My beliefs can be summed up as follows:
I believe everyone should be free.
I believe all animals should be free.
I believe that the environment is more important than petty posessions.
I believe that in order to ensure these ideas, anything should be done to achieve them.
This does not include dictatorship etc... but instead a more de-centralised system - where EVERYONE is heard, ie. consensus. Or more specifically Anarchy.
The world is more important than you or I. Just because the way I write isn't very good doesn't mean my views aren't.
I believe in education. This involves stunts, stalls and demonstrations of all shapes and sizes. It also includes discussions and learning more myself.
That is one of the problems we, as activists, face. All we receive is blank faces when trying to inform people because they are being blindsided by other, richer and more powerful, people.
We are not living in a democracy. We can choose between 3 people in elections for our area. How democratic. Everyones voice should be heard in all decisions else things will always be bad for someone.
This is the root of the worlds problems - people are ignored and instead the governments pander to those with most money.
I do post to indymedia uk regularly. The news wire doesn't have an editor though - as it is an open forum.
The articles in the middle (features) have editors though...
No. I stated that the action (if it occurred) was dumb.
Things can be done far better than that, just look at demonstrating.
Personally, being an activist, I see my views as being backed up by science and the views of those who come and pick holes in the arguments (admittedly not very well put sometimes) that I post as being irrelevant.
We do not live in a democracy - the government aren't my voice. They don't represent my views.
I am obivously arguing with some very right winged people here, so I will end this now.
If, as the case seems to be, the action was done to highlight the damage done to the environment by cars. This appears to have been dropped on a freight train. This means that lives were not at risk, only cars.
Your argument can be extended backwards - what about the freedom to breath fresh air, not have concrete everywhere (or tarmac) and not have to worry about the environment being destroyed by cars? Surely this freedom can be preserved by getting rid of cars (true the thing this person supposedly did was dumb)?
Insults - very mature. A lot of the things I report are not possible to get other sources, get this, AS I AM THE ONLY PERSON THEIR REPORTING IT!!! So using your logic, I cannot post something because someone else didn't back me up? I have been interviewed by newspapers who send 1 reporter and then produce an article from that persons experience. This isn't double sourced? It is standard reporting.
If others are there then they will report it and you can make a comparison of the articles. The same as in a court of law - one persons POV is read out and cross examined and then anothers, thus building up a fuller picture.
Also, as you stated before - the site is not perfect. Therefore a single article posted on the newswire is not good enough to use as a 'confession'. Instead it is good enough to see as someone trying to cause trouble.
You should look at indymedia as a forum. Information is passed onto it and people decide whether they believe it or not. Same with everything else. Obviously, you don't believe anything indymedia has on it but do believe everything that other media has to say (or so it seems). The media does not always 'double source their articles - most of it being opinion but labelled as fact. How does this differ from indymedia?
I post fact. As I am there and see things with my eyes and hear things with my ears. They are facts.
Saying something like 'One of the people shouted 'Blah Blah'' is a fact if it happened. It is not gossip.
You have some very strange ideas about facts - maybe you have bought into the ordinary media too much.
Obviously you have weird moral values. (As stated by you comment about indymedia having weak ethics - they stand for protecting everyones freedom, the earth and animal rights, how is this not a high ethical policy?)
Honesty is a tool - it is useful when battling against other honest beings but when the others are dishonest, you can be also.
Religion is a control - created to make people do things how the controlling individuals want them done. Nothing more nothing less. The concept of honesty is a religious one - as being dishonest is a sin etc...
I post news to indymedia and I would not sell to papers. Also, a lot of papers wouldn't touch 98% of the articles on indymedia because they don't follow their corporate lines and would damage their sponsorship from other companies.
The entire point of indymedia is to be a place for independant journalists and normal people to post information that they know to be true. As stated before it is not possible to 'double source' everything.
The point is to be able to get the information out quickly and efficiently - not to send to a paper and wait whilst it is passed through 90 editors and isn't the same article when it is done.
Regarding violent crime. There is no evidence of the crime being committed other than the original post. None, nada, nothing. So why do you think this should be followed?
What is violent crime? Against people? Property? what?
