[Imc-alternatives] time for a new invite?

[Jay]

Hi Alternatives,

Over the last couple weeks there has been talk about putting out a 
call for someone to bottom line a design mockup of the Alternatives 
site.  I believe there was also a suggestion to re-circulate the 
invitation we sent out several months ago, adding the call for a design guru.

I'm going to paste the old Alternatives invite below.  Other than 
giving an update about where we've come so far and adding a 
description of our needs for a designer, what do you think we should change?

Jay

SUMMARY: The "imc-alternatives" working group invites you to join us 
in the formation of a global "Alternatives IMC!" The "Alternatives 
IMC" will be a "next generation" Indymedia website that will both 
gather content about all the great things people are doing to create 
a better world [pioneering alternative social structures, economics, 
education, energy, etc.] and to provide a place for people organizing 
these projects working on these projects to connect with each other 
to do practical, world-changing work. We invite you to check out 
information at 
'"https://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/IndymediaAlternatives".

BODY: You are INVITED to participate in the Alternatives Indymedia!!

Activists striving for fundamental change have achieved marked 
success in recent years, combining massive street demonstrations 
against War, poverty and unaccountable global institutions with 
long-term community organizing and innovative internet tools to 
create public discussion around the many problems facing our world. 
Independent media sources like Indymedia, and to some extent the 
mainstream media, have covered this rising tide of discontent, 
providing substantial analysis of most everything that's "wrong" with 
the current governmental, social and economic systems.

At the same time, though with much less fanfare, many people and 
organizations are working to develop systems that are "right." These 
are focused on working solutions, such as participatory 
decision-making processes, equitable economies, technologies of 
cooperation, and many more. They nurture social structures and a more 
ecologically sustainable way of life. If encouraged , valued and 
supported, these tangible and concrete experiments could represent a 
positive shift toward "a new way of being"; the next bold step in the 
movement to create a better world. But the word needs to get out 
about them. Right now we have an imbalance in coverage of the 
problems and the critique and not enough dissemination of empowering 
information about what is working in the world and how people can get 
involved with these kinds of "experiments".

The Alternatives Indymedia (a working title) is a project with multiple goals:

1) To open a vibrant, inspiring, and multilingual Indymedia site 
through which users will both share information about current efforts 
toward fundamental change and work collaboratively on projects to 
make change happen in their communities.

2) To develop the Alternatives Indymedia site to be a 
"next-generation" IMC site. This will include offering both 
traditional IMC features (open publishing newswire, central feature 
column) as well as collaborative editing (aka open editing) and wiki 
work-pages, integrated forums and project-oriented mailing lists, 
blogs, RSS feeds, and other advances that will inspire active 
participation in the site. To accomplish this, we want to work with 
visionary techies and innovative coders (maybe YOU??) to pioneer new 
versions of code (perhaps using Drupal, perhaps using Plone), that 
will help transform Indymedia sites from relics of a bygone era when 
open publishing itself was considered revolutionary -- way back in 
2000! -- into elegant, powerful, INSPIRING sites that empower a new 
generation of activists to work together to make change.

We intend this site to become an indispensable resource for those 
interested in the basic fundamentals of fundamental change - the 
who/what/where/when/why of what people are doing to better the world 
-- as well as a living laboratory for those who want to make change 
happen NOW.

The Alternatives IMC Working Group invites you to join us in 
realizing this vision. We are looking for (1) techies who are 
interested in developing the next generation of IMC sites, (2) 
organizers who share our desire to harness the power of Indymedia to 
advance social change, and (3) media makers who love covering the 
alternatives, experiments and solutions that are happening across the globe!

Please join our working email list at imc-alternatives at 
indymedia.org (join through "http://lists.indymedia.org"). You may 
also contact Jay (jay at fundamentalchange.net) and/or Sheri (Sheri 
at indymedia.org) for more information. We look forward to working 
together to create a shift in thinking, perception and individual and 
collective political will.