> Maybe my mis-judgment in these cases is just a personal
> problem on my part. I'll pay more attention to article
> content before I post any comments.

We have a procedure for addressing such questions: write to imc-sc (at) lists.indymedia.org specifying the post in question and your argument in favor of it.

In addition to enforcement of our local-only policy, there's also a known bug creeping around in the system whereby posting a comment to an article will sometimes cause it to be hidden by mistake. Evil, nasty, icky problem for which a solution is in the works but still.. it exists.

> On the other hand, if local people post comments that
> bring the discussion down into the realm of relevance to
> local concerns, I would hope that the IMC would respect
> the nature of THAT content

Anyone desperate enough for attention can post an article about the enzyme composition of yak milk from 1960's India and make an argument for local relevance to Santa Cruz.

The resulting grey area of your proposed solution opens a floodgate which we do not have the people resources to manage - nor is it an efficient use of our time, given that those same issues are inevitably being discussed on countless other web sites which are just as easy for people to access as this noe.

We set up the SCIMC to bring local news to light. That is why we have invested extra-ordinary amounts of time, energy, and money into it. Please respect our blood, sweat, and tears by respecting our purpose.

The internet is a wide open playing field, you know. If you want your own space with your own rules, by all means help yourself to the tools that are out there. That's what we did, and this is the space we have created - and our local-only policy is part of that creation, and part of the reason we created it.

-Van,
giving The Speech for probably the 28th time.