[IMC-Boston-Editorial] a little to add

[visnusdream at juno.com]

Dear friends, 
I'm tuning into this conversation, although I have little to add with regard to issue at hand: a new subject heading. 

(I think we should utilize the lists more to discuss this type of issue; but I hope we can continue to do it with a reasonable amount of decorum.)

This subject categories thing is an issue about which reasonable people might disagree. 
When Svea and I discussed it with Matt, I realized how tedious trying to come up with things like this might become, even if just one person is taking sole responsibility for it. Consensus management can make everything more cumbersome and slow, but it is the way we have chosen to do things. 

I would like to say that I hope we can reach more decisions on-line, because I hope we can start making more decisions and getting more done. However, when someone raises a legitimate concern, as Pete has done in this instance, his opinion must be honored just as it would be in a live meeting. In my opinion, the on-line forum is in some ways more fair than face to face meetings. For instance, there are less time and scheduling restraints; more people can participate. I feel that even if someone does propose that we wait until group meetings to make all descions, as Pete has informally done, we should expedite our decision making process by thoroughly discussing issues throughout the month on-line. 
My favorite part of IMC organization is the decision making process. It is self-illuminating to have my opinion swayed. 
For instance, when Seva put forward the idea of a War/Militarism heading I thought that it was a good idea. I have wanted such a heading several times myself. However, once Matt explained how they came up with the current headings I started to feel that it might be a little premature to change the work others had done. 
Pete has reinforced my opinion in that regard. 

I think that it might be good to revisit the subject headings at some time in the future. (I'm not sure why we need both a GLBT/Queer heading and a Gender heading.) However, I'm not sure now is the best time to wrangle over something like this. 
I suggest that if Svea or Sofia feel strongly that they want to add War/Militarism, they should address the dual headings problem. Is there a way to fold International into something else? I haven't considered all the options, but since the BIMC has dedicated a lot of resources to developing the current system, which conscientiously attempts to minimize confusion and shorten the list, it does not seem prudent to add more categories without careful consideration.

I'm sorry. I know I'm long winded.
 
Also, I'm not sure how much I'll be editing the site. I just want to be able to fix little things as I see them. Today, I corrected a duplicate posting but I didn;t look at much else. 
Tomorrow I may not have time to do anything.
Sincerely Yours,
Jamie