J-IMC is well known in Japan for being dominated by liberal amercian idiots who are totally disconnected from the movement.

No-one here I know has any respect for this resource at all and that is why they don't use it.

J-IMC sort it fucking out!

Nigel,

I deleted it. I'll send an email to the list, see what the other editors want to do.

I deleted it because:

1) The article's links to Japan are tenuous. They basically amount to the fact that the products of the mine can be used to make nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons were once used against Japan, the mine was open in the early forties and the US was interested in it. If you've evidence you want to cite that products of the mine were used in fat man and little boy the please share.

2) the story is only in english and you've posted the same story to multiple imcs, including

sydney.indymedia.org.au/story/marathon-not-running-rules-uranium-venture-dumps-waste-park
where it belongs, and others:
(eg
londonontario.indymedia.org/
and
de.indymedia.org/2008/01/205582.shtml)

right now we're trying to reduce the amount of english-only content available on multiple imcs--people in japan are (citing anecdotal evidence they might be willing to discuss with you on the list) saying that lots of japanese speakers feel alienated and unwelcome by the site because so much of it is in english and has nothing to do with japan. we want more japanese involvment (see the anarchist's comment, i guess).

3) we do several of these a day, most of which are bloggers and online pharmacy's google-bombing us robotically. it's easy to tell what does and does not belong, but grey stuff like your piece (that's only even questionable because our editorial policy needs revision ie, we've yet to thoroughly qualify "relevant to japan") is likely to get deleted. if every editor tosses a coin on these, and 5 editors look at it, you're looking at a 1/2^5 chance or 1/32 getting kept, no?

anyway, it's back up for now, i'll write the list, cc you.

Hi Nigel-

please note that your article has not been "censored" or "deleted", just removed from the top page ("hidden"). it can still be read here:
japan.indymedia.org/newswire/display/4152/index.php

like most imcs at this point, we do not have an 'anything goes' open publishing newswire. our current editorial policy can be found here japan.indymedia.org/mod/info/display/policy/index.php

your posting for example goes against
"3. Non-Japanese language posts without clear relevance to the region (Japanese, Hokkaido and Ryukyuu Islands, East Asia) or social movements.
and
5. Cross-postings to multiple open publishing venues, esp. IMCs. If you want to organize internationally, think of your audience and make a sincere effort at localization, including translation. Certain movement announcements or calls for solidarity may be OK."

As such we would be justified in deleting it alltogether.

we had a short discussion about this on the mailing list and other editors agreed. if you look through the list of hidden articles you will see many like yours. you have not been singled out.

last, please understand we are a very small team of volunteers and we are rather exhausted battling against aggressive cross-posters, spammers and worse, and actually trying to encourage locally relevant postings. Please respect that our resources are limited- ie. Time, concentration and, not least server space.

I am shocked that you are working on indymedia and cannot see the relevance...I suppose you dont believe the loss of old growth forests in Tasmania (Japan the purchaser of such) is not relevant..fine..keep your head in the sand!!

Nigel,
(I guess you're Nigel again?)
The links are tenuous, not nonexistent, and between that and the cross-posting to multiple IMCs it found itself lumped in with the various clutter and deleted (and I have since undeleted it).

If you were to rewrite the original article to highlight its connection to Japan (with emphasis on the origins of the fat man and little boy materials and/or the japanese lumber market's role as primary buyer of Tasmanian lumber, or whatever the facts would support) and excise lots of what isn't directly relevant (you can use "for a fuller discussions, see:" type links), there's a good chance people with editors would embrace the article, adding Japanese translations, nominating it for feature status, etc. But if you don't take the extra steps to write different versions for different readerships, we're inclined to look at and say "this belongs in an Australian IMC; it's up at imc sydney now; no need for it here."

nigel- did you bother to read the editorial guidelines? if not, stop wasting our time. and stop shouting censorship. it's ridiculous. localize your article properly (as suggested by the other editorial member above), and/or find yourself a translator and your work will be more than welcome. mindless crossposting does not help you get read, and it clogs up this newswire with english language posts.

besides, the newswire is generally not the place for editorial discussions. these should be lead on the list or directly with editors by e-mail, or in the comment section of the concerned article.
If other editors agree, will move this discussion there.

