As many know we have had a policy of hiding Bobby Meade Israel Deaf Messager "STUFF" the first moment someone sees it on the wire for a couple years now.
This works but not perfectly. He seems satisfied with the amount of minutes and sometimes hours he gets taking up space on our IMCs. So he still seems to
post this unrelated misguided "spam" to many wires all over the world (including here at MILWAUKEE IMC) once or twice a week!
Here's a proposal made at one of the other IMCs almost 7 years ago that might work ok here. Maybe not. I'd love to see others make suggestions as
well. Maybe we could come up with something more effective than just hiding each one the very moment it shows up.

Please note that this memo went out 7nov2001
Names and places have been made more generic.
Which IMC and who's proposing is NOT important
to us here at MILWAUKEE IMC.

Alright, folks, I think I've found a possible solution to the
Bobby Meade "Deaf Israel" Messenger problem.

First, let me outline some conclusions I think are
relatively obvious:

1) Bobby's posts hold no informational or editorial
value. The closest I've been able to come
understanding him is that he's got a beef with
shit-eating Zionist homosexuals, and is probably
mentally unstable. The examples which come to mind
immediately to support the latter are his delusions that
people are dumping asbestos and sulphur into his
apartment ventilation system, which he has mentioned
in previous articles.

2) Bobby's posts are hateful and offensive. Several
commenters have made comments underneath his
stories expressing this specific sentiment, pleasantly
asking the __LOCAL__ IMC to do something about it.

3) Bobby has been known to "mega-spam" other IMC
newswires. Twice within the last month, he has posted
more than 50 copies of a rant to the Global IMC
newswire, completely filling it with his screed of the day.
The first happened the day the bombs began falling on
Afghanistan, the second was just yesterday - and that
post was about the __LOCAL__ IMC specifically.

Now, I know that folks have been hesitant about
embarking on a course of "censorship" and want to
stay as true to the ideal of open publishing as possible.
However, I personally do not feel that Bobby is
operating in the spirit of what open publishing is really
about - and therefore some corrective action needs to
be taken about his use of our site.

If hiding further Bobby posts is not an option, then I
suggest we begin "tagging" his posts. An easy way to
do this is to go into story admin and add, oh, something
like "(BOBBY SPAM)" to the titles of his posts.

By doing so, not only do his posts remain publicly
viewable (thereby eliminating the censorship
argument), but visitors to the site are informed in
advance what they're in for when they click on one of his
rantings. Those of us who want nothing to do with him
(which I'd guess would be most, if not all of us) can
then easily skip over them and not waste our time. I
have faith in our editorial judgement in this specific
situation - hell, at least WE'RE all (relatively) sane.

IMCs that have taken to hiding Bobby posts completely
upon submission (like ___OTHER IMC___) have seen
a marked drop in abuse from him. If we're not willing to
go that route, "tagging" would seem to be an
acceptable alternative.

I agree that we should continue to hide any duplicate
posts, of course, like we've already done. I have
"tagged" the latest Bobby rants already - if anyone has a
problem with this, feel free to go into story admin and
remove the tags.

But I really feel that with Bobby's record, he is an
exception to all rules, and deserves some kind of
"special treatment." My proposal, I believe, would be a
good compromise between ideology and practicality.

Thoughts?

___LOCAL IMCISTA___

COMMENTS LEFT ON THIS ARTICLE:

junk
01.10.2007 - 17:47
I would personally still like to hide it.
jersey girl>

What about Madison Skinhead?
02.10.2007 - 04:08
One person with "list administrator" privileges told me that Milwaukee IMC regularly tries to block or delete his posts.

This same person said that Milwaukee IMC only wants certain views expressed.

Sounds like some (or all?) in Milwaukee IMC see nothing wrong with censorship.
.>

men soar ships
02.10.2007 - 13:42
I personally don't have a problem with censoring fascists whose purpose is to dominate and exlude others from participation. I care about a diversity and healthy communication among people who are respectful and don't attempt to dominate other people as their goals. Madison skinhead i'm sure would be fine with censoring us if we trid to post on the stormfront forums. This is not at all contradictory. People that attempt to control other people should not be allowed to. That's pretty simple.
jimmy jangle>

burn it down
02.10.2007 - 19:55
Getting rid of trash from useless trolls that doesn't contribute to anything is not "censorship."
nothing left>

From Rich of PhillyIMC
10.10.2007 - 14:38
Yeah, we've been dealing Bobby's crap for a number of months now. Just in case anybody wants to contact him, I've got his email address.
Yup, he's got quite a few weird theories. I agree, the guy is mentally unstable.
Rich Gardner>
e-mail:: rlg3526 (at) ix.netcom.com
Homepage:: www.phillyimc.org

Hiding Unwanted Meade Spam
11.10.2007 - 14:55
People at a few other IMC sites say they have to
hide these spams at least a couple times a week.

It sounds like the consensus around here is to
continue hiding each post as quickly as they're
found.