was pretty silly, when facebook has, for all its massive flaws, been a better organising tool than anything activists have come up with.




Agreed, and sort of the point that I was trying to get. With Social Media filling the void that Indymedia "exploited" in the first place (to wit an open source, semi-social media platform, with the ability to share video audio and photos). Indeed indymedia fell to the battle that social media is now supposedly battling, the rise of fake news). Spammers would publish CTers across various Indymedias with varying degrees of editorial control, and the signal to noise ratio combined with personal infighting made the site unreadable. 

Again it might have been against the Indymedia ethos, but I always pushed for strong editorial controls. That editors should fact check stories that were unverified, and hide them until the author published supporting evidence. I'm happy to say Indymedia Ireland was on of the better IMCs with, for a while, an active editorial list with discussion and arguments over an article's or story's merit. 

And man if you ever wanted to see the futility in action you should have joined any of the global imc mailing lists. Without a rigorous decision-making process discussions and moving forward on any global direction for Indymedia was next to impossible.


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## Tom A (Apr 24, 2017)

Brainaddict said:


> Yes, the stance against corporate platforms was understandable but at the same time the purism of it was a failure to read the way things were going. You can imagine it might have survived if they had allowed indymedia-twitter-facebook integration. As well as sharing buttons and so on, they could have had curated twitter/fb feeds, promoting the better articles on there.
> 
> But the feeling against the corporate platforms was too strong. I recently did a radio interview with some of the people who used to be involved in indymedia and I suggested people look up an event or group on facebook. They actually bleeped out 'facebook' in the edit, and at the time asked me if there was anywhere else people could get the information (there was, but in fact facebook had the most info). I thought it was pretty silly, when facebook has, for all its massive flaws, been a better organising tool than anything activists have come up with.


At the end of day, if a group wants to promote their cause, they need to get the word out to as many people as possible, and in this day and age the best way is via social media. Shunning Facebook is just allowing dogma to override reality, and hence result in a retreat into an activist ghetto, relying on obscure sites which are by and for lifestylists, and the only way that most ordinary people will be exposed to their message is if the links are shared on the very social media they are so eager to shun. It goes back a long way, for example 15 years ago when I was first starting to use Linux, I asked the IMC-UK IRC how I could get Windows Media to be set up (as some news sites did use this, this of course was way before YouTube, and of course the BBC relied on RealPlayer back then). The response I got was along the lines of "Windows Media is shite, don't use it". At the time it was difficult to get MP3s to work as well (proprietary codecs being the main issue), and at some workshop on Linux I asked about this and was told to just use Ogg Vorbis. This bashing of propitiatory software for the sake of bashing propitiatory software I found to be quite a holier-than-thou attitude, especially since back then a lot of free-and-open-source software was still significantly inferior to corporate products.



8den said:


> Agreed, and sort of the point that I was trying to get. With Social Media filling the void that Indymedia "exploited" in the first place (to wit an open source, semi-social media platform, with the ability to share video audio and photos). Indeed indymedia fell to the battle that social media is now supposedly battling, the rise of fake news). Spammers would publish CTers across various Indymedias with varying degrees of editorial control, and the signal to noise ratio combined with personal infighting made the site unreadable.
> 
> Again it might have been against the Indymedia ethos, but I always pushed for strong editorial controls. That editors should fact check stories that were unverified, and hide them until the author published supporting evidence. I'm happy to say Indymedia Ireland was on of the better IMCs with, for a while, an active editorial list with discussion and arguments over an article's or story's merit.
> 
> And man if you ever wanted to see the futility in action you should have joined any of the global imc mailing lists. Without a rigorous decision-making process discussions and moving forward on any global direction for Indymedia was next to impossible.


I endured a lot of abuse for openly calling for a tougher line on editorial policy, especially when it came to dealing with conspiraloons - and had to deal with articles about chemtrails being unhidden "for the sake of debate" - although things weren't helped by my immature self slinging abuse at the conspiraloons whenever they raised their ugly heads. My take on it was simple - such people, if allowed to post any old garbage without being subject to quality control, will discredit Indymedia as a source, and lo and behold, they allowed Indymedia to become discredited. A move to a more Wikipedia-esque model of editorial policy would have done wonders for ensuring a high quality of output and maybe had made IMCs a force to be reckoned with into the Web 2.0 era. Indymedia was certainly woefully lacking when it came to fact-checking (at least in the case of IMC-UK), and any subjective nonsense was allowed on the newswire as long as it didn't seem to flout any of the guidelines, which were often very loosely applied, and later on, applied selectively as well.
It's a shame that Indymedia Ireland also has gone the way of many other IMCs, I didn't check it that much but it I used to be impressed by the quality of content on there compared to the UK newswire. Also I wasn't that involved in the global mailing lists, but the inertia of the decision making collectives was part of the cause behind the "Mayday coup", since Mayday had to start as a fresh IMC and it all got snarled up in "New IMC process" red tape, so when the time came to implement the fork Mayday took matters into their own hands - and when BeTheMedia cried foul the global decision makers basically just sat on their hands and did nothing. However, Mayday's version of Indymedia did outlast BeTheMedia by several years, although it was certainly no longer an Indymedia I would have wanted to be part of. A lot of critics targeted IMC-UK for being a particularly bad case, but it's fair to say the problems with Indymedia ran throughout the movement.


