Changes being considered at Indy Towers October 10, 2007
Posted by franklittle in Ireland, Irish Political Blogs, Media and Journalism, media.trackback
Interesting report from a source involved with Indymedia that the site is going through a period of self-examination about how it deals with the changed landscape in terms of Irish left-wing news and commentary on the internet and the appearance of left blogging sites such as ourselves. Indeed I am led to believe, and flattered if it is true, that we were one of a number of sites specifically mentioned. Specific reference was made to a quote in the About Us section, “We’re trying to make this a blog for those of us who’ll look in on indymedia, but wince at some of the comments…”
Before going further, it should be noted by any of us on the left who use the internet as a tool for providing news and debate that we all, whether we want to acknowledge it or not, owe a debt to Indymedia. When the site was set up, which I think was about six or seven years ago, it predated the explosion of blog sites and political sites for Ireland. I remember for years there were only three political sites I checked on a daily basis. Nuzhound, Slugger and Indymedia. The people involved put in huge resources in terms of time and money, existing on a shoestring and dependent entirely on voluntary contributions of labour and money.
Since then though, there has been a huge shift in the number of left-wing sites dealing with Ireland on the internet and an even larger increase in the number of politically orientated sites in general. There has also, and here is where I get critical of Indymedia, been an increase in demand for quality material. There is a great deal of good material on Indymedia, mostly on a couple of issues such as Rossport, the war in Iraq and so on. The photo commentaries or demonstrations are always interesting. But as a source of political news and discussion it’s bedevilled by a philosophy of quantity over quality. What is there that’s good is frequently very good. But it’s like trying to find a needle in a field of haystacks. Conspiracy theories, cranks, sectarian bilge, petty point-scoring and a generally poor sense of news values dominate.
And this is without even getting into the site’s notorious annonymous comment facility, which has provided documentary evidence of the lack of maturity within the broad Irish left about politically engaging with each other. From a time when I read, and occasionally commented on, Indymedia articles I now take a quick glance and if it’s a story that interests me read it, and avoid reading the comments. Like most of us here at the Cedars, I’d glance at it occasionally and that would be it. Gone are the times when I’d get an email about such and such a story on Indymedia. Instead it’s what’s on Splintered, or Socialist Unity or Lenin’s Tomb.
So the Indymedia Collective is examing what it’s role should be in the new dispensation. Among the possibilities are continuing as they are, providing a round-up service or gateway to Irish blogging sites (Actually pretty interesting), restricting the ability to post new stories to the Collective and everything in-between. Will be interesting to see what they come up with.
This is serious news. It’s as you say, there are a small number of sites which all of us interested in politics on the island mine, Politics.ie being another to add to your list above. But it is telling that the emphasis has shifted. Incidentally, what sort of emails about Lenin’s Tomb??? !!!
If Indymedia is looking for a role for itself, I hope it doesn’t abandon its current valuable if little-advertised role as a magnet for the lunatic fringe of “left” commenters. Imagine, for example, if all that sectarianism, irrationality, and general nastiness had to find a home on a site such as CLR?
Hmmm. There’s a terrifying thought. No disrespect to the Indymedia people but the notion of the lunatics who inhabit the site set loose on the world is more than a little scarey.
WBS: I find the SWP strangely fascinating. Interesting to compare what they’re up to in Britain and the compromises they make with some of the One Solution – Revolution nonsense they spout in Dublin.
The contradictions are amazing, aren’t they? One way, one truth. Not my idea of a good time really. And the problem, for all such as myself who’ve renounced one vehicle for ideological purity, is that any other that is so wedded to such seems sort of pointless.
The point about LT is the quality (and frequency) of the postings. Not the comments boxes, nor the connection to a political party, nor even whether or not one agrees with what is said (though if one didn’t agree more often than not, it wouldn’t be of such interest). To say “I don’t like LT because of the SWP” would strike me as precisely the sort of sectarian anti-sectarianism – if you follow me – that compounds the problem which it purports to address.
This is partly what makes Indymedia such a problem – that’s it’s such a screaming match and the screaming is done just as much at people who are members of leftwing groups as by them. It’s bizarre how many people seem to think that it doesn’t matter how you express yourself as long as you know you’re in the right. It’s also the case, I think, that the autonomist and anarchist element of the left often behaves in an even more hostile and intolerant manner than some of the sectarians do.
Although LT can – perhaps predictably – also achieve its own superheated state at certain points and I’m not entirely sold on the cursory way in which other viewpoints are dismissed (occasionally by the recourse of some IS/SWP document or another from the recent or distant past as if that were holy writ), I think that’s a very fair point you make ejh. It has got a high quality of writing and doesn’t vanish like so many other blogs but retains a fairly consistent line.
The nice thing about blogs like this one is that you can discuss
issues in a reasonable manner-you don’t have to worry about “flame
wars” (do they still use that term?) or trolls.
That’s it. Flame wars, yeah, I think they still occur. And trolling thankfully is something there’s very little of. Partly I think that’s because these sort of blogs are much more self-selecting in terms of contributors. We’ve had one tiny bit of trolling AFAIK. And one really good thing is that even when people come from radically different perspectives it’s all considered with a degree of respect. No bad thing that…
The truth about indymedia is that the truth about the ingrained death drive of the irish left hurts. People hate indymedia because they can project their own failures onto it and blame it for them. It’s just a piece of code with no gatekeeper.
Indymedia has been down for a few days now.
People are saying it was brought down by an alleged
hacking incident:
http://www.politics.ie/viewtopic.php?f=164&t=34844&p=1145889#p1145889
That’s weird…
It should be borne in mind that the people talking about it on that thread are in possession of neither information nor expertise. I’m sure that indymedia will announce the reason for the interuption when it is known, thusfar, there is really no information about what caused the problem.
Chekov, do you know what exactly happened at the Antwerp Indymedia
site? According to the P.ie thread it was allegedly being
threatened with legal action.
Starkadder, I’ve no idea at all. I’ve been away for the last week so haven’t seen any of the moderation traffic. There’s an article about it here: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/05/398157.html?c=on
I’ve no idea if it was posted to indymedia.ie and if it was hidden, but if it was, it was due to the no cut and pastes policy which aims to prevent content from being duplicated across the network.
The people posting on that p.ie thread are providing nothing more than wild speculation mixed with total nonsense.
Indymedia is back online as of 9.22PM.
Hmmm… wild speculation, total nonsense… I wonder which posters that could be on P.ie…
Meanwhile, that’s good news Starkadder… btw, did you get an email I sent you a while back?
Yes, I got both of your e-mails. And the spam filter is
fixed.
I wonder what the controversy about Michelle Clarke and
Indymedia was about? One of P.ie posters raised the
issue on an external link.
“I wonder what the controversy about Michelle Clarke and
Indymedia was about? One of P.ie posters raised the
issue on an external link.”
She repeatedly posts rambling, unintelligible musings to indymedia which are routinely hidden. The small tribe of obsessive fruitloops who nurse grudges against indymedia for refusing to recognise their genius have latched onto the fact that she apparently suffers from a serious brain injury to claim that this is an anti-disablist outrage.
I’m not sure if this is the third of fourth time that the same people have decided to launch a “continuity indymedia”. Unfortunately for us, they’re too inept and egotistical to ever manage anything more than the odd conspiratastic, paranoid attack blog which never manages to accumulate an audience beyond the small tribe of obsessives and inevitably breaks down once they turn on each other whereupon they return to indymedia under a host of new identities. It’s interesting only from a net-psychopathology point of view.