CIA - Editorial Policy

ANARCHIST INFORMATION CENTER
EDITORIAL POLICY

What is CIA
1. CIA is a service for different types of publication: news, announcements, articles and statements as well as an archive for different types of texts, PDFs, graphics, films, audio files, etc. The main language of the service is Polish but you may publish in English or in another language. (To publish in another language, see the „inne języki option” in the left column. For information on how to view the service in English, click here.)

2. The service is run by an editorial collective. All articles and comments sent to CIA will be moderated by the editors. We ask you to read and become acquainted with our policies.
3. CIA is open to many different social and political topics. We encourage social activists and others to send in their news.
4. CIA is not meant for political parties, commercial organizations and groups and individuals who express views in contradiction with our editorial policy.
5. CIA is meant first and foremost as a tool to exchange informations and opinions between people from the anarchist and anti-authoritarian movements or interested people. But on CIA we publish not only information directly about the movement, but also things that interest us from an anarchist point of view.
6. CIA can be used by registered users. Please register in order to start using the service.
ABOUT PUBLISHING
7. General news is generally published in the middle of the page. Opinion pieces, statements and theoretical material are posted in the right column. Announcements without any accompanying information / article can be listed on the calendar. Films, PDFs, graphics and so one can be published in the ANARCHIVE but you can put a link to these things on the main page (with brief explanation please).
8. Articles are automatically published in the order they were received. The upper middle column is reserved for topics chosen by the editorial collective and will be used to highlight certain stories or information. Such information will usually stay there for any time from one day to one week. After this time, it will go back into the news. There may be a situation where the editors may bring that news back up to the top of the page if there is an ongoing campaign or to remind people of an important event.
Comments
9. Comments can be sent to correct information, to present a different interpretation of facts or to debate the topic of the article.
The Editorial Collective
10. Editors duties include:
a. being on duty to moderate posts in a reasonable time
b. keeping the flow of information going on the service and adding news on their duty days
c. answering users’ and readers’ questions about editorial policy
d. informing other editors about material breaking the editorial policy and initiating discussion on controversial subjects on the editors’ forum
11. New people may join the editorial collective. They should have published at least five texts on the service (this may be waived if another editor recommends this person), they should agree with the editorial policy and the other editors must unanimously vote to include this person.
REJECTING POSTS AND COMMENTS
12. CIA reserves the right to reject the following posts and comments:
a. Posts sent by political parties or groups formed by political parties
b. Posts sent by groups promoting totalitarianism, nationalism, ethnic and national hatred, religious hatred, sexism, homophobia, antisemitism, capitalist economics, church institutions, government institutions, wars between nation states and religions and elitism.
c. Posts or comments containing elements of the above or theories based in the legitimatization of the above-mentioned.
d. Posts containing information from an unrealiable source of suspected of being unfactual or a provocation. (An editor may contact the author to verify information.)
e. Comments or texts which are not logically connected with the topic.
f. Flames and other comments or texts the main purpose of which is to conduct personal attack against other readers or authors on the service.
g. Comments or posts which contain information which can be used by the police or prosecutors in order to accuse or produce evidence against people involved in the anarchist movement.
13. The accounts and IP numbers of people who flagrantly ignore the policies or who spam the service will be blocked.
POSTS RETURNED TO AUTHORS
14. Posts, which generally fit into our editorial framework but which might have some minro elements which go against our policies may be returned to sender with a comment on the controversial contents. The author will then be able to decide whether to change the article so that it is in accordance with the editorial policies or to waive publication.
(For an example of a post returned to the author, please click here.)
APPEALING A DECISION TO REJECT A POST
People who sent posts in good faith and consider their posts to be within the editorial policy should contact the editors if their posts have not been published for an explanation. People who have knowingly sent material which is obviously against the policies should not expect a reply from the editors.
PHOTOGRAPHS AND FILMS
15. We welcome the submission of photographs and films with texts. We however feel it is important to ask the permission of the people photographed before making a photo. We therefore hope that people whose pictures appear on CIA have agreed to be photgraphed and have their faces shown in the media. If people are not sure whether or not people agree to be photographed, we ask people to obscure faces.
16. In the situation where the editorial collective feels that a photograph or film may serve as a basis for legal accusations or charges against somebody shown in it, the material will not be publicized.
17. If a person contacts us that they are unhappy that their photo is on the service, we will remove it and contact the author of the photo in order to explain the situation.
18. The above rules do not apply to images of the following people:
a. state functionaries photographed or filmed while carrying out work which is financed by public funding as society has the right to monitor their actions
b. public personalities, (celebrities), including business people and other famous people
c. right-wing extremists using violence (i.e. neonazis) who can constitute a threat to society, especially those who publish photos of people on their webpages with encouragement to attack or commit violence against those people
PUBLISHING FROM OTHER SOURCES
19. We discourage people from copying whole texts from commerical services. Articles based on stories in the mainstream, commercial press should be edited and changed first.
20. Material published using anti-copyright, Copyleft or Creative Comments principles, which includes most of the material from the majority of anarchist services, can usually be reprinted. Material published on anarchist and anti-authoritarian pages may contain the name or pseudonym of the author or group but they don’t always include information on the service where they were originally published, especially when material is produced for wide distribution. The name of the author should be shown and, if an article was especially produced for a specific web page or publication, it is in good taste to mention the source.
Intellectual Property
21. All the material published here are available under a Creative Commons for noncommercial use. (Creative Commons Uznanie autorstwa-Użycie niekomercyjne 2.5 Poland.)
22. People posting on CIA agree to make their material available for non-commercial use in accordance with the license.
23. The license allows:
a. copying, distributing, playing a performing a work
b. the creation of deriative works
24. On the following conditions:
a. Crediting the author in the manner specified by the author or license giver.
b. Noncommercial use. The work cannot be used for commercial purposes.
c. If the work is used, the principles of the license which allow use should be explained.
d. Any of these conditions may be waived by the agreement of the copyright holder.
Another condition is that material published on CIA may not be used on far-right or neo-nazi pages.

RETURNED FOR EDITING – AN EXAMPLE

Such an incident happened to none other than one of our own editors and founders of this portal, Szczym.

Szczym is a great practioner of poster art and sent in a story about something we all found interesting – that right-wing extremists had also caught on to the idea. He had some photos of racists putting up posters. https://cia.media.pl/dresiarze_eksperymentuja_z_nowym_medium

In the first version of the post, there were the posters and a note that a group from Wroclaw had put them up.

A couple of people on the editorial collective reacted quickly saying that it might look as if we were promoting these activities in some way or that they were somehow connected with our movement. We took the piece of the service and asked for a clarification to be added

A few minor changes were made and then it was clearly stated that these were racists putting up this crap and it was clear that we didn’t support this, but we are just monitoring their activities.

So even editors sometimes can make some improvements to posts or accidentally break or get into grey areas of editorial policy.