[Imc-communication] Lancaster, PA, USA IMC -- WELCOME

[Jay]

Hi imc-process and imc-communication,

Since no one has expressed dissent to the 
membership information from the Lancaster, 
Pennsylvania, USA IMC, by the proposed deadline, 
we can now welcome them to the 
network.  Welcome!  They are an exciting group 
and I'm confident will be a benefit to Indymedia.

Jay

***

Lancaster Pennsylvania Independent Media Center (LPIMC,
Lancaster-IMC, lancaster.indymedia, Lancpa-IMC)
INTRODUCTION:

The Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA area has a long 
history of vibrant political/social 
expression--Lancaster was an important stop along 
the Underground Railroad, Thadeus Stevens, an 
abolitionist who is responsible for public 
education, the Smoketown-Six and faith-based 
progressive activism. The Lancaster Coalition for 
Peace and Justice (LCPJ) formed a 
newsletter/magazine four years ago and served as 
the first independent grassroots newspaper since 
the Lancaster Independent Press, said to have 
been the longest running Independent newspaper in 
the country. Since then, many other groups 
(existing and new) are in need of one form or 
another of independent media to inform the 
community. Currently, we are building a forum for 
both online independent journalism as well as 
non-Internet community outreach projects that 
will encompass the many progressive, grassroots 
organizations/activities ongoing in Lancaster, 
above and beyond the vision of any one 
progressive group. We think the Indymedia model 
will serve as the most appropriate organized form 
to aid the various forms of independent-media 
projects ongoing in this area, and open up space 
for new forms of expression in disenfranchised 
communities. We seek to inform the community 
about issues either the corporate media ignores, 
marginalizes or misrepresents. Some of these 
issues include, but of course are not limited to, 
global warming, peace, war, poverty, health care, 
farming/sustainable living, pre-existing race and 
class issues as well as immigration, gender and 
sexism, homophobia and education. We will have 
the imc website as well as a community-media 
mobilizing team and a media lab for all 
independent civic-style media-making projects, 
whether or not specifically indymedia in nature 
(we don't want to brand all independently made 
media in our area as "indymedia"). We are not 
just building bridges within the community, we 
are building power. We will help create a better 
world and ensure a healthy community by using the 
Internet, printed media, radio, television and 
other forms of communication. We seek to create 
more social interaction between groups and 
individuals and work together to overcome decades 
of divisiveness and social struggles. We chose 
"Lancaster" as our IMC prefix not so much because 
of the city of Lancaster, but Lancaster County. 
We believe our IMC should be a service to not 
just the city, but to the surrounding 
municipalities--Lancaster city has a population of 55,000--the county 450,000.

What kind of resources can you contribute, in 
terms of server/bandwidth/technical and 
organizing skills? Some of us have been 
organizing for many years; some of us have 
computer web designing and programming skills; 
many of us are experienced media makers and 
journalists. We have also more recently had 
tech-minded people, esp those experienced in Drupal, come out of the woodwork.

What kind of outreach have you done to bring 
together a diverse group of people? As you may 
notice from the below list of supporting groups 
we have been working hard at reaching out to as 
many corners of the county as possible, from 
diverse cultural groups to diverse grassroots 
organizations, various cultural entities, 
existing independent media producers, economic 
development organizations and even several 
registered sustainable local businesses.

Supporting groups:
Lancaster Coalition for Peace and Justice, Beyond 
the Choir, Lancaster IWW, Lancaster Free Market, 
Lancaster NOW Chapter, Prometheus Radio Project, 
Media Tank, Media Mobilization Project (MMP), 
Threshold Foundation ("Dig-it! Urban Farms"), 
Rainbow Net Creations, Fighting for Us, 
unitedagainstpuppymills.org?, Lancaster Food Not 
Bombs (FNB), Harrisburg Food Not Bombs, Eastern 
Market, Sustainable Susquehanna Business Network 
(SSBN), N'Bonye Dance and Drum Ensemble, Bradley 
Infotainment, Lancaster Indiearts, the UU Social 
Action Committee, Mulberry Art Studios, United 
for Progress, Democracy for Lancaster, Circle 
Legacy Center, Local Economy Center, Progressives 
for Pennsylvania, Natural Light Films, Lancaster 
Eastern Market, and The Sugartank (underground music scene and venue).

