Indy Media Watch

I had to add a link to Sydney Indymedia which I had erroneously left out of my last Indy Roundup and visited Sydney to recover the URL and poke around the commentary since my last visit.

Faruque Ahmed is so nutty he could probably be the subject of his very own blog. Other one-dimensional whackos have been previously singled out (E.g. Joe Vialls by Whacking Day but I have bigger fish (the whole of IMC) to monitor. I can see a number of Google searches for his name have led people to this blog (although they could also be looking for Dr Qazi Faruque Ahmed instead). Anyone interested?

Meanwhile on visiting the Aussie Indymedia sites, I came across this article on Melbourne Indymedia: Sydney is screwed.

Those who have visited Oz will know of the legendary (but mostly friendly) rivalry between Melbourne and Sydney. I figured it was more of the same, but found this instead:

Two articles on Sydney Indymedia have brought into light the question of moderation and general IMC quality.

The first, "INFANT RAPEING RABBI INFECTS VICTIMS WITH DEADLY VIRUS" - is a repeat of an article which has been consistently hidden on the Melbourne network yet remains visible in Sydney.

The second: "Zio-Nazi boy" - is presumably by the same author. It contains zero news content, threats, anti-semitism and worst of all, terrible English.

Present you arguments in support of your case, if you
have any I may add! Calling names, personal vilifications, etc are the
ultimate sign of a soar looser. Should you continue your zio-nazi
style, trust me; the gas chamber will haunt you!

Read towards the bottom of the comments and draw your own conclusions. The Sydney collective have now made it clear they will not be removing either -

"The sydney indy editorial collective has chosen not to hide either of those stories. "

- Stacy, SIMC Moderator
...
It's high time for Sydney to shape up or ship out.

This sounds like another call for Indymedia Seppuku.

In response to the statement of non-action on the part of the site's management came the following question:

We all know by now that anti-Semitism, sexism, racism etc. are fine by you and your anti-censorship/pro-hate speech editorial buddies, but seriously, how low do you actually set the bar on what actually constitutes 'news'?

A very good question indeed. The discussion should have dealt with Indymedia editorial policy, newsworthiness and general quality issues. Instead, well.. It didn't.