UkNetworkMeeting2008MinutesSunday

Table of content :

Sunday morning

Web 2.0

web 2.0 - The use of the web has changed radically since broadband is broadly available. What it can offer to indymedia. There are a few proposals from Bristol. Before these proposals, we want to know what indymedia is nowadays for ourselves. The following is a round of people's current vision of indymedia.

- Great, specially for big actions and its reporting. Also local news, and for groups that otherwise have no access to publish anything, it is an activists' resource.

- Together with the people who fit kitchens, toilets, indymedia is one more resource. Also a web of communication channels that connect lots of movements. In a way a political organising tool, and for development of political concepts.

- A network, and that's the more power of the thing. People from all over the world can be informed from what is going on. It is not a free speech site. The first reason for its creation was the inadequacy of mainstream reports, the presentation of news stories by citizen journalist is the best way to represent what happens to them. Individual groups putting an effort in the presentation of their own to their own tribe, indymedia is the common ground for all.

So many websites around, and every one can use them; indymedia is a tool for activists from activists. We can have a forum but that's not the main aim, it is a tool for activists.

The open publishing side – still is what we do.

An organising and reporting tool. In case of evictions in Europe, very evident from what you read that people would organise in indymedia and also report back.

Strategy in the way we present ourselves has evolved, some decisions on presentation could be reevaluated. Like not presenting that we have partners like schnews is not matter any more, we can be open about our links.

It is not a free speech site, it doesn't need to be, it has a strong political agenda and it is a direct action itself, we set up a media centre in a city or the middle of a field, it is an action itself, contesting right there the way in which capitalism works, it is direct action.

Connection network, it is a living thing, a living network that evolves with the times and technologies. It is information and also based on social issues and people and it should go with people at the same time. It can reinvent itself. While being an information network.

It has got a dynamic of a group and should exploit this possibility.

Participatory news site and the outplace to communicate for activists. Dispatch with info on the day of actions.

information to activists.

Democratising of media outlets.

Reflection of inward looking of activism. The way we are a guetto and how we look. It has got to get beyond our groups, it can be a lot more, if something is viewable on the net it has to be more accessible by other people as well. We have an influence on what happens politically. Every one can open publish in other site, but there is something different in indymedia to offer.

Grassroots, radical, collaborative open publishing, and every of those is equally important. Project has grown so much it is difficult to keep it in the same place, different people think different things. Sometimes there are comfilcts of interest between people and that is why it was proposed to split it into sub projects.

Don't agree about indy is not a free speech website because never heard argued that it is, at lesat not in uk although maybe in usa. For some people who are not here today indy is a resource run by other people that they can use to get their ideas and actions across. There have been reports posted by animal rights activists who are massively repressed do need use it, antifascist activists, in the past phsycological campaigns ... they use indymedia, some indy activists have problems with that but their voices are not here because they are not indymedia activists. Also activists in london against war in iran, reposts in other sites, sees indymedia as a platform where to alert other activists and have articles republished that the mainstream media do not publish. These people are not coming here but we provide a service for them as well.

Want to have a revolution that can change society, and the media has a real role for that. Indymedia can be a lot more, we can look at how to develop social power for the streets, for people .. to make that happen ... part of our role is to get a new wave when there is a “crisis” of participation.

People are able to tell their stories. This is not about individuals with blogs, but being part of something bigger.

Useful to learn about different movements and struggles, and it is been a part of development of social activism, and empowering to get involved locally. Indymedia has appealed, and getting people getting interested is also a kind of activism.

Primarily a tool for social movements to communicate. Would like to see as something accessible to a wider audience, this is achievable in a local level. Should be more about reporting than the leftists' opinion voicing ... Positive direction to link with existing alternative media.

Has a dual role to communicate between activists and also to open up to non-activists, to widen up. Also the way some movements use the mainstream media, and would like to know how they see the difference between using them and indymedia as well.

As a rehearsal of post-capitalist society, and it is already showing that the end of capitalism will not be the end of our problems.

Educational tool to technical skills and political tool and a way to be with people in your same boat when you go somewhere where you don't know anyone.

Summary of the round ...

resource for the movement, stress on the reports and the anonimity, we are not neutral , we do not offer a platfrom for anyting but we do have an agenda. Citizens taking control of their own media.

Tension point: the network and decentralising the network because we have become too big, maybe break it down? who our audience is, wehther you audience is guetto, or the wider, or both, they are three different strategies for each target audience.

We are a democratic media site, and that differentiate us from blogger or myspace.

New server

Has taken longer than expected, but it is now in the colo in manchester. The plan originally was and still is to set it up for a mir production server, once it is ready to act as this, the techie people will move all sites from traven on to this new server, called strummer, strummer.indymedia.org.uk, named after Joe Strummer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Strummer. Once all sites currently in traven are in the new server, strummer, they will then rebuild traven in seattle and then move the uk production server only back to traven.

So at the end of this process we will have a few sites having their production server in strummer, in the uk, and the traven being the production server just for the uk. There can be space for other indymedias to have their production server in strummer as well. Should revisit possibility of virtualisation of it. Useful to run virutal servers on it, like for the calendar development. We have got the money to get another server so it would not be the end of the world if we don't do virtualisation, but this will be revisited in the tech list.

Future of web 2 for indymedia.

