There are several updates here so please read if you are interested in the site.
1) The August 2010 issue of the Anarchist News Digest is online. It has stories on attacks against the existing order, the states (over)reaction, prisoners, analysis and some errata. Check it out.
2) There will be more on moderation in a later bullet but there is now a moderation group (task, hammer, serf & worker) of 4-6 people. We are still hammering out the details of what this group is going to do but for now there is a larger pool of people removing (aka unpublishing) comments. There has already been a noticeable (to me) uptick in signal over noise. This is a long struggle.
3) The question of moderation continues to be a great challenge. There are two instincts. One is to have a completely free place for people (and by people we do mean anarchist people) to question, debate, and just shoot the shit over the news. On the other is the problem of anti-anarchist commenters on the site. The philosophy of trolling is better dealt with other places but whether it is for the lulz or for implicit or explicit hostility towards anarchists it is important that other commenters on the site don’t feed the trolls. At this point those comments are just going to be removed.
4) Real time chatting. At the request of several users we have set up a web interface to supplement our IRC server. There has been a lot more traffic to the IRC server since this addition but we would like to make the invitation public. That said our IRC server is a little different than more public servers like Undernet, Dalnet, etc. It is a semi-private place for anarchists to find each other and collaborate. That said it is a good idea to familiarize oneself for some of the rules of the road for IRC.
5) We would like to ask the Anarchist News users if anyone has any interest (and skills) to help with a site redesign. The hope is to modernize the site but keep the basic elements of the site the same. We are hoping to have a conversation with someone who has the ability to help us with this. Email us at worker at anarchistnews dot org.
