[imc-baghdad] Web site & Finances

[christopher mitchell]

Hello all

A great start on my part ... I was disappointed to come home and find _no_ 
emails on the list ... which got me to thinking - probably a mistake on my 
part.  So I checked the archive and sure enough - people have been emailing 
but your capable admin didn't subscribe himself =)

I have added Crystal as an admin to the list - thank you for volunteering!

<sigh>

I have a question about the potential website setup so quickly and kindly 
by the bristol IMC - is it able to support arabic text?  It looks like an 
active codebase to me - which unless I am wrong, would be dreadful to 
convert to accept posts in arabic.  Currently, the character set is a 
western ISO - which I think will not support arabic characters 
either.  Does anyone with more experience on this have any ideas or answers?

The site I was going to set up is based on the dadaIMC codebase which works 
very well with non-latin character sets and as far as I know, lends itself 
quickest to full translation so someone who speaks no english would be able 
to have a _fully_ arabic display to work from.

Is this possible with the bristol set up?

Regarding the issue of finances - I think spike is absolutely correct in 
that we could probably run a website with no money issues.  However - I 
think money is critical to the paper that Ramzi is working on.

In fact, we should work on figuring out how to start supplying the things 
he listed.  Which I will quote below.

Are there objections or alternatives anyone would like to voice to working 
through the UC-IMC to gather money for this venture?

Ramzi's list of needs:

- MONEY: start raising $$$ *NOW* - this project is
going to need money to pay for rent, equipment,
printing costs, and web costs, ASAP!!! We will work
toward making it self-sufficient as soon as possible,
but that, for sure, ain't right now! Voices is sending
a small group of people here (one in a week, a couple
of more soon after) - so we need to send in money &
equipment with them.
- EQUIPMENT: for a fact, I *KNOW* that we're going to
need at least 2 more computers, 1 more office printer,
2 broadcast-quality video cameras, and 2 digital
cameras. Another satellite modem & satellite phone
would be nice too (as well as $$$ to cover the costs
of the current sat modem over the next, several
months).
- WEB HELP: we need help, from the outside, on setting
up a website for the newspaper and/or indymedia
Baghdad, where we can post text, pictures, & video
produced here - English *AND* Arabic. Some of these
kids are very web savvy, but the infrastructure is NOT
in place for them to start doing web work from here
right now. The war took out telecommunications in a
*big* way - certainly for weeks, likely for months.




http://www.shadoweyes.com
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