[IMC-bristol] solutions afoot? feedback please...
Kyra
kyra at compactdance.org.uk
Thu Mar 4 13:44:23 PST 2004
hi tony / all
firstly thanks to tony and everyone else who has taken part in this
debate so far.
quick note re: software: tony, ok so we're not using MIR, its a software
called DADA.
(its things like that that make me realise how much time we spend in
meetings on tony-related issues that should clearly be spent in
communicating the basics of the project so everyone is clear!)
Software names aside, i'm not very tech-aware so someone correct me if
this is wrong, but perhaps the font size when viewed through your
browser is to do with your browser set-up, rather than the software, as
on other computers using Mozilla / Opera the font size is ok. so check
your compter's set-up.
Anyway, on your 'courtcase': from what you've written here, it looks
like its actually going to be easy to sort it all out - phew!
from your message i see two things i want to respond to:
1) you are happy to relinquish your responsibilities within the uk
collective
in response i would say:
1)in the cases of both uk imc responsibilities, you dont need to wait
for any meeting to relinquish them, you can do this now, and confirm
with uk imc via email. (as far as the uk bank signatory thing goes, as
bristol imc has its own bank account now and we do our own localised
fundraising, theres no need to have a bristol signatory on the uk
collective account anymore. members of the uk imc have expressed to me,
mike, crash and ian at sheffield, and again to mike and i in london,
that they want to have people on there from the other uk collectives on
the MIR syndicated site e.g. oxford, leeds, liverpool etc. and this is
already underway. members of the uk group appreciate that in part its
their fault that this hasnt been done sooner, but we all know how
sloooowly things can happen... )
2) you wish to act as an independent critic of indymedia, and do not
wish to discuss your views of imc with any group prior to voicing them
in response:
this is fine - indymedia needs independent critics in order to thrive
and not become self-obsessed: it takes people who are committed to
following indymedia's development and who can offer constructive
criticism; with your background knowledge of the media you should be
well placed to do this. once you have relinquished your
responsibilities with the uk collective, and if you agree to distance
yourself from the bristol group, (and i'm not suggesting that this be
decided without our holding a specific meeting as a group to focus on
this if you wish,) then you will be truly independent and able to
provide indymedia with the necessary constructive criticism that it
needs. i can really see this working.
as a result of this debate i think there is a consensus emerging that,
as sam suggests, b-imc needs to have a recognised formal system for
speaking to other media about the group, based on formally making what
the rest of us already do a 'rule', i.e. discussing interviews and other
work on behalf of the b-imc collective with the group via email or in
person before doing them. clearly you dont want to do this.
ok so, to be clear, for me it is nonsense for a member of b-imc
collective to present themselves to another media as 'a member of'/
'involved with' bristol indymedia but to simultaneously say that they
make no claim to represent the group. e.g. when tom rintoul wrote his
article [for uk bods, this can be briefly summed up as student
journalist's report compiling and muddling up tony's take on b-imc with
negative albeit partly comic results ], he evidently thought that he had
spoken to 'a member of the b-imc collective' in talking to you, so you
were representing us in a very real sense.
to continue as a member of the group would, in my view, require you to
obey the same ground rules as everyone else. the few rules we do have
are reached through consensus, and are observed by the rest of the
group. however, if you:
>relinquish your membership of the bristol collective
>agree that if you are invited to speak to groups, other media about
b-imc you will make clear to them that you are speaking as a separate
individual, rather than a member of/person connected with the group
- then naturally you can say what you like about us, as an informed,
but independent observer.
obviously, and as already said, you are as entitled as anyone else to
post stories to the site, and i hope you continue to do so.
if these solutions suit you and the rest of the group, then it sounds to
me like a way of moving forward that will allow us all to feel that we
are able to get on with what we do best.
regarding the meeting on the 15th, as a group we need to take a position
on this: for me, i think that the meetings are open to the public in
that you dont already have to be a member of the collective to come
along, but - crucially - you are coming along with a view to taking
contributing to the project in some way in future, should the meeting
confirm your wish to do so. i.e. everyone who comes to meetings is
contributing to the actual project's development in some way, or wants
to. i dont feel confident that tony coming to the meeting on the 15th
will be conducive to our focusing on future work, and i think if we
agree on this list that we will not discuss tony at that meeting he
shouldn't attend, to give us all time to cool down on this, and to focus
on other areas of work that really need attention now.