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## Tom A (Apr 25, 2017)

Now this could be an interesting development: Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales creates news service Wikitribune - BBC News

Strange how we are discussing the benefits of Wikipedia's approach to editorial policy in this thread and Wikipedia's founder decides to get involved in starting a news service. I hope it really does remain grounded in fact, and manage to piss off ideological hacks on both left and right alike by putting the truth above certain political agendas.


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## butchersapron (Apr 25, 2017)

Thank god for the non-ideological entrepreneur rabid follower of Ayn Rand and promoter of the forceful imposition of extreme free markets and destruction of social safety nets Jimmy Wales. Let truth speak.


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## Tom A (Apr 25, 2017)

As I was saying...

Anyway, I'd choose Jimmy Wales and friends over the bunch of anarchists that mismanaged IMC sites into oblivion any day.


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## butchersapron (Apr 25, 2017)

That's the choices is it? Top down Ayn Rand worshipping rich people curating the truth or well meaning from below types who allowed themselves to hollowed out by conspiraloons? That's the only options - and if you don't support the first one you're an ideological hack.


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## Tom A (Apr 25, 2017)

Compare the credibility of Wikipedia with that of Indymedia today. Both have some kind of 'open publishing' ethos but the former is far more respected as a resource, even if its entries are only as good as the people who create and edit them. Besides, many of the people involved in IMCs were not all that "well meaning", several were downright toxic, especially with regards to the UK newswire.


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## butchersapron (Apr 25, 2017)

I don't have to compare the credibility of wikimedia to indymedia to make a point about the fake-ness of the idea of news-truth being objectively non-ideologically presented to a viewing or reading public - esp when it's being offered by an extreme ideologist. That's BBC guff from the 30s - at best.


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## Tom A (Apr 25, 2017)

The facts remain the facts, regardless of how awkward they present themselves to those who's ideology is contradicted by said facts.


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## butchersapron (Apr 25, 2017)

Okey dokey Mr Cholmondley Warner.


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## Tom A (Apr 25, 2017)

Insult me all you like, but the left is just as bad when it comes to denial of facts as the right. For example, when a certain political leader did a video about having to sit in the corridor of a "ram-packed" train whilst he actually walked past several rows of empty seats. Or when a certain dictator decides to use nerve gas against his own citizens. Or when those wonderful "resistance" groups fighting "Western imperialists" turn out to be religious fanatics who slaughter anyone who gets in their way. Or when environmentalists still lecture about the evil of GM crops whilst the scientific consensus is they are safe, and this has been the case for years. The facts *are *the facts, whether you like them or not.

But by all means carry on believing that two plus two equals five if that makes you happy.


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## redsquirrel (Apr 26, 2017)

Evidence based politics!


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## Idris2002 (Apr 26, 2017)

Tom A said:


> Insult me all you like, but the left is just as bad when it comes to denial of facts as the right. For example, when a certain political leader did a video about having to sit in the corridor of a "ram-packed" train whilst he actually walked past several rows of empty seats. Or when a certain dictator decides to use nerve gas against his own citizens. Or when those wonderful "resistance" groups fighting "Western imperialists" turn out to be religious fanatics who slaughter anyone who gets in their way. Or when environmentalists still lecture about the evil of GM crops whilst the scientific consensus is they are safe, and this has been the case for years. The facts *are *the facts, whether you like them or not.
> 
> But by all means carry on believing that two plus two equals five if that makes you happy.


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## Brainaddict (Apr 26, 2017)

Tom A said:


> The facts remain the facts, regardless of how awkward they present themselves to those who's ideology is contradicted by said facts.


It's a bit more complicated than that though. There's the question of what facts you pay attention to, and what the facts mean. You can't report 'the facts' without straying into these grey areas. To take a current example, much of the media is propagating the idea that Corbyn has had an inconsistent attitude on Brexit. This isn't necessarily untrue. But should we pay attention just to that, or also to the fact that May has had an inconsistent attitude on Brexit too? Okay, so we can report that both of them have been 'inconsistent' and that would be balanced and factual. Except does the word 'inconsistency' cover it? Not really. They both have very differing reasons for their complex/changing stances - it needs a lot of unpacking. Then there's a question of whether consistency is desirable in a leader. Isn't the ability to change their mind or compromise just as important? So what is this essentially derogatory word 'inconsistency' doing there? What would be the 'factually correct' word to use? And anyway, why are we talking about the leaders at all? Is that what matters? Who decided to talk about the attitudes of the party leaders as though they are important?


