[Imc-beirut] imc beirut closing down?

[boud]

hi !-mad, imc-beirut,

On Sun Jan 7 06:04:51 PST 2007 !-Mad i-mad at riseup.net wrote:
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-beirut/2007-January/0107-pt.html

> Dear all,
> 
> I am sorry to notify you that IMC Beirut is officially inactive. There has
> been numerous individual attempts to revive the project but all went down
> the drain. So, while we wait for some individuals to take up the Indymedia
> fight again in Lebanon, the project will be on halt. As I understood the
> site will continue to exist with its content, but open posting will be
> disfunctional.

That's unfortunate to hear, but it's your (collective) choice as a local
group.

Could you please clarify - do you mean as a group of people you want
to close down the collective (or recognise that it's no longer
functional), or do you just want to temporarily close down the website
until the group reorganises?

AFAIK the general consensus is that an IMC collective is primarily a group of
people - the website is a key element, but not what's more important is
the people side of things. i don't know much about you, but i would assume
that you have a loose group of people who know each other and still share
related interests in organising grassroots media and are likely to or 
would like to keep in contact with one another and international supporters.

Moreover, since the indymedia network as a whole is probably going
through a phase of some quite big changes, it seems to me that it might
be useful both for yourselves and for the network to continue as a loose
group and play with ideas and maybe see if you can reorganise in a 
different way to "standard" indymedia - e.g. starting from a bunch of
blogs, which are updated much less often than a typical indymedia site?

These blogs, to which i think some of you contributed, do not get updated
very often:
http://www.samidoun.org/  2006-11-27 
http://hakaya.blogspot.com/  October 01, 2006
http://lebanonupdates.blogspot.com/  August 16, 2006

But clearly they are providing a useful independent media function.

And i guess some of you are involved in/supporting Electronic Intifada
Lebanon: 
http://www.electronicintifada.net/lebanon/

In any case, these are just suggestions - of course, the decision is for
you as a collective to make.

> Thanks to everyone who helpled maintain the site, from Lebanon and around
> the globe. Thanks to all friends/ companerxs who sent solidarity letters
> and questions about the Indymedia Beirut group. It has been a great
> period... I personally loved working with you all.
> 
> I am not sure what shall we do with the email list. But I believe the best
> thing would be to disactivate it for now. Mo, can you handle that?

Over the last few months, and certainly during the Israeli invasion,
it seemed that your mailing list did play some useful role in keeping
some communication flowing - both between the rest of the indymedia network
and people in Lebanon and (i guess) among people in Lebanon.

i don't see a huge amount of spam on the list - people need to subscribe
in order to send messages to the list.  If you really want to close down
the list, that's your local, autonomous decision.

But if you think the mailing list may remain a useful place for
communication, i would suggest you keep it open (provided that the
list admins - you (!-mad) and blue.pi are willing to check and/or
clean up the moderation queue once a month or so).

i can understand you probably feel bad that the group has not been
able to get reorganised, but that's not a reason to close down all
avenues of communication. It seems to me possible that something like
a circle of blogs could evolve into something considered
acceptable as a publication mechanism of "imc beirut" - and at least
"meta" discussion about this needs a place to happen - and the mailing
list might play this role. Anyway, again, it's your decision, i'm just
saying that you should not underestimate the communication flow that
you've already created - even it has flaws (problems).

> So till the next round.. keep the noise running where ever you are...
> indymedia or other forms of dissidence.
> 
> Please feel free to notify any concerned individuals and/or groups.

If the whole collective is really sure about this, then IMHO you
should send an email to imc-process. (My suggestion is think about my
suggestions first, and then if you're still sure, send an email to
imc-process.)

> Solidarity,
> !-Mad

solidarity
boud