When indy started people couldn't publish easily, now it is ridiculously simple, now we are not the only game in town any more. We do some things that we do that others don't, like defending anonymity. There are people who use blogger instead of indymedia. They have their own guidelines as opposed to the collective, indymedia guidelines they have to abide to if they don't want their post hidden. Youtube is simpler and user friendlier than we are for videos ... Bristol talked about this and have proposed: Bristol indy to have a blogger site. Or a blog aggregator, but it places a tension. This takes us back to, who is the audience, do we just aggregate other media and use as a portal? As we are providing a service, it looks like the users are demanding good service, with a consumer approach not getting involved. Bbc allows you to publish but they are not going to invite you to discuss their guidelines or to complain if something is not published.

blogs aggregation is exciting, and doesn't need much space.

Doing what we are already doing at the same time as implementing more things is a way of preserving what we want to do.

News aggregation - Sindication from other sites or even blogs ... good automatically having updates coming from their site.

An aggregation site doesn't necessarily host content, it takes feeds like rss feeds and pools into the site and allows people to view and search on them.

We need to remember that many people like what we do as we do now, specially groups that do not have their own site.

Can run a survey / consultation.

Having a survey goes together with the consumerism idea of providing a service, so we should be dong it in a different way?

Yossarian presents the history page and the calendar he's developed.

It allows the user to register. Not giving personal informatin. People can go back and edit their own content. If we know a user of the site, we can give them the ability to, say, hide only, or edit videos only ...

agreed that the uk site will adopt the calendar system once it is finish.

the calendar is more than just the calendar, is what london plans to implement for the london site, have it as the site. For groups to have their own space too.

Syndicaton would then becomes necessary / makes sense.

We – uk indy- need to syndicate from the Bristol site we 're not even doing that.

In london we need to make political decisions before implementing something like this for the london site. We've been frustrated with mir for a while and this is why we have tried this out, to see what is possible.

Easy to have a clear remit just on events rather than also videos and articles.

Decided that we implement this events system that yossarian is presenting to the uk , mir site.

Second part title

London offers to host the next network meeting. Thinking of doing it soon, like part 2 of the meeting. Ramparts are up for hosting the meeting. There are practicalities to be sorted.

Also suggested that if prepared to camp, could do it in Talaf.

Would be happy to encourage a new local group to do the meeting as London and Scotland are less central.

Don't leave it just up to the local IMC to do all the organising.

If another collective could put a proposal in the next few weeks, if not then London as a backup.

There is a proposal to do a skills sharing with other people in Bristol but more into the future.

Suggestion to leave it for four weeks if not London.

Some say too long, others say lets do it now.

Radical roots rotate the meetings, that way you know when you will be doing. If not happened before in other areas, lets just do it in London.

Agreed, London then Leeds. The London might be be on weekend 26/27th April or 10/11th May and in the mean time prepare for next one in Leeds in about 6 months.

Good if people to set an agenda before to get things done.

Suggested the London collective take this on also.

IMC Designs

Proposals -

1. rename 'other press' as 'reposts'.
2. Ask people when they post an article if it is original or repost
3. Separate the re-posts wire from open wire so it is not duplicated.
4. Come up with editorial guidelines for reposts.

Re-post is a reposting from another media source; Defined as article published elsewhere copied and pasted on Indymedia by a third party.

Why have a reposts: don't want the frontpage to be full of material that is elsewhere.

There was discussion about defining reposts with a worry about confusion as to what is a repost. It is said this is what moderators would do and they are clear about what is a repost.

This needs to be explained to the users to make sure they understand what it is.

Corporate reposts are not what reposts were aimed at, it was aimed at radical media, blogs etc.

agreed that a smaller group of moderators draw up the editorial guidelines and come back to the list with the proposal. Proposal carried with no standasides or blocks.

Session split into moderation and audio/video talk.

IMC Session Moderation

Banning Users

Idea that if one IMC bans a user, it is reciprocated.

Said it is not that clear that if one user is banned in one place we need a formal process to ban in all.

Suggested that within the UK there is reason to trust the IMCs that if a ban is enacted, we ban across the UK.

Talked about the processes about the process of banning.

How do local cities deal with cross-posters.

Look write a private wiki about the processes of banning a user.

Differentiate between 'real' people and spammers.

Propose that we do follow Bristol ban on a user.

Don't need to create a formal process for banning, would be difficult to do.

We do need, for transparency, to create a formal process for banning for the next meeting.

Proposed a closed list to deal with this or a private wiki later?

Proposal to mutually support each other in regard to disruptive users.

Currently this will be informal and later perhaps a process. This was passed.

Anti-Semitism

There was a discussion about the anti-Semitism issue and indymedia's definitions about what constitutes anti-Semitism.

Concern that this is a prelude to an increasing climate of hiding Palestinian articles or criticisms of Israel.

Sends out a signifier that UK Indymedia has a position on their dispute.

This is a big and divisive question overall not just in the IMCs. Might be worth comparing with other positions and coming to a collective statement on this.

Might also be worth hiding the discussion about if to hide it as this should not be in the comments and a public dispute.

Post was long buried in the archives asking for the post to be hidden, so it was not controversial at the time.

Agree that what Greenstein has done and his campaign has been disruptive. All agreed this was the case. This is not a personal problem, it is a political problem. Responsibility of the collective to discuss this.

Proposal to move the disputed post into a third place that is not hidden but flagged as under discussion. Two stand-aside, no blocks. (tech wise, This will remove all the comments from the post in question.)

Proposal to to hide the article but not no platform the writer. This was blocked.

Proposal to ban Greenstein from the lists with arguing about this and hide posts about this on the lists and disruptive posts in general. This is already been done.

Proposal to discuss the issue of anti-Semitism and to get deep into the politics by those who wish to do so.
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