[Imc-alternatives] starting with "traditional" site (was: to the non techs out there)

[Jay]

Strypey,

What I'm getting in general from your message -- please correct me if 
I'm wrong -- is the suggestion that as soon as the PhillyIMC/Drupal 
site is ready to go, as as soon as we put the alternatives name and 
design on it and tweak it to our specifications, we should put it up 
on axxs and begin to operate in a fairly traditional IMC site model, 
with a "solutions-wire" vs. "newswire," collecting information and 
reaching out to individuals and organizations  We could use that site 
as a first step, then make "agile development" goals to add new 
features each month or so, along a reasonable development 
schedule.  This would be opposed to waiting for months and months 
until we have a complete alternatives site to do a launch.  Having a 
rudimentary site up would enable to us to engage the whole world in 
our ideas and site vision, rather than just each work with other on 
this e-mail list forever.

I like this idea.  In the very beginning the alternatives IMC site 
was conceived as a "traditional" IMC site that would focus on 
alternatives information rather than regular local IMC news.  I think 
the site we're ultimatley planning to create will be much more 
important and effective than any traditional IMC site, but I 
definitely see the benefit of having an active alternatives IMC site 
to use as a launch pad.  We would therefore be developing the 
alternatives IMC site while our pilot site is awash in alternatives 
informaiton, receiving inspiration from the real life activists out 
there doing this work, rather than eventually disappear into an this 
e-mail vacuum.

Personally, I would definitely support this approach if we place it 
firmly within an active trajectory of development.  So, this 0.1 site 
would be the very first step, but we'd proceed "agilely" by adding 
new modules on a regular schedule until we've built the site we 
want.  We all know how much time managing a traditoinal Indymedia 
site can take.  We'd have to make sure we're doing this as a first 
step toward the greater vision, not as something that would suck up 
all our time and focus.

Am I getting this idea right?

Whether or not is a way we choose to proceed, I would suggest our 
doing more to actively help the PhillyIMC/Drupal site come to be.  So 
far we've been talking a lot of theory while a few PhillyIMC 
volunteers have been working on nuts and bolts.  A big part of the 
partnership between the projects has been the promise to the 
PhillyIMC to help them with our international scope an expertise.  If 
we want to make sure the PhillyIMC Drupal site does what we want it 
to do, we should do what we can to help out.

I don't want to confuse ideas, so I'll respond to your "newswire" vs. 
"knowledge-base" as a different thread.