i am prepared to promise that no decision re. tony will be taken without
his being present, and i really want to get on with the media day work
etc. also we all know how long we've been banging on about having a
meeting in south bristol - two years??!! - so please lets not just
frighten any new people who manage to make it by venting spleen all
night. if we cant persuade tony to have this debate as a separate
meeting, then without wishing to sound like i'm taking my ball home, i
dont think theres much point in our big south-ward bound adventure.
i'm sorry if i made it sound like i'm not taking the far-right slurs on
you seriously, its just that its the above issues that i want to get
cleared up first. i would like to be clear that it is the broader
misrepresentation issue that makes me think you should distance yourself
from the bristol group: you will have to take up the other allegations
with the uk-imc people in your own right.
finally i was being flippant, in using the phrase "kicking ian in the
teeth" metaphorically. i appreciate that you're not a violent
tooth-kicking person, was just a turn of phrase.
dont worry, whilst i agree that you - like anyone - have your faults, i
dont think physically assaulting people is one of them!
right i'm off to nurse me aching wrists and will try to lay off typing
for a while
kyra
Ecovillage Network UK wrote:
> Hi Kyra,
>
> I have given feedback on the new software on the tech list I think it
> was Monday this week. MIR isn't working in my versions of Mozilla or
> Opera (text is way too small).
>
> On my 'court case'. I am not prepared to involve time and effort of
> other IMC's unless we can't sort this out locally. Let's just bring it
> up at the meeting on the 15th and see if any serious allegations
> surface. If they do then we can all pitch in and decide quickly how to
> deal with it there and then. If anyone from London's seriously
> concerned let's invite them - but - as I say we need to see the
> 'evidence' circulated on this list a couple of days before the meeting
> say the 12th. We can then also sort out who wants to be a UKIMC bank
> account signatory and take over from me on the IMC Communications list
> - duties I will happily relinquish!
> I think most people would rather draw a line under this now and wait
> to the 15th to decide what, if anything, to do.
>
> On being a 'spokesperson' for Indymedia let me make my position clear
> (as they say): I have never claimed to 'represent' Indymedia and am
> not prepared to ask the permission of any meeting before I express my
> views to anybody about BIMC or Indymedia generally.
>
> Unlike you, it seems, I do not take accusations of being linked to the
> far right lightly. And will robustly defend my (admittedly dubious!)
> reputation whenevber I'm slurred as such. I can assure you the stuff
> about 'far right chums' is exactly that - nonsense. Look, I know I'm
> not perfect but I'm not gonna take accusations like that lying down.
> I'd like to know how I'm supposed to be 'kicking Ian in the teeth'. I
> have
> a) never threatened him with violence and am
> b) pointing out his abuse of his position as an admin of this list.
> c) I don't send Ian emails where the only words are 'fuck off'. which
> he does to me.
> d) making fun of his patronising
> you might want to reply to this off list
> I'm not in the least interested in 'fighting' with Ian but I will
> defend myself.
>
> Following the collapse of the Katherine Gun case Bristol is about to
> become the focus for world attention on the legality of the US and the
> UK going to war on Iraq - there will be millions of people round the
> world looking to us to provide the 'grassroots' view of the court
> case. Nothing must be allowed to stop a crew like us doing that job
> and dong it well. I'd like to add another agenda item for the 15th.
> sorting out a small team to go to the crown court each day and
> uploading to BIMC at least twice a day.
>
> If you want any other specific questions answered Kyra please ask away.
> But I'll be away until the middle of next week.
> You might want to phone me 07786 952 037.