WHAT? What a stupid rant. Have you any EVIDENCE of this? All that has happened is that grass roots groups have planned a series of marches, demos and information shops for the summit. There is no evidence of 'inciting riots' other than moronic articles in news papers designed to scare people.
Freedom of expression is a right. Just because many, many people want to do it at once doesn't meant they are terrorists or rioters etc... It just means they are all making their opinions shown.
Stop buying into propaganda and wait and see what will happen. If there are riots, look at what caused them. (The riots in genoa were started by the police).
Why does it make your lives hell if people turn up to your town?
The protesters aren't doing this, the authorities are - apparrently to prevent crime but there is no real evidence that anything will happen.
Forgot to say.
What do you mean by 'Especially people with the same casual relationship to honesty that indymedia has.'?
Does this mean that you are honest all the time? Does this mean that everyone should be honest all the time? This is a flawed moral argument.
What if a murderer came and asked you where someone they were chasing went? Would you tell them? Honesty is a stupid ideal created by religion. It is not a practical way of getting change - as the other side is never honest...
Many of the posters on indymedia are NUJ members - this makes them journalists. Therefore indymedia is a journalistic group.
So you think that every crime that is posted on indymedia (I think there are a lot) should be dealt with by the police? How quickly would you then realise how draconian laws are in this country and you would realise that the law isn't all it is cracked up to be.
The police will spend as much time annoying people by keeping the server. I had a computer seized once and it took me over 5 months to get it back. The actual work they did on it took them 1 week. They are not some friendly 'do good' force.
The only reason they went after the information was become some moron (Mark 'Zaskar' Watson) contacted the police and said 'hey, they keep IP logs' - thus showing they do believe every tom dick and harry regarding evidence.
Ha, journalistic integrity? And you think other news sources give out sources to their facts? No, most of the media is opinions in a spin to make them look like facts.
Indymedia is somewhere were people can post information regarding grass roots actions. Most of the time the poster is the only one who can provide the evidence of the events. What? Do they have to go find a 'reputable' person everytime they wish to report something.
It is obvious with the way indymedia operates that the information provided should be taken with a pinch of salt. Just like any 'news'.
Logs are a private issue. Why should a free news site have to give out the logs of many people who went to their site just because of someone doing something illegal?
It would set a dangerous precident in free and independant media - as no-one would post actions on the sites without fear of repercussions.
--
I do not condone illegal activities unless they are against an oppressive regime... Is the UK oppressive? You decide.
They refused and gave a good set of reasons:
1. They are a journalist group, therefore have journalistic privelidge and do not have to release sources of articles
2. It is against their policies to hand out peoples details to the police (to cover all eventualities)
3. This is the good one! They don't keep IP logs? How complicated is that for someone to understand?
Also, the 'vandalism' is actually a rumour - there is no proof of such an event occurring (other than the original newswire article).
What is your meaning of 'because that's the kind of people they are'? I am involved in indymedia and know for a fact that co-operation with the police is not going to happen due to a probable drop in the number of users of the sites. Would people post their actions - which could be legally dodgy - on a site that gave out details to the police willy-nilly?
I just think you are trolling and trying to follow some sort of 'anti-leftist' agenda.
From personal experience (having computer equipment seized) they take the computer, (pulling plug out of back - not powering down), remove the drives, mirror them and then search the mirrors for basic evidence.
They then scrawl all over the discs in permanent marker and stick a annoyingly sticky label on the computer.
Remember that in most cases it will be a normal cop who does the searching of the computer. Computer experts are expensive to use.
The whole idea is to provide an independant forum for free exchange of information relating to the grass roots movement. This means that it is for putting stories up about demos, other sides to corporate media stories etc...
You think it is manipulative? Have you looked at any other form of news? They all manipulate - that is their sole purpose. Either to get you to do something or buy something.
Just because you believe you are in a 'free press' area, doesn't mean you are - your press is VERY HEAVILY controlled by the government.
Yes indymedia has a few nuts on it. However it is a good site to find out what actions have been occuring recently.
It isn't the same as FoxNews etc... As they post what is generally 'nice to hear' as in it won't scare people or if it does, it is for the good of the administration of the USA.