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## Tom A (Apr 26, 2017)

Brainaddict said:


> It's a bit more complicated than that though. There's the question of what facts you pay attention to, and what the facts mean. You can't report 'the facts' without straying into these grey areas. To take a current example, much of the media is propagating the idea that Corbyn has had an inconsistent attitude on Brexit. This isn't necessarily untrue. But should we pay attention just to that, or also to the fact that May has had an inconsistent attitude on Brexit too? Okay, so we can report that both of them have been 'inconsistent' and that would be balanced and factual. Except does the word 'inconsistency' cover it? Not really. They both have very differing reasons for their complex/changing stances - it needs a lot of unpacking. Then there's a question of whether consistency is desirable in a leader. Isn't the ability to change their mind or compromise just as important? So what is this essentially derogatory word 'inconsistency' doing there? What would be the 'factually correct' word to use? And anyway, why are we talking about the leaders at all? Is that what matters? Who decided to talk about the attitudes of the party leaders as though they are important?


Dithering is rarely considered a positive thing when you're a political leader, and while holding a steadfast opinion on an issue and allowing no opportunity to be flexible is not a good plan when new situations call for new approaches, a leader should at least be able to justify to the electorate any changes to his or her views.

What I am getting at is those who will ignore and deny inconvenient truths - even going into conspiracy theorist mode when they are mentioned - because they present their organisation/movement in a less than shining light, and then sweep the issue under the carpet and let it become a festering mess, until everyone except them is pointing out how it's harming the cause. To try and bring this back on topic, that is exactly what happened to Indymedia UK, they took a "see no evil, hear no evil" approach to dealing with conspiracy theorists, the toleration of anti-Semitic posts, and the influence of problematic individuals within the editorial collective, and it then became a cesspit for such nonsense and more besides.


----------



## Tom A (May 3, 2017)

UK Indymedia : 1999 - 2016 - UK Indymedia

This is actually a good summary of all the highlights of the UK Indymedia project, and it's fair to say the G8 coverage in 2005 was the high water mark for Indymedia. I do however note that this list of high and low points of Indymedia ends abruptly in 2011, with the infamous 'fork' - its as if there was nothing really worthy of note going on in Indymedia from that point onwards. If you look of the list of actions covered you can see that this also drops abruptly after 2011, with no reports at all mentioned for the past two years of Indymedia's life.


----------



## Magnus McGinty (May 3, 2017)

Killed by social media. 
Social media can easily provide a 'free' platform with its business model, which is what most gobshites want and will suffer the advertising and presumably the security risk also.


----------



## Tom A (May 3, 2017)

Magnus McGinty said:


> Killed by social media.
> Social media can easily provide a 'free' platform with its business model, which is what most gobshites want and will suffer the advertising and presumably the security risk also.


To me it's more of a case of killed by an editorial collective that (1) didn't know how to react to the rise of social media and (2) allowed infighting and the unchecked influence of a clique (the Mayday half of the fork) to turn Indymedia into something nobody really wanted except those still involved in Indymedia (which was a declining number of people). Social media was well established in 2011, but until the fork Indymedia could still have managed to change for the better and thrive, although the rot was setting in around 2008 with the Atzmon affair.

Social media allows a campaign group to reach out to far more people than Indymedia ever did, and it is a very useful tool as long as you don't put up anything that you don't want the authorities knowing - but that's true of any public site, including Indymedia, and the police did monitor (and possibly infiltrate) Indymedia when it was still an important tool for activists.


----------



## editor (Jul 6, 2017)

Magnus McGinty said:


> Killed by social media.
> Social media can easily provide a 'free' platform with its business model, which is what most gobshites want and will suffer the advertising and presumably the security risk also.


So how come this site - and many others - managed to survive in the face of the growth of social media?


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## Tom A (Jul 6, 2017)

editor said:


> So how come this site - and many others - managed to survive in the face of the growth of social media?


Because sensible people like yourself were in charge of it, rather than idiots like freethepeeps, and therefore it remained a place that people wanted to use? Although when I returned here after many years, I noted that it was somewhat quieter than in pre-Facebook days, but it's still probably one of the busiest forums in the UK, even if it isn't as famous as it once was.


----------



## editor (Jul 6, 2017)

Tom A said:


> Because sensible people like yourself were in charge of it, rather than idiots like freethepeeps, and therefore it remained a place that people wanted to use? Although when I returned here after many years, I noted that it was somewhat quieter than in pre-Facebook days, but it's still probably one of the busiest forums in the UK, even if it isn't as famous as it once was.


I'm kind of surprised - and pleased - that we've managed to carry on. There's definitely fewer posts per day - it's usually something like 1.5k per day down from a peak of 3.5k-ish - but there's far more people looking at the site. 

Having an argument on FB is a fucking miserable experience.  The pals of whoever you're arguing with often gang up against you and if you do crush your opponent with hard facts, they can just delete the entire thread.


----------



## Tom A (Jul 6, 2017)

editor said:


> I'm kind of surprised - and pleased - that we've managed to carry on. There's definitely fewer posts per day - it's usually something like 1.5k per day down from a peak of 3.5k-ish - but there's far more people looking at the site.


I'm glad this place is still going. It still has its moments, and if you avoid talking about politics, people here are generally quite pleasant. I chose to post about Indymedia here because I knew I would encounter people who knew what Indymedia was, whereas very few people I knew on Facebook would have remembered or were old enough to hear of Indymedia. At the time of the original post, no one really acknowledged that Indymedia UK was finally dead.