--->J-IMC is well known in Japan for being dominated by liberal amercian idiots who are totally disconnected from the movement.
No-one here I know has any respect for this resource at all and that is why they don't use it.

J-IMC sort it fucking out!

<-- and you are obviously so well connected that you feel no need to post. So then fine, don't bother checking either. The only things that are hidden are things which are commonly hidden in all IMCs. IMCs are not anything goes. Some journalistic standards apply....this hs nothimg to do with ideology. But being a radical is not enough. You need to distinguish reporting of events from ranting and attacking.

arturo- not sure if 'journalistic standards' is the right word, (insofar as all 'standards' are ideological). we're mostly busy deleting spam and stuff that people post from abroad without regard for local readers. and yes there is room for improvement doing outreach etc. but with this amount of resources, this is what we can do.

Basically, "anarchists", your comment is just name calling- (nonsense besides, which american liberals?)- no constructive critique, no realistic suggestions on how to do it better, less yet an offer to constribute. if you're dissatisfied with this imc, there are two easy ways- join and improve it or start your own.

If you know how to do it better, by all means do start your own IMC. but perhaps you just want to complain. fine. but stop wasting our time.

anarchists,

_specifically_ what problems or issues would you like us to sort out? what suggestions can you make as to how we should do so? are you willing to help in any ways beyond diagnosing our problems?

i can understand if you feel imc japan is underachieving or failing to represent movements you feel to be important. it might be better to address those frustrations by working with--or at least attempting a dialog with us--rather than venting them here.

(note:edited per arturo's comment below)

Nat. Hi, no no, not me. I am supporting you. I am criticizing 'anarchists' who wrote the original posting. I just quoted their sentence.

Can someone explain to me why this article ("Japan Indymedia should shut down") is (still) published on the right column as a news article? For me, this article is just a comment/complaint about the imc and contains no news.

because we don't want to censor criticism. this is where the critics put it, so this is where we're leaving it. should they have sent comment of this sort to the list? probably. but any attempt to move it to a more "appropriate" place coule be interpreted as an attempt to hide criticism of the imc, so we leave it here.

could probably categorize as "commentary" it to allow users to filter it out.
--nate

I can understand that you don't want to censor criticism. But from a journalistic point of view, wouldn't it be better to open a discussion forum or an extra column for comments or critique towards IMC? Because this article doesn't really fit from its content/quality/message to the other articles posted on the right column. If the IMC understands itself as a serious journalistic project, it should separate news articles from comments or at least mark comments as comments and not as news articles. And that has nothing to do with censorship but with helping the readers to orientate.

Jesus christ. Leave the Japanese crew alone assholes. If they don't want the story, post it on sydney.

Believe it or not *the whole world doesnt revolve around austraia*. Hell I even live there and I know that!

Quit bullying assholes. Leave Japan alone.

hi lustig- yes, of course it would be better to have a separate space for these kinds of postings and discussions, but right now we do not. We'll take that into account for the renewal -- which we'll hopefully be able to manage ahead of time of the indigenous people's summit in ainumoshiri (hokkaido) and the G8 main events.

overall, this whole discussion has been surprisingly helpful in getting us to think about improvements to the site and editorial policy. also, it's nice to see a lively discussion- makes me feel like people actually care what happens here. (^-^) I would not want to have these discussions often (and we have so far usually deleted/hidden policy violators and their censorship shouts), but every now and then a public discussion on editorial matters can be good and add to transparency. Would like to get a summary of this discussion in japanese ... transparent editorial process is still rare and poorly understood in jp.

recategorized as commentary and added note to title.