[Imc-alternatives] Back on board

[Danyl Strype]

Kia ora koutou

I am finally back home. There has been snow blocking the roads through  
the middle of the island and in the end I decided to get a bus rather  
than hitch through that weather. I start back at uni on Monday, so I  
am busily getting myself settled back into my flat and working through  
all the necessary burocracy.

My other big news is that I have decided to retire from the Aotearoa  
IMC to focus on my studies and free up some spare time for other  
voluntary projects. This is something I've been thinking about doing  
for a couple of years but a recent conflict within the collective  
catalyzed the decision to do it. For those who are interested, I  
explained the issues behind the conflict in an email to Jay a couple  
of months ago, which you can read at the bottom of this email.

However, I am still committed to the Alt-IMC project and since I will  
now have regular net access, I intend to set aside some time to help  
with the move towards our first test site. First I'll need to catch up  
on the list emails and have a look at the work that's been done by the  
design group while I've been hitching around and crashing on couches.

I am also in the process of working out how to use Skype on my new  
laptop, which is running Ubuntu Linux, and tracking down a mic and  
headphones. My girlfriend is in the UK until the end of the year, so I  
figure it's worth spending a bit of money on gear rather than spending  
a fortune on toll calls to talk to her regularly. Also, once I have  
the gear, I can use Skype to talk to other people around the world,  
including yourselves.

Once we successfully get Skype calling happening, I'm keen to  
experiment with open source alternatives. Wengophone has been  
abandoned by the company that was sponsoring it and hasn't put out a  
new version for some time, but another company MDBSYS has just taken  
over stewardship of the Wengo codebase:
http://www.mbdsys.com/en-html/index.html

Wengo is GPL, anyone knows any developers who might be interested in  
tweaking the security and turning it into an IndyPhone? In other  
interesting VoIP developments, open source tools are starting to  
emerge for incorporating voice chat capacity into websites. Having an  
Indymedia voice conference system would be a huge boost to global  
collaboration and decision-making. I wonder how much work would be  
involved in getting it up and running, and in maintaining it?

One more thing, today I came across a website called Ning, which  
allows people to create their own social network:
http://www.ning.com/

It's been used by some folks in Aotearoa for Transition Towns  
networking. Transition Towns seems like one of the most constructive  
and undogmatic political movements I've come across for a long time  
and I'd be keen to hear about any experiences any of you have had with  
TT groups where you live.

Looking forward to working with you all some more.
Kotahi te aroha
Strypes

> At 6/4/2008, Danyl Strype wrote:
>> Kia ora Jay
>>
>> I wonder if I can ask your advice. I have run into a potentially
>> irresolvable conflict of ideas with most of the people who have been
>> actively running Aotearoa IMC for the last few years. A couple of them
>> have been involved since the start, like myself. Basically I'm
>> seriously considering disaffiliating myself from the collective.
>>
>> I seem to remember that you have been involved in the new-imc process.
>> I wonder how the situation we're in compares to those you have been
>> involved in as part of the new-imc group, and I'm wondering if you
>> give me any suggestions about how to resolve this conflict?
>>
>> The conflict is fundamentally about how people and groups are included
>> within the structure of the A-IMC. Because A-IMC is spread across a
>> geographically large area, we operate a structure of local groups,
>> which are supposed to encourage all their activists to join the
>> imc-aotearoa list and participate in countrywide decision-making. In
>> the early days we had groups in the four main cities but two of these
>> have since folded. Now we have requests from two new groups to
>> affiliate.
>>
>> One group has been accepted unopposed. The other group, from Otautahi
>> (Christchurch), has been blocked by imc-aotearoa list members who live
>> in the same city, due to local allegations of abuse against two
>> individuals within the group. These allegations are basically gossip,
>> and don't offer a substantial reason why the whole group, and all the
>> media projects they are running, should not be allowed to operate
>> under the Indymedia banner.
>>
>> The imc-aotearoa group seems to believe it is their right to block
>> people from being involved in Indymedia - that a consensus (-1) of all
>> the active members of imc-aotearoa is needed before the group is
>> allowed to affiliate. I believe that a consensus should be required to
>> reject their affiliation - that if two or more people are against the
>> rejection, it is blocked. My reasoning is that we need to guard
>> against a particular interest group pushing their own agenda under the
>> name of Indymedia, and pruning out anyone that doesn't support that
>> agenda, in contravention of the principles of open participation and
>> transparency that underpin the network.
>>
>> One guy just suggested that one or two locals who have a privileged
>> position in the ed collective should have the final say on whether the
>> proposed group is allowed to affiliate, regardless of any discussion
>> or consensus on imc-aotearoa?!?
>>
>> I have spent hours writing emails explaining my position in detail,
>> and been met with one to three sentence replies saying basically
>> "you're wrong, too bad". I'm not sure what to do now. Get a broader
>> debate going by writing about the conflict and posting it to our
>> newswire? Seek mediation through imc-process? Quit in disgust
>>
>> There are some things I definitely don't want to do. I don't want to
>> sabotage the open forum that A-IMC currently provides for the NZ left.
>> It's about the only place where anarchists, marxists,
>> environmentalist, social-democrats, NGO types etc active in Aotearoa
>> can share notes. I don't want to push any of the current volunteers
>> out, even though some of them are such narrow-minded vanguardists it's
>> embarrassing that they call themselves anarchists. It would be nice to
>> think an inclusive structure could include people who have an
>> exclusive ideology, without letting them take over. Besides, I'd
>> rather drop out than have to rebuild the thing from scratch.
>>
>> I guess my stickiest question is: am I out of step the global
>> Indymedia network as it is now, or have the rest of my collective
>> drifted away from Indymedia's founding principles in ways I am right
>> in trying to correct? What is this "Indymedia" thing in 2008, and is
>> it still useful (for me, and for everyone else involved) for me to be
>> a part of it? ? Perhaps it's time I got more involved in the global
>> decision-making structures again?
>>
>> I feel really good about the contributions I've made to
>> imc-alternatives, and regardless of what happens with A-IMC I still
>> intend to remain involved in that project. Any feedback would be most
>> appreciated.
>>
>> Love and Rage
>> Strypes
>>
>> --
>> "A free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular."
>> - Adlai E. Stevenson Jr
>>
>> "Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't   
>> matter and
>> those who matter don't mind."
>> - Dr Suess
>>
>> http://strypey.orconhosting.net.nz/contacts.html
>>



-- 
"A free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular."
- Adlai E. Stevenson Jr

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and
those who matter don't mind."
- Dr Suess

http://strypey.orconhosting.net.nz/contacts.html