> Having an argument on FB is a fucking miserable experience.  The pals of whoever you're arguing with often gang up against you and if you do crush your opponent with hard facts, they can just delete the entire thread.


I avoid that by only having people I consider actual friends (or at least can generally get along with) as Facebook friends - although I have had it deactivated for nearly a year after bitter arguments with friends of friends and having a news feed full of depressing shit. Keep meaning to go back and have a huge purge, but first there's books to read and box sets to watch.

IME Twitter is much worse for arguments, the 140 character limit is an invite to be mean and cruel as possible, and they instantly block you if you contradict them. Having a reasoned debate with people who have opposing views to you is not possible on Twitter, and even those with slightly different views will wilfully misinterpret what you have to say and twist your words.


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## 8den (Jul 6, 2017)

editor said:


> I'm kind of surprised - and pleased - that we've managed to carry on. There's definitely fewer posts per day - it's usually something like 1.5k per day down from a peak of 3.5k-ish - but there's far more people looking at the site.
> 
> Having an argument on FB is a fucking miserable experience.  The pals of whoever you're arguing with often gang up against you and if you do crush your opponent with hard facts, they can just delete the entire thread.



I think urban found its niche of grumpy baby eating anarchists who are happy grow old disgracefully with each other's company bickering constantly over the important matters of the day.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jul 6, 2017)

Indymedia was never a forum anyway. It was primarily a newswire, and that part really has been killed by big social.


----------



## 8den (Jul 6, 2017)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Indymedia was never a forum anyway. It was primarily a newswire, and that part really has been killed by big social.



Theres a similar but much larger forum in Ireland boards.ie. But's a a broader church, I can't go there anymore, merely because the tone particular on social issues and politics has like most places on the net has become more reactionary, knee jerk, and right wing over the years, and those are three adjectives I would never use to describe Urban. I've had massive arguments on here and been banned, but this seems to be a rare corner of the internet thats gotten a little more mellow in the last few years.


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## Magnus McGinty (Jul 7, 2017)

editor said:


> So how come this site - and many others - managed to survive in the face of the growth of social media?



Because I visit it and keep it interesting?


----------



## petee (Jul 7, 2017)

editor said:


> Having an argument on FB is a fucking miserable experience.  The pals of whoever you're arguing with often gang up against you



(that sort of thing happens here too, y'know...)


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## Red Sky (Jul 7, 2017)

petee said:


> (that sort of thing happens here too, y'know...)



Really?


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## Red Sky (Jul 7, 2017)

There is a dire need for something like Indy media or Schnews again right now.  Not in style necessarily but in the idea of being a clearing house for keeping up to date with other campaigns and issues. One of the strengths of the anarchist milieu used to be how campaigns overlapped and reinforced each other.  I see less of that now as people are confined to online echo chambers.


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## editor (Jul 7, 2017)

petee said:


> (that sort of thing happens here too, y'know...)


People gang up, but at least the thread - and the arguments contained therein - don't vanish. I remember one guy on FB went through and removed all my posts which left him with a very strange looking thread indeed. And then there's the matter of trying to actually find stuff on FB. Content seems to vanish down a black hole after a few days (if FB haven't decided to remove it themselves).


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## editor (Jul 7, 2017)

Red Sky said:


> There is a dire need for something like Indy media or Schnews again right now.  Not in style necessarily but in the idea of being a clearing house for keeping up to date with other campaigns and issues. One of the strengths of the anarchist milieu used to be how campaigns overlapped and reinforced each other.  I see less of that now as people are confined to online echo chambers.


I had a LOT more time for SchNEWS than Indymedia. It was a bloody great news source but they never really got the web thing and so faded away too quickly.


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## Red Sky (Jul 7, 2017)

editor said:


> I had a LOT more time for SchNEWS than Indymedia. It was a bloody great news source but they never really got the web thing and so faded away too quickly.



We had a go but were basically swamped by Facebook.


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## lefteri (Jul 7, 2017)

editor said:


> And then there's the matter of trying to actually find stuff on FB. Content seems to vanish down a black hole after a few days (if FB haven't decided to remove it themselves).



This is the most annoying thing about Facebook - apart from their own 'memories' algorithm there's no practical way of finding past posts - it means discussions about anything other than trivialities are basically pointless


----------



## Tom A (Jul 7, 2017)

editor said:


> I had a LOT more time for SchNEWS than Indymedia. It was a bloody great news source but they never really got the web thing and so faded away too quickly.


I did like SchNEWS - I've distanced myself from their ideology over the years but their heart was in the right place, and I also liked the DIY ethos and as much as it contributed to their demise, I saw it as no bad thing that it remained centred on a paper publication well into the Facebook era, if only they had managed to acknowledge that an online and social media presence is still key to survival in these days.

The original Freedom newspaper had some interesting points to make at times as well.