The BBC is the same in the UK - it does what the government says (most of the time). Why not use a service such as google news to find a nice platter of sources for news?
You lack simple business knowledge. If you have no marketting background then you either pay for someone to do it for you, or you learn yourself (or fail as a business).
Companies WILL become innovative in ways of advertising - otherwise they will go bust. It is as simple as that. They will not make enough revenue from pay as you go users, as not many will do this (how many people *sign up* to free content sites?).
You cannot blame the end user for not liking a part of a service. The world is customer led. If the customer says jump, the companies should say how high...
People channel hop during ads on tv, so they brought out product placement in TV shows and movies etc...
Err... You should never have to use something like Javascript to perform navigation! Bloody hell, why can't people think about accessibility? How is someone with a screen reader or braille reader going to be able to use that (most of these DO NOT support javascript, cookies etc...).
Why not create your site using non-eye candy related techs. XHTML, CSS are all you need. Javascript is ok for very few things - and personally I never use it. Everything that javascript does can be done better using server side scripting or some other way.
That isn't the argument at hand here. The argument that I would put forward is that the prior examples have no rights as these names are used in their respective segments of the software market - without prior usage of the trademarks.
Example - Kodak have the trademark 'Gold'. This stops people creating camera film named 'Gold'. It does not stop people creating software called 'Gold'.
I always thought that Trademarks could only be claimed in their particular field - the depth of that particular industry/field depending.
So in this case (as software is a VERY LARGE field) Firefox should be ok as a trademark as long as it has not been registered previously as the trademark for a web browser.
If the field is widened, then it might apply to all software (which it never should as that would be like widening the scope to a ridiculous level) then the trademark could still be proven that it doesn't use the goodwill or brand awareness of the other trademark in order to 'sell'.
But then again - what do the rules matter? Look at the US Patent Office.
Slashdot Mirror
My beliefs can be summed up as follows: I believe everyone should be free. I believe all animals should be free. I believe that the environment is more important than petty posessions. I believe that in order to ensure these ideas, anything should be done to achieve them. This does not include dictatorship etc... but instead a more de-centralised system - where EVERYONE is heard, ie. consensus. Or more specifically Anarchy. The world is more important than you or I. Just because the way I write isn't very good doesn't mean my views aren't. I believe in education. This involves stunts, stalls and demonstrations of all shapes and sizes. It also includes discussions and learning more myself. That is one of the problems we, as activists, face. All we receive is blank faces when trying to inform people because they are being blindsided by other, richer and more powerful, people. We are not living in a democracy. We can choose between 3 people in elections for our area. How democratic. Everyones voice should be heard in all decisions else things will always be bad for someone. This is the root of the worlds problems - people are ignored and instead the governments pander to those with most money.
I do post to indymedia uk regularly. The news wire doesn't have an editor though - as it is an open forum. The articles in the middle (features) have editors though...
So people should pay for freedom of expression? Ok, you owe me 2p due to the time it took me to read the article?
Edinburgh handles the Edinburgh festival - and that goes ok.
You reasons show that the government is altering the running patterns of the town (closing roads etc...). NOT THE PROTESTORS.
Those reasons are not enough for me.
No. I stated that the action (if it occurred) was dumb. Things can be done far better than that, just look at demonstrating. Personally, being an activist, I see my views as being backed up by science and the views of those who come and pick holes in the arguments (admittedly not very well put sometimes) that I post as being irrelevant. We do not live in a democracy - the government aren't my voice. They don't represent my views. I am obivously arguing with some very right winged people here, so I will end this now.
No, you are misquoting me. I stated that lies and trust are a tool. I did not say what I do. I said that is what occurs.
If, as the case seems to be, the action was done to highlight the damage done to the environment by cars. This appears to have been dropped on a freight train. This means that lives were not at risk, only cars. Your argument can be extended backwards - what about the freedom to breath fresh air, not have concrete everywhere (or tarmac) and not have to worry about the environment being destroyed by cars? Surely this freedom can be preserved by getting rid of cars (true the thing this person supposedly did was dumb)?