Jay

At 8/8/2007, you wrote:
>Kia ora koutou
>
>This is a very disorganised rant but it is late and I am moving house
>tommorrow. Ignore the theorizing about infostructure if it's
>confusing. Please just have a look at what I'm proposing and respond
>in the affirmative or the negative.
>
>Basically I want to echo Jay's sentiments about keeping non-tech
>people engaged. There has been lots of good dicussion about
>co-operative infostructure on this list, and this is part of the
>alternatives ethos we want to encourage. However, this project
>proposes a forum for many threads of alternatives discussion that each
>contribute to a bigger picture.
>
>To make this happen we need to move beyond the narrow confines of an
>email list, which can really only facilitate a small number of threads
>of brainstorming. Getting a simple site up gives us space to widen the
>discussion. Further functionality can be added later based on feedback
>from the early adopters from other kinds of projects like community
>gardens, food co-ops, green bike projects, social centres, co-housing,
>free camping, edible landscaping, herbal medicine etc
>
>So, I have a rash proposal for getting a 0.1 version of our site up
>and running ASAP. I suggest we go for a fairly traditional IMC site,
>maybe with 'solutionswire' instead of 'newswire'. We promote
>particularly good posts to feature status or write features as a team.
>We know this can be done quickly and easily with Drupal. All that
>would be required is to implement a version of the IndyDrupal codebase
>being developed by the Philly techs.
>
>People involved in these sorts of projects could benefit from our
>proposed site in a number of ways, which break down into 3 basic
>categories; connecting, sharing knowledge, and sharing resources:
>
>Connecting with:
>- other locals keen on their project
>- other locals working on compatible projects
>- people working on similar projects in other localities
>
>Sharing knowledge:
>- finding and sharing effective ways to carry out tasks and solve
>problems related to their project
>- promoting their project to their community and the wider world
>- learning about potentially beneficial connections between their
>project and others (eg community garden or co-owned land supplying
>surplus to food co-op - community-supported agriculture etc)
>
>Sharing resources:
>- seed banks swapping seeds
>- distributed libraries swapping books
>
>I think it's really important that we link with other sites that offer
>some of these functions. Not only to avoid reinventing the wheel, but
>to allow an organic distribution of labour - ie imc-alt as a
>meta-project that interconnects and amplifies people's initiatives,
>rather than depending on a centralised process of task assignment.
>That's why I'm glad AaronK has brought his ActivismNetwork project to
>the table and also glad that various people from the sites we have
>indentified as 'socialforges' have taken an interest in this project.
>
>In my mind, there is a conflict between the traditional Indymedia news
>format and the encyclopedia format exemplified by sites like
>Wikipedia.org.
>
>Indymedia newswires and features, like blogs, are sorted primarily by
>chronology. Users mainly start at the homepage and digging into the
>timeline. The newest information is at the front/ top and is the
>easiest to access, although older material is archived and can be
>searched.
>
>In constast, sites like Wikipedia are sorted primarily by topic.
>Although there is a homepage with featured content, users mainly
>arrive on its pages through web searches or links from other sites.
>Information is aggregated under topic headings and once created, each
>page evolves over time.
>
>News-based infostructures are good for quickly documenting and
>reacting to current events. They produce content quickly and stimulate
>discussion and further research. But their speed of reaction tends to
>produce content that dates quickly. Facts are missing, misrepresented
>or just plain wrong. This means news content is less useful to a later
>reader than a more reflective article, or a wikipage sculpted over time.
>
>I have been working on the theory that the AlternativesIMC would be a
>knowledge-base - an encyclopedia rather than a newswire. I think this
>is because of the way the original alternatives feature was written
>and the fact that updating that feature was the first thing we did
>towards this project.
>
>But many of the sites in the list of socialforges we have aggregated
>on the wiki are already doing this. It seems to me that's what's
>missing is a place people can go to find out what these sites are and
>which site is most useful for what. A place people interested in
>alternatives can bounce ideas off others also interested in realising
>alternative projects.
>
>So it seems to me we have to decide between the importance of these
>two functions in the way we design the front page. Are we going to go
>with a traditional IMC format (imc list, features, solutions-wire),
>emphasising the alternatives news functions. Or are we going to
>emphasise the activist networking functions?
>
>Another question is this: is the activist networking a central part of
>our site, or do we want to provide a front-end for a distributed
>networking tool that we aim to have incorporated into other IMCs and
>other activist portals like Infoshop for example? I am tending towards
>the latter. I think the activist networking is a meta-project of
>Alt-IMC that needs to involve lots of other sites to be really
>successful.
>
>So to reiterate, my proposal is that we go for a fairly traditional
>IMC site, maybe with 'solutionswire' instead of 'newswire'. We promote
>particularly good posts to feature status or write features as a team.
>We aim to have a means for articles posted to local IMC newswires to
>be tagged 'alternatives' and automatically added to our wire. We
>support internationalization as much as possible.
>
>To get this site up and running we need three things:
>1) To assemble a team of solutionswire and features editors who can
>commit to putting time into the site on a regular basis
>2) To agree on a name
>3) To confirm a graphic designer to prepare the appearance of the site
>(logo, css, colours etc)
>
>Thoughts?
>Strypes
>
>Quoting Jay <jay at fundamentalchange.net>:
>
> > Hi imc-alternatives,
> >
> > I've been reading through recent posts and am so excited about the
> > tech progress we're making!  I also feel as if I need to remind
> > myself, and maybe to remind all other non-techies out there in
> > imc-alternatives land, that there is going to be a ton of exciting
> > and amazing non-techincal work to be done on the alternatives
> > project, and soon.
> >
> > In the not-too-distant future, especially once we have the rudiments
> > of a functioning site, we're going to be able to outreach to
> > individuals, group and networks that make positive change and
> > encourage them to get to know each other through the tools we're
> > conceiving.  That means you -- yes, you! -- who may not know a wiki
> > from a wicker basket -- have much, much, much exciting alternatives
> > IMC work ahead of you.  So, this is a reminder to us non-techies to
> > keep an ear open to the project, and try not to feel overwhelmed by
> > all this great and extremely necessary tech talk.
> >
> > With great love and admiration for everyone who shares the vision of
> > this project,
> > Jay
>
>
>
>--
>"You cannot buy the Revolution. You cannot make the Revolution. You
>can only be
>the Revolution. It is in your spirit or it is nowhere."
>- Ursula K. LeGuin (The Dispossessed)
>
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