----------



## Red Sky (Jul 7, 2017)

Tom A said:


> I did like SchNEWS - I've distanced myself from their ideology over the years but their heart was in the right place, and I also liked the DIY ethos and as much as it contributed to their demise, I saw it as no bad thing that it remained centred on a paper publication well into the Facebook era, if only they had managed to acknowledge that an online and social media presence is still key to survival in these days.
> 
> The original Freedom newspaper had some interesting points to make at times as well.



SCHNEWS had a Facebook and a very active Twitter.  It had one of the first websites of its kind (1996?).  So lack of online activity isnt the main cause of its demise.

The movement it originated from had moved on. Then groups and campaigns found other ways to self publish meaning that instead of going to Schnews for publicity, Schnews had to chase them for stories. The publishing schedule simply wasn't fit for purpose in a 24 hr instanews environment though. Only professional journalists can keep up with it. If it's something you do in your spare time you've got no chance.


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## editor (Jul 7, 2017)

Red Sky said:


> SCHNEWS had a Facebook and a very active Twitter.  It had one of the first websites of its kind (1996?).  So lack of online activity isnt the main cause of its demise.


I'd disagree. I think they could have done the online stuff much better and mentioned it several times back in the day. 

But I don't want to slag the paper off because I think it was a very useful - and at times very funny - alternative news source. I designed one of the covers of their yearbooks by the way


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## Tom A (Jul 7, 2017)

Red Sky said:


> SCHNEWS had a Facebook and a very active Twitter.  It had one of the first websites of its kind (1996?).  So lack of online activity isnt the main cause of its demise.
> 
> The movement it originated from had moved on. Then groups and campaigns found other ways to self publish meaning that instead of going to Schnews for publicity, Schnews had to chase them for stories. The publishing schedule simply wasn't fit for purpose in a 24 hr instanews environment though. Only professional journalists can keep up with it. If it's something you do in your spare time you've got no chance.


I could imagine SchNEWS had great difficulty getting the staff, they could have gone fully professional but it would have mean they would have lost their DIY spirit and be subject to accusations of "selling out" by their supporters who expected it to forever remain a glorified zine. Your argument could easily apply to Indymedia as well.

Another alternative media publication that did actually provide a true alternative that is now sadly long gone is Manchester MULE - thankfully there's still the Salford Star.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Jul 7, 2017)

Libcom were saying on twitter they other day that they were hoping to ramp up their news stuff... (this was in relation to the increasingly pro-Labour Novara Media).


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 7, 2017)

editor said:


> I'd disagree. I think they could have done the online stuff much better and mentioned it several times back in the day.
> 
> But I don't want to slag the paper off because I think it was a very useful - and at times very funny - alternative news source. I designed one of the covers of their yearbooks by the way


did you do any covers for do or die?


----------



## Red Sky (Jul 7, 2017)

Fozzie Bear said:


> Libcom were saying on twitter they other day that they were hoping to ramp up their news stuff... (this was in relation to the increasingly pro-Labour Novara Media).



Novara are kind of a case in point. The whole thing is a limited company, property of one Aaron Bastani. All of the journos are bylined and seem to be auditioning for Comment is Free. Grassroots radical media it is not.


----------



## Red Sky (Jul 7, 2017)

Tom A said:


> I could imagine SchNEWS had great difficulty getting the staff, they could have gone fully professional but it would have mean they would have lost their DIY spirit and be subject to accusations of "selling out" by their supporters who expected it to forever remain a glorified zine. Your argument could easily apply to Indymedia as well.
> 
> Another alternative media publication that did actually provide a true alternative that is now sadly long gone is Manchester MULE - thankfully there's still the Salford Star.



I'm not sure SchNEWS could ever have been monetized to the point of going professional! 

There is the Bristol Cable of course which is trying the model of local news run by a workers co-op.


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Jul 7, 2017)

Red Sky said:


> Novara are kind of a case in point. The whole thing is a limited company, property of one Aaron Bastani. All of the journos are bylined and seem to be auditioning for Comment is Free. Grassroots radical media it is not.



I think you're always going to get that when your model is to pay contributors? They want to make names for themselves.

What is tediously predictable is that they have got less diverse in their politics since getting more money behind them. There was always slightly wonk-ish guff in there about parliamentary politics, but it was matched with some more interesting stuff. Much less of that now.

ETA: This just in:


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 7, 2017)

Bristol  cable is more artisan cafe whilst the bristolian is more local boozer. And the latter is still getting results whilst sticking to the old school basics of production and design. That's because of the quality of the investigative works and the long established contacts.


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## DaveCinzano (Jul 7, 2017)

Red Sky said:


> There is the Bristol Cable of course which is trying the model of local news run by a workers co-op.



...And snaffling exclusives from the lumpen scandal-sheet _The Bristolian_ into the bargain


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## DaveCinzano (Jul 7, 2017)

Snap


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## Tom A (Jul 7, 2017)

Red Sky said:


> Novara are kind of a case in point. The whole thing is a limited company, property of one Aaron Bastani. All of the journos are bylined and seem to be auditioning for Comment is Free. Grassroots radical media it is not.