How does the makeup of your collective reflect 
the diversity of the local community (e.g. in 
relation to gender-, sexual-, spiritual-, and/or 
cultural-identity)? We have people from many 
different communities participating in our 
growing collective, and every day new people 
learn about the LancasterIMC and want to get 
involved. We have close to half of our list 
subscribers are female, many different cultural, 
political and religious identities represented as 
well. Black, White, Native American, Asian, 
Hispanic, Immigrant, etc; Civil Rights, Peace and 
anti-war, sustainability, feminist, urban 
gardening, farmland preservation, social 
entrepreneurship organizations, etc. Most of our 
members are working with social justice or 
sustainability organizations or producing independent media

If your group currently does not represent the 
diversity of the local community, particularly in 
relation to groups who are underrepresented in 
mainstream society and denied access to vehicles 
of expression, what steps will be taken to 
address this on an ongoing basis? We will ensure 
that one of the main features of our group is a 
sort of assessment process whereby we evaluate 
ourselves every so often--this would include 
assessing gender and all other diversity issues, esp underrepresented groups.

What steps will be taken to involve individuals 
in work fields new to them? What measures will be 
taken to overcome a gendered work division? We 
plan to emphasize skill sharing from the 
beginning and also encourage role reversal, such 
as cycling facilitator and other formal consensus 
rules, cycling who admins lists or other 
features, etc. We will also have a quarterly or 
bi-annual assessment period when we look over 
everything and discuss what changes could be, 
grievances, accomplishments, etc. We are also 
planning on developing a really good well 
documented process for new members so as to make 
everything as sustainable as possible.

MEMBERSHIP CRITERIA

IMC MEMBERSHIP CRITERIA - DRAFT Each IMC and Global Working Group is
expected to:
a. Agree in spirit to the NIMC Mission Statement and Principles of Unity,
(PrinciplesOfUnity)
YES, WE HAVE ALL AGREED IN SPIRIT TO THESE FOUNDING DOCUMENTS

b. Have a committed membership substantial enough to sustain a functional
IMC,
WE HAVE OVER 20 PEOPLE WHO HAVE FORMALLY; INFORMALLY THERE ARE OVER 50
PEOPLE AND OVER 30 ORGANIZATIONS AND SUSTAINABLE LOCAL BUSINESSES SO FAR

c. Have open and public meetings (no one group can have exclusionary
"ownership" of an IMC), YES, WE USE THE WIKISPACES TO SHARE OUR AGENDA
ITEMS AS WELL AS OUR MEETING NOTES (LANCASTERIMC.WIKISPACES.COM)

d. Work toward developing a local Mission Statement or Statement of
Purpose. Network Mission Statement may be adopted or used on an interim
basis,

LIMC Vision:

The LIMC vision is to make Lancaster into a media commons. Our goal is to
broaden the spectrum of public knowledge, literacy, media justice and
equality though the illumination of social, economic, and ecological
issues as well as work with schools, communities and grassroots
organizations to create a more equitable society.

Strategy:

We are advocates for free expression within the context of egalitarian
values; the decommercialization of information and informed dissent
through participatory grassroots journalism; and focusing on issues of
local importance surrounding the Lancaster area and injustices wherever
they occur.

e. Establish and publish an editorial policy which is developed and
functions through democratic process, and with full transparency,


Lancaster Pennsylvania Independent Media Center (LPIMC) Editorial Policy

For the People, By the People
.
The open publishing newswire was intended to be a vital space of breaking
news as it happens, articles, announcements and a voice for the voiceless.
Many IMC’s around the world have had the newswire besieged with hate
speech such as neo-nazi postings, along with other items (Spam and
corporate advertising) and commentary far from what it was originally
intended to be. There are no easy or perfect solutions to moderating an
open newswire, rich with a healthy dissemination of views and an axis of
civic journalism [michael, 7-03-07].

Minimal filters and gateways
We have created the following guidelines to help us decide, as a
collective, whether or not posts to the newswire meet our basic editorial
standards and coincide with our mission; we also want to explain the basic
criteria for editorial decisions, such as what constitutes featured
content. We believe that these guidelines will help to make the moderating
process clearer for IMC volunteers and anyone in the community who
participates in the Lancpa-IMC’s style of citizen journalism.

The intent of this website is to allow "content creators" (you) to post
passionate tellings-of-truth--convincing and well-written stories for
others to read, view and discuss. The site is primarily intended for the
posting and discussion of opinions, observations, ideas, experiences or
announcements related to current events and news, particularly that of
interest to people in the Lancaster County, PA and the surrounding area.
The content published to the open newswire is not necessarily
representative of the views of the editorial collective, but rather
representative of the diverse and creative tapestry of autonomous
viewpoints in our region.

