[IMC-Tech] Draft: How to properly shut down an IMC

[Alster]

mark burdett wrote:
> IMO it would be a good idea to have a formal process to shut down an 
> imc, e.g. letting a proposal sit on the imc-process list for 7 or 14 
> days, similar to the process for adding a new imc.  

Yes and no, from my point of view. I agree that a formal process, which
would probably have to be initiated via imc-process, would be nice. On
ethe other hand, I doubt that ISPs/tech collectives and whoever
maintains services a for a long gone IMC want to wait until some
possibly complex IMC process has finished before they can deactivate the
phpbb 1.0.5 install in their website which has 3 remote shells installed
by now. So, I'm a bit hesitant to have a too formal approach here. Maybe
a mixture of both can be fine? But I can't think of one which fits
everyones' needs.

Another, and actually the bigger issue I see with making this a process
which must be started by IMC Process is that IMC Process is a liaison
forum, a mailing list which only spokespersons of IMCs have the ability
to post on, and will only do so if they have been asked by their IMC to
do so. So, if _somebody_ who realizes that some ex-IMC website is being
defaced and they had only blog spam on it for the better part of the
last year and this somebody does not happen to be part of Indymedia,
then this person would have to
* learn how Indymedia is structured and how the IMC process works
* understand that she must contact a local IMC and convince them to
  start an decision makning process within this IMC
* this decision making process would need to result in the local IMC
  asking their liaison to address IMC process
* the liaision would ask IMC process to start the (yet to be defined)
  IMC shutdown process for this ex-IMC
* unless some IMC objects within a while IMC process would then initiate
  the IMC shutdown process on said IMC
* the IMC shutdown process would probably take a couple weeks if not
  months to be processed and causes additional workload to the IMC
  process facilitators

So I am not exactly convinced this is the right way to go. But even if
people think it is, it would still be nice to find a way to empower
non-IMC-volunteers to initiate this process in a somewhat sane way.

> since the sites 
> are often inactive for a year before anyone notices, an extra week or 
> two wouldn't be bad.

True.

> Also, might be nice to have a working group to focus on this task. or 
> maybe an existing working group like commwork would be up to the job.

Since commwork is mostly a technical working group nowadays, I'm not
sure this would be appreciated by IMC process and IMC volunteers in
general. That is, unless you're referring to the technical processes
involved in shutting down an inactive IMC. I will be happy with any such
working group forming itself and taking on this, but -pardon my
pessimism- I don't personally expect this to happen.

To prevent misunderstandings - I primarily sent this draft to imc-tech
first to gather more hints on the drafted process of informing the
technical working groups which should be informed. I do, of course, plan
to pass this on to imc-communication, once a possibly improved draft has
been written (not neccessarily by me).

Alster
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