[Imc-mayday-collective] [Fwd: [Imc-communication] Suggestion the UK Situation - Temporary Compromise?]

Sat May 14 16:08:13 PDT 2011

FYI

The clear problem is what happens after the six months.

cheers

ftp

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: [Imc-communication] Suggestion the UK Situation - Temporary
Compromise?
From:    "Ben" <ben at mail36.net>
Date:    Sat, May 14, 2011 2:43 pm
To:      imc-communication at lists.indymedia.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi all,
(am writing as inividual, and _not_ representing IMC Germany!)

To me, the situation around the Indymedias in the UK seems to be more
tense than ever, as the deadline for handing over the dns of the
Indymedia-UK domain to the global dns working group is close.

* From how I see it, the Bradford Agreement (1) clearly states that the UK
site forks into "a.indymedia.org" domains (meaning domains within the
indymedia network). Hence, I can understand Mayday's frustrations that
when they did not only experience severe hickups with their new-imc
process, but that they were also not successful in being heard and
understood on the global lists (process and communication). This
includes the failed effort from IMC Scottland on IMC Process (2), which
was formulated as a 'block', but actually seemed to have been meant more
as a proposal to extend the 1 May deadline. In retrospective, this could
actually have helped to de-escalate the whole situation, but
unfortunatly was regarded as a an invalid 'block' instead of a new
proposal under a wrong heading (3).

This frustration (and whatever else) then lead to what is described by
the Mayday collective as 'direct action' and by others as 'abuse of
tech-power'. I see both(!) perspectives as valid(!), and it doesn't make
much sense for me to judge who is 'right' and who is 'wrong'.
My personal understanding of 'the spirit of indymedia' is that of being
able to move beyond places of right and wrong, and envision how a
somewhat colaborative future could look like, even though we might end
up working on different projects.

The recent development ('direct action'/'tech-power abuse' on the one
hand, and insisting on handing over the uk-domain without sufficiently
acknowledging the difficulties of going through the new-imc process on
the other hand), makes it more difficult for Mayday to become an IMC
with eventually its own mayday.indymedia.org - domain.
I hereby would like to ask you to be aware that the whole situation
around the new-imc process became not only more complicated but also
emotionally loaded, as can be seen under "Mayday Indymedia New IMC
Application Timeline" (4), and eventually ended up being about more than
merely the issue of IP addresses. It seems that in any case a
facilitation of the conflict between new-imc and the mayday collective
(or at least some additional outside support) is needed in order for
this new-imc process to continue. And it also requires a lot of
self-reflection on the Mayday collective's side.

AND while this new-imc issue is somewhat hanging, at the same time, we
need a short-term solution for NOW, as the deadline is tomorrow (Sunday,
15th) afternoon!

My *suggestion*, therefore, is that the mayday collective is allowed to
move to a temporary mayday.indymedia.org domain, which is under dns
control of the global dns working group (if that is technically doable)
for a period of six months (1st November) only. This period should be
sufficient to either successfully work through the new-imc process (and
remain with this domain), or to get a clear picture why it is necessary
to block this process (and either move out of the indymedia network or
get more time to work through new-imc).

In the meantime (as soon as possible!) the Indy-UK webiste will become
the aggregator website as initially suggested, pointing to both
collectives (bethemedia & mayday).

I hope that by following this suggestion as a temporary (until 1st
November) compromise, all parties involved will have their needs at
least partially met, and the whole situation in the UK is not escalating
any further.

It actually makes me sad to see how much potential for activism is going
into this dispute that otherwise could be very useful elsewhere. Yet, I
still have the feeling there is a message for us in all this. No idea
what it might be, and maybe it's a different one for each one of us...

In any case, I'd love to hear if such a temporary compromise could work
for the parties involved.
Knowing that it might feel a bit edgy and that there is miuch more
(emotional) history to this whole conflict. Yet I believe it might be a
workable (not ideal!) solution to get things going again for now and
move beyond the current status of stuckness.

Thanksalot for listening and considering this suggestion.
In solidarity with all activists in the UK,
..and elsewhere on this planet,

Ben

(1) https://docs.indymedia.org/Local/UkNetworkMeetingBradford2010Minutes
(2) http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-process/2011-April/0430-oq.html
(3) http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-process/2011-April/0430-tg.html
(4) http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/05/478721.html

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-------------- next part --------------
FYI

The clear problem is what happens after the six months.

cheers

ftp

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: [Imc-communication] Suggestion the UK Situation - Temporary
Compromise?
From:    "Ben" <ben at mail36.net>
Date:    Sat, May 14, 2011 2:43 pm
To:      imc-communication at lists.indymedia.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi all,
(am writing as inividual, and _not_ representing IMC Germany!)