Posting Policy
The Newswire is the re-invention of the ancient art of the aural
tradition­it is history as it happens. Due to the nature of open
publishing, it isn't possible to always know what is posted to the website
-- particularly posts to the newswire section. We encourage visitors who
discover a contravention of our stated policy to contact us at
lancpa-editorial at lists.indymedia.org with the offending post's ID number
or date and title, and a brief description of the contravention; this
includes editorial collective members who abuse or violate the editorial
policy by editing, hiding, or removing posts without just cause, or simply
because it represents a dissenting view--we do not want to condone
groupthink either. It is impossible for everyone to agree all the time and
we hope the newswire will represent the kaleidescope of
social/cultural/political views in the Lancaster community, from left to
right and so on. As long as articles are well-written and meet the basic
guidelines there should be no problem. This includes constructive
criticism of grassroots political demonstrations and even the LPIMC
itself.

The open publishing tool provides a direct-participatory forum for civic
journalists and media-makers, social activists and everyday people who
have stories to share through such mediums as text articles, photographs,
audio and video recordings.

We specifically encourage individuals to publish:

• Well-researched, accurate, timely articles
• Investigative reports
• Coverage of Lancaster city and regional issues
• Stories on events affecting underrepresented groups
• Stories on issues ignored by the mainstream media
• Stories on people or projects promoting social justice
• Eyewitness accounts
• Media analysis
• Information on new forms of organizing and of technology that promote
social justice
• The promotion of literacy, diversity and tolerance for others

Formatting and Style

     * Use normal capitalization rules. Posts which contain excessive
capitalization are difficult to read and may be removed.
     * Headlines and article titles should use normal capitalization rules
too, as though they are a sentence without a period at the end.
     * If you publish your article with HTML, please do it with care.
Publishing articles with some simple HTML formatting can more clearly
organize the ideas presented and make the article easier to read.
Excessive use of various font colors and sizes make the content
difficult to read.
     * A good lead can make a world of difference. A lead is a few
sentences or short paragraphs summarizes the content of your article;
this acts as a foreshadowing and will either encourage people to read
more, or give skimming readers enough to get the basic idea of what
your article is all about; a rule of thumb is to keep the article or
announcement as short as possible.
     * If you have doubts about your formatting or a style question, try
consulting other articles to see if there is an obvious standard or
request that the Editorial Collective collaborate with style
formatting (lancpa-editorial at lists.indymedia.org).


Features Guidelines
Website content is administrated by the lancpa-editorial collective
members; decisions about content, especially features, are decided by
consensus within the editorial collective; however readers are encouraged
to interact with the editorial collective through constructive dialog,
compliments and criticism of editorial decisions. Features can be
suggested to the editorial collective by community members as well. The
writer and the collective will collaboratively edit the feature generally
within 24 hours of its proposal on the
lancpa-editorial at lists.indymedia.org list-serve before putting it on the
website. Sometimes extenuating circumstances will necessitate posting the
feature sooner (or later) than 24 hours. Features abusing the editorial
process may be edited or sometimes removed. Generally the editorial
collective operates by defacto-consensus regarding promoting features. If
someone proposes a feature or newswire post to be promoted they must wait
six hours--if no one raises concerns or blocks the article or announcement
is promoted.


Promoting Content to Feature Status
LPIMC chooses content to feature from the newswires daily. A variety of
criteria is used to determine which articles to features including the
quality of writing, local and regional relevance, incisiveness,
uniqueness, sources, balance with other content and points rating from
readers. The most relevant, best written and well composed original
content has the greatest chance of becoming a feature--the most widely
read articles on our site.

We encourage writers, photographers and videographers looking to increase
their audience to fully understand these guidelines and consult our
resources page for more in depth information. We strongly encourage
collaboration, especially among those who focus on different types of
media. If you are interested in contributing regularly, please consider
subscribing to our Editorial Collective email list where discussion takes
place regarding story ideas, writing tips, and other useful topics.

Features, which reside in the center column of the LPIMC website, are the
more prominent articles or announcements in the center column and must be
well-written and considerate of the audience. Only members of the web
editorial collective will have the password for posting features and
editing the website content. To obtain the password, new volunteers need
to actively participate in writing and promoting features. In addition to
actively participating in the editorial process (i.e. joining the
editorial collective), each new volunteer must attend face-to-face LIMC
meetings and attend an editorial training session where they will learn
the moderating responsibilities and receive an administrative password.

Copyrighted Material
To alleviate the problem of copyrighted articles from other press sources
being reposted on this IMC site, articles posted to the newswire that have
been copied and pasted from copyrighted sources by anyone other than the
copyright holder (or without the copyright holder's permission) will be
removed from the newswire. Articles with summaries or brief copied content
with a link or URL of where to find the copyright article are permitted
and encouraged.