Insults - very mature. A lot of the things I report are not possible to get other sources, get this, AS I AM THE ONLY PERSON THEIR REPORTING IT!!! So using your logic, I cannot post something because someone else didn't back me up? I have been interviewed by newspapers who send 1 reporter and then produce an article from that persons experience. This isn't double sourced? It is standard reporting. If others are there then they will report it and you can make a comparison of the articles. The same as in a court of law - one persons POV is read out and cross examined and then anothers, thus building up a fuller picture.
Also, as you stated before - the site is not perfect. Therefore a single article posted on the newswire is not good enough to use as a 'confession'. Instead it is good enough to see as someone trying to cause trouble.
You should look at indymedia as a forum. Information is passed onto it and people decide whether they believe it or not. Same with everything else. Obviously, you don't believe anything indymedia has on it but do believe everything that other media has to say (or so it seems). The media does not always 'double source their articles - most of it being opinion but labelled as fact. How does this differ from indymedia?
I post fact. As I am there and see things with my eyes and hear things with my ears. They are facts. Saying something like 'One of the people shouted 'Blah Blah'' is a fact if it happened. It is not gossip. You have some very strange ideas about facts - maybe you have bought into the ordinary media too much.
Obviously you have weird moral values. (As stated by you comment about indymedia having weak ethics - they stand for protecting everyones freedom, the earth and animal rights, how is this not a high ethical policy?)
Honesty is a tool - it is useful when battling against other honest beings but when the others are dishonest, you can be also.
Religion is a control - created to make people do things how the controlling individuals want them done. Nothing more nothing less. The concept of honesty is a religious one - as being dishonest is a sin etc...
I post news to indymedia and I would not sell to papers. Also, a lot of papers wouldn't touch 98% of the articles on indymedia because they don't follow their corporate lines and would damage their sponsorship from other companies.
The entire point of indymedia is to be a place for independant journalists and normal people to post information that they know to be true. As stated before it is not possible to 'double source' everything.
The point is to be able to get the information out quickly and efficiently - not to send to a paper and wait whilst it is passed through 90 editors and isn't the same article when it is done.
Regarding violent crime. There is no evidence of the crime being committed other than the original post. None, nada, nothing. So why do you think this should be followed?
What is violent crime? Against people? Property? what?
Yes but this contradicts your earlier statement of the police following the word of every 'tom dick and harry'.
One person says 'they keep logs', the group of many people turn around and say 'no we don't, it is against policies available on the site'.
This should lead the police to believe that the informant is a moron.
WHAT? What a stupid rant. Have you any EVIDENCE of this? All that has happened is that grass roots groups have planned a series of marches, demos and information shops for the summit. There is no evidence of 'inciting riots' other than moronic articles in news papers designed to scare people.
Freedom of expression is a right. Just because many, many people want to do it at once doesn't meant they are terrorists or rioters etc... It just means they are all making their opinions shown.
Stop buying into propaganda and wait and see what will happen. If there are riots, look at what caused them. (The riots in genoa were started by the police).
Why does it make your lives hell if people turn up to your town?
The protesters aren't doing this, the authorities are - apparrently to prevent crime but there is no real evidence that anything will happen.
Forgot to say. What do you mean by 'Especially people with the same casual relationship to honesty that indymedia has.'? Does this mean that you are honest all the time? Does this mean that everyone should be honest all the time? This is a flawed moral argument. What if a murderer came and asked you where someone they were chasing went? Would you tell them? Honesty is a stupid ideal created by religion. It is not a practical way of getting change - as the other side is never honest...
Many of the posters on indymedia are NUJ members - this makes them journalists. Therefore indymedia is a journalistic group. So you think that every crime that is posted on indymedia (I think there are a lot) should be dealt with by the police? How quickly would you then realise how draconian laws are in this country and you would realise that the law isn't all it is cracked up to be. The police will spend as much time annoying people by keeping the server. I had a computer seized once and it took me over 5 months to get it back. The actual work they did on it took them 1 week. They are not some friendly 'do good' force. The only reason they went after the information was become some moron (Mark 'Zaskar' Watson) contacted the police and said 'hey, they keep IP logs' - thus showing they do believe every tom dick and harry regarding evidence.
