[Imc-india] PROPOSAL: IMC India suspends until new collective DEADLINE 12.01.2006

[boud]

hi shivani,

On Fri, 6 Jan 2006, shivani chaudhry wrote:

>  
> happy new year all imc-istas!
>

> am glad to see this discussion... as i'd also expressed an interest
>in meeting people face-to-face some time back.

> i live in delhi. does anyone else???

gopal krishna from delhi used to be quite active (e.g. articles against
toxic waste):

http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Local/ImcIndiaWho#Delhi

i added you to the page - click on "Register" at the top left to make
yourself a new account if you haven't used the twiki before. A quick 
warning: the twiki help info tells you to read all sorts of stuff before
you get started, but getting started is not really that difficult - just
login, click edit, make your changes, preview, and save.


> also, is there any way that we can prevent messages to this list
> from being available on the web?? all emails that we send to this
> imc-india list can be read on the internet by anyone. (including
> this one i guess!) and i don't like that!! this is supposed to be a
> candid discussion list amongst us, not a view for all.

It's definitely possible *technically*.

Whether it's a good idea politically or not is a totally different
question.

And making a local decision on this is another, different question.

In principle, the decision should be made by a local collective. If
you get together with other people in Delhi and really get organised
and come to consensus on the various issues
(http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/NewImcHowTo), and then you
decide you really need a secret list archive, well, that's your local
decision.

You can see a summary of the arguments for and against different list 
parameters here:
http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/NewImcMailingListIssues

A few excerpts include:

Indymedia is only Indymedia if it's open to everyone, and if it's
non-hierarchical. Radical transparency helps achieve both of these -
nearly all of our internal decision-making and organising is public
via public mailing list archives, or else open face-to-face
meetings. Ideas and actions that are not publicly archived are
generally either technical and non-controversial, or else fail to have
an effect on the network because people don't know about them and
don't feel any obligation to take them seriously.


And some advantages of public archives:

           o openness

           o easier for communication within group

           o easier for communication between Indymedia collectives

           o easier for the wider public to see what Indymedia is - are
           we sectarian? religious fundamentalists? terrorists? an
           attempt to impose US culture on the rest of the world? In
           the present context of the WTO/IMF/WB/Bush II corporate
           empire trying to divide and conquer and make people distrust
           and fear one another, and given that Indymedia is still only
           marginally developed outside of North/South America and
           Europe, it is quite understandable that people around the
           world who are very much angry with "the USA" might be very
           suspicious about Indymedia if they could not read the
           archives and see for themselves that we are not a branch of
           the CIA...

           o easier to resolve conflicts since the "he said this and
           she said that" can at least be checked by a neutral party
           much more easily than if the archives are secret.

           o people who deliberately manipulate others are less likely
           to do this in public: manipulation requires saying different
           things to different people

> what do others feel?

BTW, just because i spend too much time at the keyboard, please do not
take my suggestions or arguments as "authoritative".

>
> hope to SEE some of you in person, soon....
>
> and hope the new year brings us what we're fighting for and dreaming of...

solidarity :)
boud