[imc-scotland-discussion] Some proposals from informal chin-wag with Ninja people

Thu Feb 10 11:31:21 PST 2011

I think some clarification is needed about the position of the 'NINJA folk'. 

Our main aim is to have a well-known portal of information about local groups, resources and events that are engaged in fighting oppression and creating a more just and sustainable society. The idea being that this could be used as a first port of call for people new to the city, new to the idea of taking action, or already involved but looking to see what else is out there, where, and when. 

Our initial plan was to set-up our own site. We started this and it remains an option. However, we felt that a new site with a new name would require a lot of energy to publicise it to the point that it was a go-to for anyone interested in activist/alternative info in Edinburgh. There is an obvious benefit to using a site that is already well-known and well-used. We approached Indymedia as it was felt that our aims are not incompatable with theirs. As there is already an Indymedia calendar the only addition to the site would be info on local groups and resources. Indymedia as a combined news and local information outlet is not a new idea: it is used as such in Grenoble, France, and as already mentioned there is a similar set-up with Indymedia Bristol. 

I think we all recognise it is irresponsible to argue in favour of something that we expect someone else to do. It was mentioned that the info on local groups and events would result in an extra workload for people who're not necessarily motivated to do it. I don't think this will be the case. There is a group of people, myself included, who value this resource and want to do this work. Naturally, anyone already involved with Indymedia is very welcome to be a part of this. My only concern here is how to empower the newcomers to do this work for themselves, so as not to burden the current techies; whilst maintaining accountability. If we are respectful towards each other and recognise the common goals we share, I don't think this should be a problem.

The issue of whether we have separate Edinburgh and Glasgow sites is not one I personally feel strongly about, but some do and there are strong arguments for and against it. Separation would mean more locally relevant info, and a well-updated Scotland-wide calendar could get crowded. But there is something to be said for improving links between different cities, and I imagine not creating city-specific sites would save on the workload. I also don't think it should be a problem to have separate lists of groups and resources for different locations within the same (Scotland-wide) site.

Finally, there has also been talk of a mailing list. The mailing list is something optional to keep people updated on upcoming events. We already have an Edinburgh Action Info mailing list we can administrate independently. A link to signing up for it on the Indymedia site would be cool though! 

Apologies for the length of this, thank you for getting this far! I hope this can help re-start this discussion and we can work-out if we want to work together on this,

Gavin

--- On Thu, 27/1/11, bencrosbie at gmail.com <bencrosbie at gmail.com> wrote:

From: bencrosbie at gmail.com <bencrosbie at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [imc-scotland-discussion] Some proposals from informal chin-wag with Ninja people
To: imc-scotland-discussion at lists.indymedia.org
Date: Thursday, 27 January, 2011, 19:10

Was present at the meeting and support all the proposals,

Chris RE:Proposal A

I understand everything you are saying but will leave Tom to suggest which would be easier/better technically speaking,

It is from my understanding thought that the driving forces at the meeting were pretty adamant on having a local site so if this proposal weren't to go ahead they would probably set up a complete separate site.  This proposal however aims to have a shared node (and likely also user) database to save having to double-post to separate sites (an edinburgh and a scotland site) or syndicate the content.

I also know Tom is planning to move to Drupal 7 in the process of doing all this, which should make the other suggestions you are making easier to implement.

But like I say, Tom will know better technically speaking about all these things.
On Monday, 24 January 2011 at 21:11, chris h wrote:

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SHORT VERSION:
So where does that leave me on A, B & C.
A: I am unconvinced for reasons above.
Suggestion: start the process by giving people a city filter drop-down meu
(or whatever) on the front page. It removes stories that aren't local to
them (maybe excepting Features). It changes the masthead. It pulls in
local-interest blog content. It makes the calendar bigger. They can set it
as a permanent option in their account (like the mobile frontend). If it
"works" (however that's defined) then we go further.

B: Support.

C: Meh. Wouldn't block it. Seems like extra technical workload that I am
unable to help with.

THE LONG VERSION
I like Bristol as a model, it's always been one of the better IMCs in my view.

I think that enabling increased local focus is a good thing, as is wider
participation, in particular from outside our traditional milieu of
self-identifying activists and alternative types.

There is excellent content that we should be pulling in from blogs
(provided it doesn't mean us having to re-edit and clear out the moderation
queue everytime one of the blogs generates a new feed).