The Canary is run as a private limited company and is funded by advertising and local fundraisers - hardly a grassroots organisation either. Never really bothered with Novara for similar reasons why I am put off the Canary.



Red Sky said:


> I'm not sure SchNEWS could ever have been monetized to the point of going professional!


By "professional" I meant that it committed itself to more than being a zine that was distributed at protests, social centres and squats and actually committed to being a fully fledged media operation, a bit like what the MULE was and the Salford Star still is.


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## butchersapron (Jul 7, 2017)

Salford Star has Terry Duckworth writing in support of the Syrian revolution and against bent councils, Always going to be a winner.


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## editor (Jul 7, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> did you do any covers for do or die?


Never asked


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## chilango (Jul 7, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> did you do any covers for do or die?



I did one 

Well, spent hours and hours tidying up the cover image pixel by fucking pixel and plonking it on the cover with some "amusing" sub header, if that counts as "design".


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## butchersapron (Jul 7, 2017)

End of last year.

opps, sorry that was a reply to my brother on something else.


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## Tom A (Jul 10, 2017)

Red Sky said:


> There is a dire need for something like Indy media or Schnews again right now.  Not in style necessarily but in the idea of being a clearing house for keeping up to date with other campaigns and issues. One of the strengths of the anarchist milieu used to be how campaigns overlapped and reinforced each other.  I see less of that now as people are confined to online echo chambers.


The "anarchist milleu" tended to be (and still does tend to be) an echo chamber in itself though, particularly when it came to working with people who weren't anarchists (or overtly political at all) but who still shared a common cause with on a particular issue.


----------



## Red Sky (Jul 10, 2017)

Tom A said:


> The "anarchist milleu" tended to be (and still does tend to be) an echo chamber in itself though, particularly when it came to working with people who weren't anarchists (or overtly political at all) but who still shared a common cause with on a particular issue.



Anything with enough coherence to be called a movement is also probably an echo chamber of sorts.

Direct Action campaigns by anarchists have engaged all sorts of people.


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## Tom A (Jul 10, 2017)

Red Sky said:


> Direct Action campaigns by anarchists have engaged all sorts of people.


But have also alienated many others.


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## Red Sky (Jul 10, 2017)

Tom A said:


> But have also alienated many others.


Frackers, Fox hunters and Fascists?


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## Tom A (Jul 10, 2017)

Red Sky said:


> Frackers, Fox hunters and Fascists?


None of the campaigns against the above are entirely, dare I say even mostly due to anarchists, all shades of "the Left" play a role in building those campaigns.

It's when a group goes too far and through the use of extreme tactics alienate those that otherwise are sympathetic to the cause that the problems arise.


----------



## Tom A (Oct 5, 2017)

Okay, opening up old wounds here, but:



redsquirrel said:


> Evidence based politics!


What exactly is wrong with that idea?




Idris2002 said:


>


What the hell is that meant to mean???

Only avoiding replying at the time to try and prevent further derailment of the thread, but there isn't really anything more that can be said about Indymedia now.


----------



## LDC (Oct 5, 2017)

chilango said:


> I did one
> 
> Well, spent hours and hours tidying up the cover image pixel by fucking pixel and plonking it on the cover with some "amusing" sub header, if that counts as "design".



What issue?


----------



## chilango (Oct 5, 2017)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> What issue?








I remember being sat in front of the screen trying to neaten the edge of the scoop on the bulldozer for hours.


----------



## Idris2002 (Oct 5, 2017)

Tom A said:


> What the hell is that meant to mean???



Hark! A Vagrant | Know Your Meme

I trust this clarifies the matter. I bid you good day, sir.


----------



## Brainaddict (Oct 5, 2017)

Tom A said:


> Okay, opening up old wounds here, but:
> 
> 
> What exactly is wrong with that idea?


'Evidence based politics' is a term that has grown with technocratic neo-liberalism. It tends towards simplistic interpretations of things that strip politics out of decision-making in favour of rather basic cost-benefit approaches. For instance there is some evidence for the 'Broken windows theory' that says 'disorder' in the environment tends to produce more 'disorder'. Evidence-based politics would simply argue over how good the evidence is on that, before deciding to take action. But once you think about the politics of disordered environments, who defines disorder, or order, what the consequences of trying to eliminate disorder might mean, who it is trying to get rid of the disorder, a whole new range of ways of looking at it opens up. From these other (political) perspectives, whether or not Broken Windows Theory is well-evidenced might come to seem irrelevant.


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 5, 2017)

Brainaddict said:


> 'Evidence based politics' is a term that has grown with technocratic neo-liberalism. It tends towards simplistic interpretations of things that strip politics out of decision-making in favour of rather basic cost-benefit approaches. For instance there is some evidence for the 'Broken windows theory' that says 'disorder' in the environment tends to produce more 'disorder'. Evidence-based politics would simply argue over how good the evidence is on that, before deciding to take action. But once you think about the politics of disordered environments, who defines disorder, or order, what the consequences of trying to eliminate disorder might mean, who it is trying to get rid of the disorder, a whole new range of ways of looking at it opens up. From these other (political) perspectives, whether or not Broken Windows Theory is well-evidenced might come to seem irrelevant.


surely evidence-based politics could consider, as part of the quality of the evidence, the definitional issues within it and the agendas which push it.