While Indymedia reserves the right to develop sections of the site that
provide edited articles, articles posted to the newswire section are
sometimes minimally modified for readability and clarity (i.e bad
formatting). The Lanpa-IMC Editorial Collective keeps an eye on the
newswire to keep track of what is being posted and to apply basic
editorial guidelines to keep the newswire free of Spam, commercial
advertising, incomprehensible posts, malicious and hate speech and
duplicate postings.

The following are types of situations and posts which may be hidden by the
Lanpa-IMC Collective, along with guidelines for determining what should be
hidden.

•Duplicate Posts - if a single post is duplicated during a relatively
short time period, all duplicate posts may be hidden. In determining
duplicate posts it should be understood that it may be appropriate to
repost information in order to bring information to the attention of
website visitors after a reasonable amount of time has elapsed since it
was first posted.
•Threats and Intimidation-The IMC newswire is not intended to be a forum
for primarily publicizing hate nor for making direct threats against
individuals, groups or classes of people. The IMC recognizes that such
speech can be harmful in and of itself and may create at atmosphere in
which physical action becomes more likely. In any post under consideration
the threatening speech should be weighed against other ideas or expression
in the post. If the majority of the post nonetheless is intended to
contribute to discourse or debate, then the issue of hiding it should be
considered very carefully.
•Flooding or Spamming of Posts - this is when a single individual posts
multiple times in a short period in a manner that indicates that the
poster's purpose is to flood the newswire or push other posts off the
front page of the IMC website, which typically only contains ten to twenty
of the most recent posts. This type of posting behavior can only truly be
identified after several occurrences, and depends heavily on the amount of
volume of posts. It can be difficult to stop because posters can change
screen names at a whim. Therefore the utmost care must be taken to make
sure that only posts that are made by a known "spammer" are hidden.
•Technically flawed or Technically malicious posts
•Commercial Solicitation and corporate propaganda - the Newswire is not
intended to be used for commercial purposes, therefore commercial
solicitations and advertisements for commercial products should be hidden.
•Impersonation of Individuals and/or groups- Newswire items will be hidden
if it can be established that the post authorship deliberately
impersonates a group or individual.
•Content Empty Posts
•Deliberately misleading or false statements

Guidelines for Editing and Deleting Posts
The following types of posts may be edited or have text deleted by the
LPIMC Editorial Collective.

•Illegal Speech - very few kinds of speech are considered illegal in the
US, however those that are must be dealt with seriously. One example of
such speech is a threat against the US president. The appearance of such
speech on the IMC website can bring unwanted and unnecessary scrutiny and
harassment from police and the government. Any conceivable benefit or
contribution such speech might make is far outweighed by the threat it
presents to the health and existence of the IMC.
•Libel
•Direct Threats ­ These constitute direct threats on specific people or
small, easily identifiable groups of people. The purpose behind editing or
deleting such posts is to not feed into the violence threatened.
•Trolling & Crapflooding [T&C]:

"T&C" refers to posts which disrupt the intended function of the website
by: Diluting or fragmenting the thread of a stories comment chain with
spurious, irrelevant, and often inflammatory, content as opposed to
engaging the substance of the original post, or a related matter. It also
refers to posts appearing in clusters, often in the media gallery, which
have little or no content and / or relevance to the purpose of the website
and have the effect of "swamping" legitimate stories.

Since judgments about what constitutes "T&C" are likely more subjective
than other categories of unacceptable content, editors must post
notification of content "hidden" for this reason to the Editorial
Collective at lancpa-editorial at lists.indymedia.org.

• Posts in a language other than English we suspect of violating one of
the above criteria.

Procedure for Hiding, Editing or Deleting Posts
The Lanpa-IMC Collective expects readers to not only monitor the Newswire
and alert the IMC volunteers when inappropriate posts appear, but to be
able to read the newswire with discretion. Additionally, any LPIMC
volunteer, member or website visitor may call attention to a post believed
to be inappropriate by e-mailing the LPIMC Editorial list at
lancpa-editorial at .lists.indymedia.org

Hiding Posts
When the Editorial Collective is made aware of posts that should be
hidden, it should make a reasonable attempt must be made to contact the
author of the post in question and to explain the IMC's appropriate use
policy, asking for cooperation and compliance. In the event that a post is
made anonymously, or no valid e-mail address is posted, then no effort can
reasonably take place to contact the author. If after attempting contact
with an author posting inappropriately the Editorial Collective is unable
to reach a resolution with that poster, the Collective may hide any of
that author's posts as they deem necessary, according to this policy. The
Collective may instruct the website editor or editorial group to hide
future posts from such an author.