Ha, journalistic integrity? And you think other news sources give out sources to their facts? No, most of the media is opinions in a spin to make them look like facts. Indymedia is somewhere were people can post information regarding grass roots actions. Most of the time the poster is the only one who can provide the evidence of the events. What? Do they have to go find a 'reputable' person everytime they wish to report something. It is obvious with the way indymedia operates that the information provided should be taken with a pinch of salt. Just like any 'news'.
Logs are a private issue. Why should a free news site have to give out the logs of many people who went to their site just because of someone doing something illegal? It would set a dangerous precident in free and independant media - as no-one would post actions on the sites without fear of repercussions. -- I do not condone illegal activities unless they are against an oppressive regime... Is the UK oppressive? You decide.
They refused and gave a good set of reasons: 1. They are a journalist group, therefore have journalistic privelidge and do not have to release sources of articles 2. It is against their policies to hand out peoples details to the police (to cover all eventualities) 3. This is the good one! They don't keep IP logs? How complicated is that for someone to understand? Also, the 'vandalism' is actually a rumour - there is no proof of such an event occurring (other than the original newswire article). What is your meaning of 'because that's the kind of people they are'? I am involved in indymedia and know for a fact that co-operation with the police is not going to happen due to a probable drop in the number of users of the sites. Would people post their actions - which could be legally dodgy - on a site that gave out details to the police willy-nilly? I just think you are trolling and trying to follow some sort of 'anti-leftist' agenda.
From personal experience (having computer equipment seized) they take the computer, (pulling plug out of back - not powering down), remove the drives, mirror them and then search the mirrors for basic evidence. They then scrawl all over the discs in permanent marker and stick a annoyingly sticky label on the computer. Remember that in most cases it will be a normal cop who does the searching of the computer. Computer experts are expensive to use.
The whole idea is to provide an independant forum for free exchange of information relating to the grass roots movement. This means that it is for putting stories up about demos, other sides to corporate media stories etc... You think it is manipulative? Have you looked at any other form of news? They all manipulate - that is their sole purpose. Either to get you to do something or buy something. Just because you believe you are in a 'free press' area, doesn't mean you are - your press is VERY HEAVILY controlled by the government.
Yes indymedia has a few nuts on it. However it is a good site to find out what actions have been occuring recently. It isn't the same as FoxNews etc... As they post what is generally 'nice to hear' as in it won't scare people or if it does, it is for the good of the administration of the USA. The BBC is the same in the UK - it does what the government says (most of the time). Why not use a service such as google news to find a nice platter of sources for news?
You lack simple business knowledge. If you have no marketting background then you either pay for someone to do it for you, or you learn yourself (or fail as a business). Companies WILL become innovative in ways of advertising - otherwise they will go bust. It is as simple as that. They will not make enough revenue from pay as you go users, as not many will do this (how many people *sign up* to free content sites?). You cannot blame the end user for not liking a part of a service. The world is customer led. If the customer says jump, the companies should say how high... People channel hop during ads on tv, so they brought out product placement in TV shows and movies etc...
Err... You should never have to use something like Javascript to perform navigation! Bloody hell, why can't people think about accessibility? How is someone with a screen reader or braille reader going to be able to use that (most of these DO NOT support javascript, cookies etc...). Why not create your site using non-eye candy related techs. XHTML, CSS are all you need. Javascript is ok for very few things - and personally I never use it. Everything that javascript does can be done better using server side scripting or some other way.
That isn't the argument at hand here. The argument that I would put forward is that the prior examples have no rights as these names are used in their respective segments of the software market - without prior usage of the trademarks. Example - Kodak have the trademark 'Gold'. This stops people creating camera film named 'Gold'. It does not stop people creating software called 'Gold'.
I always thought that Trademarks could only be claimed in their particular field - the depth of that particular industry/field depending.
So in this case (as software is a VERY LARGE field) Firefox should be ok as a trademark as long as it has not been registered previously as the trademark for a web browser.
If the field is widened, then it might apply to all software (which it never should as that would be like widening the scope to a ridiculous level) then the trademark could still be proven that it doesn't use the goodwill or brand awareness of the other trademark in order to 'sell'.
But then again - what do the rules matter? Look at the US Patent Office.