[imc-baghdad] Website and List Name

[christopher mitchell]

Summary:
List name: if we are going to change it, let's do it now (to 
imc-baghdad-support at lists.indy)  We can create an alias so the emails to 
imc-baghdad will be forwarded to imc-baghdad-support until the real 
imc-baghdad list is created.

List Etiquette: Please do not send unnecessarily large emails to the 
list.  Please keep emails terse and include a summary at the top.  Please 
do not send many emails in a short period of time to the list.

WebSite: http://www.almuajaha.com/ now points at the site that IMC-Bristol 
has set up.  Additional names can be registered to also point at this site 
- but for now, we have something.  We need people to test the site with 
Arabic posts.  We are looking into making it more friendly to arabic text 
(which reads from Right to Left).  We could use volunteers to translate 
strings (in all 800, but not all are critical) to make site have Arabic 
instructions.

Website Cont.: since this is not an offical website, do we want to list all 
the IMCs in the left hand column?  Do we want to have a note somewhere that 
explains exactly what the site is?  Who wants to write that?  I would 
recommend writing it and posting it to the wiki for group collaboration:
http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Local/ImcBaghdad

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The Full Story
====
List Name
There has been some discussion about the list name as it does not properly 
reflect the purpose of this list.  I am in support of changing it ... at 
the time I requested it, I hadn't thought ahead enough to think about what 
issues it would raise - and I don't recall the new-imc's suggestion that 
the list title be changed (but there was a lot of confusion in those CC 
list days which is why the list was set up hastily - to get rid of that).

So we can leave the name the same - but I think it would be improper.  So 
if we are going to change the name, we should do it quickly before more 
people get involved and get confused.  Regardless, we can set up an alias 
so that if people still send mail to imc-baghdad at lists.indy it will be 
forwarded to us automatically (until such a time as a real imc-baghdad list 
is created).  This is the course I think we should go with.

Objections to changing the list name to imc-baghdad-support at lists.indy?

====
List Etiquette:
This list has a number of people on it with different backgrounds, 
different access to email, and different time constraints.  Other lists 
that have had these issues have found the following guidelines helpful for 
allowing more people to participate fully.

- Send small emails - do not quote more than you absolutely have to when 
responding to a post.  Some people have to pay for their connection by the 
amount of stuff they download ... others have slower connections and should 
not have to wait to download quoted material.

- Keep emails short and to the point - this ties into the one above for 
space consideration.  Also, several people on this list do not speak 
english as a first language, or may be translating posts for the benefit of 
others in their IMC.

- Summaries are incredibly helpful - to people with little time (probably 
most of us), to people who are translating, to people who just don't care 
about the details of say...the website =)

- Multiple Emails - again, people on slow connections or expensive 
connections can be annoyed by many emails in a short period of time - also, 
it can be disheartening to get your inbox flooded.  I recommend either 
reading all emails that have been sent to the list before starting to reply 
to them or waiting to send your email to the list until you have read the 
rest of the emails already sent to the list so you won't have to fire off 
another "Oh yeah, I forgot email" =)  This hasn't been an issue on this 
list yet I don't think ... but one never knows =)

This is an incomplete list - but I think it could help.

====
Website:
http://www.almuajaha.com/ now points at the site that IMC-Bristol has set 
up.  It is ready to accept posts - though it would be really great if we 
can get the perspectives of people who can read and write in Arabic as to 
how friendly the site is.  Currently, I think we have not heard from people 
who know Arabic about how the site looks.

I know that the software can somehow support dynamically changing the site 
from a Left-to-Right setup which is what English speakers need to a more 
desirable Right-to-Left setup which is what Arabic speakers and writers 
need.  IMC Japan had this setup using the same codebase we are using I 
believe - and I have asked them how to do it.

DadaIMC is can be setup so that all the strings that are built into the 
site (phrases such as "Hidden Articles" "Media Gallery" "Open Newswire") 
can be translated.  But this requires the translation of some 800 strings 
from English into Arabic.  If anyone (ideally multiple people doing parts 
of the work) would volunteer, email me privately and I'll let you know what 
has to be done and how to do it.  This will be very helpful as people who 
only read Arabic will not be able to fully use the site if posts are the 
only things in Arabic on it!

====
Website Cont.
The site is currently the dadaIMC setup by default.  However as the group 
in Baghdad is not yet an IMC - they do not have to link to the IMCs ... 
they still can obviously, but we could also use that space to link to sites 
in the region that are more relevant to what they are doing.
Which brings me to: Anyone wish to volunteer to write a blurb about what 
this site is (Ramzi??) and why it exists.  We should probably include 
something about how it relates to Indymedia ... something along the lines 
of: The site is not yet a part of the IMC network but is hosted on an IMC 
server because of its relevance...or something along those lines.

If someone wants to get started, they can post it to the wiki =)
http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Local/ImcBaghdad

cheers
---christopher


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