[imc-melbourne-work] Request for Google News to suspend Indexing

[takver]

Email sent to Google News today regarding indexing:
http://news.google.com/nwshp?q=Melbourne+Indymedia&ie=UTF-8
-- 
in solidarity
Takver


I am an editor with Melbourne Indymedia.

We would like Google News to temporarily stop automatic indexing from
our site as we cannot guarantee sufficient editorial control over
articles posted to our local newswire feed.

As an open publishing site we currently rely on submissions being
self-filtered through a brief questionnaire about each article. The
article is then posted to our site to either the Local or Crosspost
newswire according to the way the questions are answered. Most
contributors answer truthfully, but some don't. 

As editors we take our responsibility seriously and we do intervene
every day to hide articles or to move them between newswires. However we
cannot moderate the site 24/7 and sometimes articles that breach
editorial policy are not hidden for several hours (eg posted overnight)
and are thus indexed by Google News. Even though we subsequently move
offending articles to our hidden newswire, once indexed by Google, they
can still be seen by people through Google News links.

eg: http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/01/137628_comment.php
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/01/137700.php

We would like Google News to suspend news indexing for this reason.

We are currently developing a new site to address these problems of
editorial control. The new site will feature a Promoted newswire where
editors can move original content that meets our editorial guidelines
and trusted users (with authenticated user login) can post articles
directly.

I will notify you when the new site is launched so that indexing can
begin again.

Takver
Features Editor
Melbourne Indymedia
http://melbourne.indymedia.org

Member of Oceania Indymedia