However:

I am sceptical that simply providing an "Edinburgh" and "Glasgow" frontpage
will make a significant difference to the amount or quality of content
submitted. You could argue that we've been practically Edinburgh Indymedia
since one of our Glasgow contributors moved to the East Coast. (It's only
since the 'Citizens Utd' actions that things have looked brighter there IMO.)

Talk is cheap. I want these people who are itching to contribute to just do
so in the first instance. Even if it's just copying over their press
release / blog article. Currently the events calendar is kept populated by
2 or 3 people and we have an extremely liberal approach to the scope of
events included.

I'm not in favour of repainting a bicycle if it has a wonky wheel.

Is the barrier preventing these people contributing *really* that it says
Scotland on the site instead of Edinburgh (or Marchmont)? Is the interface
too confusing? Point out where, fresh eyes would be extremely useful. Are
there easy ways to better promote content? I know we have been
preferentially promoting articles from outside of the central belt (when we
get them). What else can we do? Negatively, what happens to those few
articles from Aberdeen if the attention is further shifted to the Big Two
cities?

It seems to me that the quick easy gains are:
* improve & promote the calendar
-- quick links to city events on the front page?
-- re-ordering the Add Event form to bring the most used boxes up
-- more intuitive date & time defaults, e.g. when you click "event has
time", you get a time of 90 minutes after the start autofilled.
-- fancier export options beyond simple iCal files, for the whole/filtered
calendar and single events. Let folk post to Google or Facebook if they
want. Email an event to someone. That kind of thing.
* get the blog aggregator back on a sustainable basis.

GET TO THE POINT CHRIS
So where does that leave me on A, B & C.
A: I am unconvinced for reasons above.
Suggestion: start the process by giving people a city filter drop-down meu
(or whatever) on the front page. It removes stories that aren't local to
them (maybe excepting Features). It changes the masthead. It pulls in
local-interest blog content. It makes the calendar bigger. They can set it
as a permanent option in their account (like the mobile frontend). If it
"works" (however that's defined) then we go further.

B: Support.

C: Meh. Wouldn't block it. Seems like extra technical workload that I am
unable to help with.

That's my intial-ish thoughts.
chris h

Jamie McQuilkin wrote:

As a further to that, I was at the meeting and happened to really like
the Bristol Indymedia site <http://bristol.indymedia.org/> as a possible
source of good ideas.

Personally, I think that Indymedia has a greater potential to attract
new writing if it's relevant on a city scale, with non-news and other
informative media incorporated as well, like a city directory, a
wide-scope calendar and blog listings. I've been doing straw polls
amongst the people I know since the meeting, and there's been a lot of
enthusiasm for something like that amongst the people that I've talked
to, including for contributions(!) to the site.

J

On 24/01/2011 17:32, Tom Morton wrote:

Hi everyone,

On Wednesday 12th some Indymedia people (me, Ben and Gandolf) met for an
informal chin-wag with people from NINJA people (National
Insurrectionist Network for Justice and Action). They had some proposals
for changes to the site which we discussed and largely agreed with,
although we would still have to get the agreement of the rest of
Indymedia Scotland. These are the proposals:

Proposal A: Per-city (or at least Glasgow and Edinburgh) homepages
accessible from their own domain names. These would be much like the
current Indymedia Scotland front page, but only showing articles
relevant to the city. (The submission form would still be unified a la
IMC UK, with authors specifying a location for articles as is currently
done with events).

Justification: Some people said they did not use Indymedia Scotland
because it contained too much non-local content that they were not
interested in, and that they thought they could attract more writers to
an Edinburgh Indymedia.

Proposal B: Syndicate news from blogs and other community news outlets.
(This had been attempted in the past but was poorly implemented and
abandoned, but drupal modules to do this have apparently improved since
then).

Proposal C: The city sites (Edinburgh Indymedia, Glasgow, etc) would
have a list of groups (campaign groups, community spaces, media
collectives, food coops, activist legal advice sites, etc) relevant to
the area. They would be categorised for easy navigation. We did not
agree on how these groups would be chosen and what might make a group
acceptable or eligible.

"Just Living" was an example of the kind of things people were aiming for:

http://www.justliving.org.uk/

What do people think?

- --
chris h

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