[imc-scotland-discussion] proposal to block proposals at imc-process once again

[startx]

> Hia,

hi ab, and all the others.

don't get me wrong ( i better say this for right away ;) , i do not want
to interfere in scotland's internal discussion, i am writing this email
because i think you misinterpret some recent proposals.

> As people probably know the Mayday collective have pulled a copy of
> the imc uk database onto a new server and then the techie pointed the
> domain indymedia.org.uk to it. Global indymedia has no control over
> this domain, but imc london demanded sanctions against the techie,
> denying him access to the servers and imc northern (england) sanctions
> against everybody in the collective (dunno who they exactly count to
> it) with denying anybody in the mayday collective any access to global
> indymedia resources. 

i think you mix up two things here. noone has a problem with mayday
making a full copy of the 1 may version of the imc uk site. in fact,
this has always been the plan from the beginning. the fact that they
didnt want to use the server offered to them suprised us, but that's
their choice.

however, it was never the idea that mayday would continue to call
themselves "Indymedia UK" and continue to use the indymedia.org.uk
domain. the idea was that mayday would continue the MIR page as "mayday
collective"

it was the outcome of a 2 years painful decision making process that in
the future no one, neither mayday or anybody else would call themselves
"Indymedia UK" anymore. that was the whole idea of forking/splitting
( whatever you want to call it ). that was a sad outcome, but agreed on.

again: no one ever objected to mayday running the mir site in the
future, and even on the 1 may the newswire stayed open [1] because it
appeared that mayday had not set up everything they needed. 
it is total misinformation if people claim that "open publishing was
closed"

but: the only problem ( but it is a massive one ) is that mayday poses
as "indymedia uk", which they are clearly NOT. the principles of unity
clearly mean that you cannot call yourself "indymedia whatever" if
local collectives who you overlap object to it. what would you say if i
somebody from glasgow set up scotland-indymedia.org and call themselves
"indymedia scotland" . i assume you would go mad, for good reason.

all mayday has to do is:

  1) hand over the domain to global stewardship , they have several
  domains registered allready ( see e.g. http://maydaymedia.org/en/ ) 
  i do not see any reason why they cannot use this domain.

  2) make clear on their website that they are not "indymedia uk"

is this really so much to ask for? it's just a change of a name and a
banner, and they will be prominently linked from all over the web
( including the infamous splash screen )

heaven, if they handed over the domain to global , i would even agree to
give them another few weeks to announce the domain change to their
users, just for the sake of peace.

in any case, the proposal to hand over the domain to global stewardship
has passed, but mayday has already stated that they won't comply anyway.
this is sad, too.

> I have problems with both the proposals. The techie especially has
>been working hard since 2003 for indymedia putting a whole lot of time,
>money, energy and resources into the project, especially during times
>of crisis. I believe denying him server access is a revenge act more
>than the stated "inability to trust" as neither imc london or imc
>northern nor any other indymedia site -even imc uk original website -
>have been changed in any way. 

first of all, the "emergency request" by imc london to exclude chris
from all server access was a response to him hijacking the domain.

he has excluded all other people who had been trusted with managing the
domain name. this was a setup of trust and not directly related to the
1 may fork [2] , it was a long term decision.

you can try to justify chris's action as "direct action" ( as mayday
does ) or whatever, but nevertheless it is hijacking. somebody
was trusted to manage the domain for _all_ collectives in the uk,
not for mayday alone. i do not think a trusted tech person should act
like this. if someone acts like this, i think calling it
"inability to trust" is appropriate.

>Thirdly, I believe blackmailing somebody into submission is never a
>good way to solve a dispute, but should be in particular discouraged in

i am not sure why you call it blackmailing. what is the threat? i assume
they can set up some mailing lists within 20minutes, they have a server
and a domain anyway.

> longer in existance than imc northern and imc
> linksunten who seem to be now the main dogmatic blockers. Both imc
> sheffield and imc birmingham collectives believed so much in imc uk
> that they never bothered to go through the approval process. 

i think you should not personalize this conflict. the proposal by
linksunten has been supported by bristol, london, germany , linksunten
and athens so far, with support messages from people from other
collectives, too. [3]

also , bart has not blocked anything apart from a new-imc proposal
which even mayday's liason found hopeless and far too early. it was
also blocked by others from the new-imc working group.

> To exclude them from imc-process decision-making process and block
> their approval by new-imc is in my opinion open discrimination. I
> don't want to be part of it but clearly imc scotland is unable to put
> things right or resolve the dispute as its been running too long and
> too deeply. 

imc birmingham and sheffield are not "excluded from global decision
making", they never were part of the global network as affiliated imcs.
sheffield recently started the new-imc process and failed ( for now ),
but for reasons completely unrelated to the fork. i dont think there
can be any other rule for global process, as otherwise it would be
impossible to judge for people abroad who is a "imc" or not.

you know, after all it comes down to this: 

mayday can't just have everything. they can ( because they control the
domain ) easily continue and say "fuck you global" . fair enough. 
but i think then they cannot expect to be welcomed and supported by a
global community which is based on solidarity.

happy to answer further questions ... and hope for once it is not
raining in scotland.

startx ( imc london )

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[1]
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-process/2011-April/0501-c4.html

[2]
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-tech/2011-May/0505-nz.html
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-tech/2011-May/0509-b7.html

[3]
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-process/2011-May/0506-uz.html
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-process/2011-May/0503-ar.html
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-process/2011-May/0505-ns.html
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-process/2011-May/0506-5t.html
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-process/2011-May/0512-bu.html