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## Brainaddict (Oct 5, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> surely evidence-based politics could consider, as part of the quality of the evidence, the definitional issues within it and the agendas which push it.


I suppose you could define a 'real evidence-based politics' that includes consideration of as many political facets as you can think of*. But I think evidence-based politics has usually been characterised in practice by lack of political thinking, or even deliberate avoidance of thorny political questions, hence the scorn you saw up-thread.

*But even if we try to put the politics into what has been previously regarded as technical questions, you realise you have to lose the quantitative rigour you can achieve with technical questions. Suddenly the 'evidence' is qualitative and a bit messy, and offers few black and white answers any more.


----------



## Tom A (Oct 5, 2017)

Brainaddict said:


> 'Evidence based politics' is a term that has grown with technocratic neo-liberalism. It tends towards simplistic interpretations of things that strip politics out of decision-making in favour of rather basic cost-benefit approaches. For instance there is some evidence for the 'Broken windows theory' that says 'disorder' in the environment tends to produce more 'disorder'. Evidence-based politics would simply argue over how good the evidence is on that, before deciding to take action. But once you think about the politics of disordered environments, who defines disorder, or order, what the consequences of trying to eliminate disorder might mean, who it is trying to get rid of the disorder, a whole new range of ways of looking at it opens up. From these other (political) perspectives, whether or not Broken Windows Theory is well-evidenced might come to seem irrelevant.


So it's an actual term then, not just a glib statement? Okay, I get you. All sorts of cats let out of the bag there, and with your example it can easily be used to justify gentrification of working-class communities (which New York has indeed suffered from). As for Broken Windows Theory itself, it's adherents are potentially confusing correlation with causation.



Pickman's model said:


> surely evidence-based politics could consider, as part of the quality of the evidence, the definitional issues within it and the agendas which push it.


That would be how I would have defined an "evidence based" politics. Science has to take this into account, after all.


----------



## Tom A (Oct 5, 2017)

Brainaddict said:


> I suppose you could define a 'real evidence-based politics' that includes consideration of as many political facets as you can think of*.* But I think evidence-based politics has usually been characterised in practice by lack of political thinking, or even deliberate avoidance of thorny political questions*, hence the scorn you saw up-thread.
> 
> *But even if we try to put the politics into what has been previously regarded as technical questions, you realise you have to lose the quantitative rigour you can achieve with technical questions. Suddenly the 'evidence' is qualitative and a bit messy, and offers few black and white answers any more.


"Apolitical" solutions to issues are probably quite seductive at present considering how much bullshit is promoted in the name of politics across the political spectrum. Wikipedia's famed "neutral point of view" does provide a much saner output than what tended to come out of Indymedia and its successors in the "alternative media" landscape.


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 5, 2017)

Brainaddict said:


> I suppose you could define a 'real evidence-based politics' that includes consideration of as many political facets as you can think of*. But I think evidence-based politics has usually been characterised in practice by lack of political thinking, or even deliberate avoidance of thorny political questions, hence the scorn you saw up-thread.
> 
> *But even if we try to put the politics into what has been previously regarded as technical questions, you realise you have to lose the quantitative rigour you can achieve with technical questions. Suddenly the 'evidence' is qualitative and a bit messy, and offers few black and white answers any more.


Seems to me what you mean by ebp is not so much politics as the imposition of technocratic 'solutions'.


----------



## Tom A (Oct 5, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> Seems to me what you mean by ebp is not so much politics as the imposition of technocratic 'solutions'.


"Technocratic solutions" of course have been a cover to push neoliberalism on countries in return for foreign aid, debt relief and suchlike, with terms that favour the country offering the aid tremendously. So in reality, "technocratic solutions" are usually very politically charged.


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 5, 2017)

Tom A said:


> "Technocratic solutions" of course have been a cover to push neoliberalism on countries in return for foreign aid, debt relief and suchlike, with terms that favour the country offering the aid tremendously. So in reality, "technocratic solutions" are usually very politically charged.


i was thinking of the presentation, that it's all common sense, that there's no obvious politics behind it; whereas - as you declare - the most abominable agendas are at work.


----------



## redsquirrel (Oct 5, 2017)

Tom A said:


> Okay, opening up old wounds here, but:
> 
> 
> What exactly is wrong with that idea?


Basically what BrainAddict said. It's a type of liberal crap that 'scientists' like Ferrel Hadley on here champion


----------



## Tom A (Oct 5, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> Basically what BrainAddict said. It's a type of liberal crap that 'scientists' like Ferrel Hadley on here champion


I'm not disagreeing with him. I initially thought he was criticising the idea that politics can be evidence-based, rather as opposed to what he really was criticising, a particularly school of political belief that calls itself "Evidence Based Politics".