>
> oh yes and Anyone near Broadband don't forget to tune in to Dialect
> tonight http://dialect.bettercode.com any reception problems please
> report them to
> dialect-info at bettercode.com
>
>
> Tony
> 0117 944 6219
>
> At 06:49 PM 3/3/04 +0000, you wrote:
>
>> hi tony / all
>> please let try to keep this debate free from personal attacks. i know
>> this sounds highly unlikely and naive given that what we are
>> discussing is person-specific but lets have a go. as i see it, ian is
>> not 'laying nonsense on whole group' in replying to my email, but is
>> contributing to a debate that we need to have about how we work with
>> you. its not about 'ian and his chums' ganging up on you, but about
>> us addressing the problems you have caused for Bristol / UK groups,
>> and you, and everyone one of us, taking responsibility. Adopting
>> full schoolmarm persona here (sorry), we all need to take a mature
>> and responsible approach to stop this becoming a boring in-fighting
>> situation.
>>
>> please also can we have a separate meeting to address the 'you in the
>> dock' issues: i'm sorry i havent been able to put this debate in
>> motion without your feeling on trial about stuff, but following my
>> conversation with you about the Tom Rintoul article, and your email
>> to London-Tony, this is all stuff that needs to get out in the open
>> and then moved on from; i dont want to leave things to fester, and in
>> an open group like Bristol IMC there should be no dark corners for
>> disagreements to lurk and grow in as they obviously have done between
>> you and ian.
>>
>> i would like to keep the 15th march as a meeting for the Bristol IM
>> group to focus on our upcoming work for the spring & summer and
>> feedback on the new software. i'm sorry to say that i dont feel
>> confident that you, tony, coming to the meeting will be very helpful
>> to this, but i do agree wholeheartedly that a meeting with you and a
>> rep from the Uk group is crucial and i will contact them to arrange
>> this, i guess that when we can do this will be dependent on when one
>> of them can be here - so will keep everyone posted. i am really keen
>> that 15th doesnt turn into yet another meeting centring round tony -
>> lets keep all that separate.
>>
>> i would appreciate it if you could address the problems i brought up
>> in my email, rather than kicking ian in the teeth.
>>
>> kyra
>>
>> Ecovillage Network UK wrote:
>>
>>> Oh Ian,
>>> I'm skipping with delight now I have your permission to submit
>>> articles to the newswire. ;-)
>>>
>>>
>>> Which 'far right chums' Ian? [cue the roaring silence]
>>>
>>> Anyway - Since you've finally come out about wanting to remove me as
>>> an admin. (both for the site and this list) you can put your case on
>>> the 15th. That gives you plenty of time to put your private
>>> prejudices aside... and get some evidence together. I would, of
>>> course, expect any mud you and your chums can scrape together to be
>>> shown to me at least two days beforeby Saturday 13th. That is if
>>> people are up for a witchunt.
>>>
>>> It would have been much easier if you'd at least have tried to sort
>>> our differences out with me over a pint (as I offered) before laying
>>> this nonsense on the whole group.
>>>
>>> And then we can all get on with the urgent job of showing what
>>> bread-headed control freaks the Evening Post managers and editors
>>> (particularly) are and exposing the collusion of big business, the
>>> city of London, the western war machine and racists: the real 21st
>>> century fascists.
>>>
>>> Tony
>>> "all it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing"
>>>
>>> At 12:41 PM 3/3/04 +0000, you wrote:
>>>
>>>> Thanks kyra for taking the time to type that up. You have more
>>>> patience than I have regarding Goslings shit.
>>>>
>>>> My feelings are this - if he wants to submit articles to the news
>>>> wire then that's fine by me. However I'm not happy with him
>>>> purporting to represent indymedia period ( uk or bristol or global )
>>>> and I hope he'll stop doing this.
>>>>
>>>> He makes little effort in rebutting these allegations preferring
>>>> confrontation rather than taking measures to distance himself from
>>>> some of his far right chums, which is tiresome. Personally I'm
>>>> sick to the back teeth of having to deal with his fallout and I
>>>> think his position within indymedia has become untenable. I hope
>>>> that he will not attend anymore Bristol meetings - also I propose
>>>> to change the password of the Bristol e-mail list and remove him as
>>>> a moderator.
>>>> Does any one object to this?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> best
>>>> ian
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>
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