Whenever a post is hidden/unhidden a comment from the Editorial Collective
explaining whey the post was hidden should be added to the hidden post,
and the editorial collective listserve should be notified with a direct
link to the post. This also includes all changes by individual members. In
order to keep things transparent and equal all adjustments or alterations
should be shared with the Collective to inform the other members.

Finally, remember that the Indymedia site is here for you. The site is
especially intended to be available and useful to peoples, ideas, and news
that are overlooked, systematically excluded, or mis-represented by the
dominant media. We encourage you to upload your own stories, commentaries
and announcements that may be of use to the community. And you are further
encouraged to participate actively in the LancasterPA Indymedia Project!

Editorial Policy Reviewing and Assessment Process
The Editorial Collective reviews the Editorial Policy bi-annually,
including reviewing hidden posts and comments/concerns/constructive
criticisms from readers. It is our best intention to provide an axis of
free expression while at the same time protecting the autonomous rights
and dignities of individual readers.

Fair Use Policy
Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for
non-commercial re-use, re-print, and re-broadcast, on the net and
elsewhere. Opinions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily
endorsed by LPIMC.

f. Agree to the use of Open Publishing as described in the NIMC Editorial
Policy
WE WILL USE OPEN PUBLISHING AND ENCOURAGE THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF MEDIA IN
OUR REGION

g. Adopt a decision-making policy that is in alignment with consensus
principles which include open, transparent and egalitarian processes,

WE WILL USE FORMAL-CONSENSUS AS DESCRIBED IN INDYMEDIA DOCUMENTS;
(CONSENSUS MINUS-1 FOR GROUPS LARGER THAN 20; CONSENSUS MINUS-2 FOR GROUPS
LARGER THAN 30, AND 2/3 MAJORITY FOR GROUPS LARGER THAN 40).

h. Have a spokesperson(s) willing and capable of participating in the
global decision-making process and meetings as a rotating
liaison/representative, with a clear understanding of the responsibilities
that come with this role,

MICHAEL HODGSON, KATE BUSCH, JOHN SCHRECK AND ABDUL-LATIF WILL PARTICIPATE
WITH GLOBAL DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES--OTHERS WILL FOLLOW SUITE-- AND ALL
UNDERSTAND THAT THEY WILL BE REPRESENTING THE DECISIONS OF THEIR LOCAL
COLLECTIVE RATHER THAN ESPOUSING THEIR OWN VIEWS TO THE GLOBAL COMMUNITY.

i. Participate in the key IMC Network Communication Methods that pertain
to the health and vitality of the Network and that contribute to the work
of the IMC. Assure that at least one person from your local IMC
participates at any given time on the IMC-Communications list,

MICHAEL HODGSON WILL BE THE FIRST ONE ON THE IMC-COMMUNICATIONS LIST

j. (NOT FINALIZED): Have no official affiliation with any political party,
state or candidate for office (comments: but individual producers have
freedom to do whatever they like and local IMCs can "feature" stories
about various political parties and initiatives),

WE AGREE IN SPIRIT TO THIS STATEMENT

k. IMCs shall in no way engage in commercial for-profit enterprises. [We
could add: The IMCN is committed to the decommercialization of information
and will disassociate from any local IMC that decides to become a for
profit media corporation.]

WE AGREE; EVERYTHING WE DO WILL BE NON-PROFIT

l. Display a ³local version² of the IMC ³i² logo on your website and
literature.

WE WILL HAVE OUR OWN VARIETIES--WE HAVE CHOSEN THE LANTERN AS OUR
SYMBOL--RELATED TO THE HISTORY OF LANTERNS WITH THE UNDERGROUND
RAILROAD--LANCASTER WAS AN IMPORTANT STOP ALONG THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
AND LANTERNS WERE SOMETIMES USED TO INDICATE SAFE HOUSES (OR IF SAFE
HOUSES WERE UNSAFE).

m. Include the IMC Network current ³Cities List² on your site, preferably
on the front page.

YES, WE WILL DO SOMETHING SIMILAR TO PHILLYIMC.ORG SO THAT THERE IS NOT A
MILLION LINE LIST GOING BELOW THE SCREEN.

NETWORK MEMBERSHIP 1. Network Membership is open to any group that accepts
the above criteria for membership. In the case of several requests from
the same city or region, we will encourage them to meet and work together.

WE ARE THE ONLY ONE IN THE LANCASTER REGION--WE WILL ALSO BE ENCOURAGING
OTHER COUNTIES TO FORM IMC'S, SUCH AS HARRISBURG, YORK, READING, ETC. AND
ALSO WILL HELP DEVELOP SMALL SUB-REGIONAL COLLECTIVES WITHIN OUR OWN
COUNTY.
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