----------



## Brainaddict (Oct 7, 2017)

Tom A said:


> I'm not disagreeing with him. I initially thought he was criticising the idea that politics can be evidence-based, rather as opposed to what he really was criticising, a particularly school of political belief that calls itself "Evidence Based Politics".


The problem does go a bit deeper than that. As I said in my little footnote above, once you include politics as part of your 'evidence', everything becomes complicated and you inevitably lose the quantitative rigour that evidenced-based policy is often aiming for. Politics is often about interpretation, so once you allow it into your calculations, the 'right' and 'wrong' answers often become a matter of interpretation - however good some of your evidence might be.


----------



## flickerx (Oct 21, 2017)

I see indymedia.org seems to have been reanimated from the grave, after a four year silence on their front page. Wonder what happened there.


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## toblerone3 (Oct 22, 2017)

Brainaddict said:


> The problem does go a bit deeper than that. As I said in my little footnote above, once you include politics as part of your 'evidence', everything becomes complicated and you inevitably lose the quantitative rigour that evidenced-based policy is often aiming for. Politics is often about interpretation, so once you allow it into your calculations, the 'right' and 'wrong' answers often become a matter of interpretation - however good some of your evidence might be.



Aren't complex issues like this around the bias of perception explored by Critical Theory, but it all becomes a bit of a confusing hall of mirrors.  Alt right people have no patience with it and try and short circuit the framework of arguments back to dominant cultural narratives and "common sense".  They just don't want to engage in this type of evidence and use Cultural Marxism as a term of abuse.


----------



## toblerone3 (Oct 22, 2017)

Thread killer ///


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## Brainaddict (Oct 23, 2017)

toblerone3 said:


> Aren't complex issues like this around the bias of perception explored by Critical Theory, but it all becomes a bit of a confusing hall of mirrors.  Alt right people have no patience with it and try and short circuit the framework of arguments back to dominant cultural narratives and "common sense".  They just don't want to engage in this type of evidence and use Cultural Marxism as a term of abuse.


I don't know enough about critical theory to answer, but what I was saying is a bit more than just the 'bias of perception'. There isn't a definitively right or wrong answer to whether, say, jobs should be lost in (unionised) coalmines in order to move towards (non-unionised) wind power jobs hundreds of miles away. 'Bias' implies that elimination of some measurable bias could reach an answer that is objectively right. But 'politics' means among other things the moral/ethical frameworks through which people see the world, their relationships with people, what they 'know' from their past experience and so on. No-one is free of this, and there is no position to view the problem from that would clear away the muddiness of the waters.

What you end up with is recognising that politics is always about conflicts between competing views of the world. You can't just factor it into the 'evidence' you want to use to cut through the problem.


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## likesfish (Oct 26, 2017)

I've known people who could have been shoe in for state inflitrator they were probably just people who wanted their own way regardless of the costs


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## Tom A (Jan 20, 2018)

Brainaddict said:


> There isn't a definitively right or wrong answer to whether, say, jobs should be lost in (unionised) coalmines in order to move towards (non-unionised) wind power jobs hundreds of miles away.


Well the 'right' answer regarding safeguarding of livelihoods to me would have been to gradually communities of unionised coal miners into communities of unionised wind turbine and solar panel manufacturers.


> But 'politics' means among other things the moral/ethical frameworks through which people see the world, their relationships with people, what they 'know' from their past experience and so on. No-one is free of this, and there is no position to view the problem from that would clear away the muddiness of the waters.
> 
> What you end up with is recognising that politics is always about conflicts between competing views of the world. You can't just factor it into the 'evidence' you want to use to cut through the problem.


Evidence is still required in order to construct a viable approach towards furthering a goal, including emancipation of the working classes. You need to factor in the realities of the situation, learn how people will actually react to proposals, before going in all gung-ho. It can be said that the evidence points to bottom-up approaches to improving working class communities as opposed to a top-down proposal handed down from on high.



likesfish said:


> I've known people who could have been shoe in for state inflitrator they were probably just people who wanted their own way regardless of the costs


I sadly have met several such people recently. I have seriously considered they these people are 'spooks' for some agenda (and not necessarily state agenda), and frightened myself by the fact I was discussing this in all seriousness, but I am quite happy to go with them just wanting their own way and happy to wreck the whole organisation in the process of trying to get their way. The razors of Occam and Hanlon prove to be very useful in such situations.


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## likesfish (Jan 21, 2018)

some people can't or won't play well with others so end up in small or new organisations sometimes they turn out to be brilliant mavericks who change everything. Other times they just end up as wrecking assholes  by their fruits you will know them.


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## taffboy gwyrdd (Feb 13, 2018)

This might interest people. 

One reason for burnout etc. is that voluntary efforts can be unsustainable. 

The Media Fund aims to raise money and advocate for independent media in the UK.

The Media Fund offers ‘democratic’ alternative to billionaire press owners and BBC – Press Gazette

The Media Partners - The Media Fund


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## Tom A (Feb 14, 2018)

I've heard of Tom Barlow. I'll let my friend at the Manchester Meteor (a new independent media publication, a bit like the Salford Star) know, though I doubt if he hasn't already been made aware of it, may be even playing a role himself.


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