[Imc-uk-network] additions for network meeting agenda: new imcsoftware, imc uk server
cactus at zetnet.co.uk
cactus at zetnet.co.uk
Wed Nov 1 04:57:26 PST 2006
And to add to Ionneks list of ideas - this e-mail from Jay (Philly imc)
will be sent to the lists when i get home - but is
worth adding to the this discussion as it overlaps well. (could someone add
the link to the wiki when i forward the
actual mail this eve)
I get the feeling there could be a few agenda items around these subjects
of 'where now for indymedia'
cheers tony
==============================
Introducing IMC-ALTERNATIVES and invitation to join
Hi friends!
As has become my custom the last couple months, apologies for the bulk
mail.
A lot of you are indymedia activists who already
have heard something about the imc-alternatives
project, but for those of you who haven't, take a
look at the invitation below.
I'm really excited about this project; actually,
I haven't been as excited about a global
indymedia project for a really long while. Not
only is the imc-alternatives working group
planning to focus on a different kind of
information than often appears on IMC newswires
-- we're going to explore and document positive,
inspiring, thought and action-provoking stuff,
rather than rants about all the stuff that's
wrong in the world -- but we're also hoping to
work with imc techs to reinvigorate the indymedia
website model. We hope to develop the site as a
so-called "web 2.0" environment, where users
become involved with the project not only to
access comprehensive information about
alternatives to corporate globalization but also
to build community and make stuff happen.
To accomplish this the project is going to need a
lot of help from a lot of great people. Since
you're all great people, check out the
information below and see what you think. If you
can't join in the fun right now, please forward
this along to everyone you know who might be interested.
Thanks for your time! I hope to see you all soon,
Jay
***
"It is not enough to decrease the rate of destruction... we must in-
crease the rate of creation." -- Tom Hayden, Seattle WTO, 1999
SUMMARY:
The "imc-alternatives" working group invites you to join us in the
formation of a global "Alternatives IMC!" The "Alternatives IMC" will be a
"next generation" Indymedia website that will both gather content about all
the great things people are doing to create a better world [pioneering
alternative social structures, economics, education, energy, etc.] and to
provide a place for people organizing these projects working on these
projects to connect with each other to do practical, world-changing
work. We invite you to check out information at
'"https://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/IndymediaAlternatives .
BODY:
You are INVITED to participate in the Alternatives Indymedia!!
Activists striving for fundamental change have achieved marked success in
recent years, combining massive street demonstrations against War, poverty
and unaccountable global institutions with long-term community organizing
and innovative internet tools to create public discussion around the many
problems facing our world. Independent media sources like Indymedia, and to
some extent the mainstream media, have covered this rising tide of
discontent, providing substantial analysis of most everything that's
"wrong" with the current governmental, social and economic systems.
At the same time, though with much less fanfare, many people and
organizations are working to develop systems that are "right." These are
focused on working solutions, such as participatory decision-making
processes, equitable economies, technologies of cooperation, and many more.
They nurture social structures and a more ecologically sustainable way of
life. If encouraged , valued and supported, these tangible and concrete
experiments could represent a positive shift toward "a new way of being";
the next bold step in the movement to create a better world. But the word
needs to get out about them. Right now we have an imbalance in coverage of
the problems and the critique and not enough dissemination of empowering
information about what is working in the world and how people can get
involved with these kinds of "experiments".
The Alternatives Indymedia (a working title) is a project with multiple
goals:
1) To open a vibrant, inspiring, and multilingual Indymedia site through
which users will both share information about current efforts toward
fundamental change and work collaboratively on projects to make change
happen in their communities.
2) To develop the Alternatives Indymedia site to be a "next-generation" IMC
site. This will include offering both traditional IMC features (open
publishing newswire, central feature column) as well as collaborative
editing (aka open editing) and wiki work-pages, integrated forums and
project-oriented mailing lists, blogs, RSS feeds, and other advances that
will inspire active participation in the site. To accomplish this, we want
to work with visionary techies and innovative coders (maybe YOU??) to
pioneer new versions of code (perhaps using Drupal, perhaps using Plone),
that will help transform Indymedia sites from relics of a bygone era when
open publishing itself was considered revolutionary -- way back in 2000! --
into elegant, powerful, INSPIRING sites that empower a new generation of
activists to work together to make change.
We intend this site to become an indispensable resource for those
interested in the basic fundamentals of fundamental change - the
who/what/where/when/why of what people are doing to better the world -- as
well as a living laboratory for those who want to make change happen NOW.
The Alternatives IMC Working Group invites you to join us in realizing this
vision. We are looking for (1) techies who are interested in developing the
next generation of IMC sites, (2) organizers who share our desire to
harness the power of Indymedia to advance social change, and (3) media
makers who love covering the alternatives, experiments and solutions that
are happening across the globe!
Please join our working
<http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-alternatives >email list
at
imc-alternatives at indymedia.org (join through
"http://lists.indymedia.org ). You may also contact Jay <jay at
fundamentalchange.net> and/or Sheri <sheri at indymedia.org> for more
information. We look forward to working together to create a shift in
thinking, perception and individual and collective political will.
Jay
Original Message:
-----------------
From: ionnek ionnek at aktivix.org
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2006 00:06:10 +0000
To: imc-uk-process at lists.indymedia.org, imc-uk-network at lists.indymedia.org
Subject: [Imc-uk-network] additions for network meeting agenda: new
imcsoftware, imc uk server
Hello all,
Summary:
Additions for the agenda of the network meeting - to plan how and where to
get a
new server; to have a session about plans of global techs to develop a new
indymedia software (or cms - content management system).
the long version with links:
There are a few additions to the agenda for the network meeting. They came
up
during the last days on imc-uk-features and imc-uk-tech. I repeat them here,
because I think they are very important. It is all about the tech
infrastructure of indymedia.
1) NEW INDYMEDIA SOFTWARE
First about the new cms, the new imc software. Andi brought it up:
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-tech/2006-October/1030-pf.html
and Yossarian proposed to make a non-technical presentation about what's
going
on, then we could discuss it:
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-features/2006-October/1030-hb.ht
ml
I strongly support this. When indymedia started in 1999, nobody knew of
blogs,
people couldn't just go and publish on the web, the active software was
cutting
edge and so was open publishing. Now technology has moved on, tons of blogs
to
be got for free. But indymedia is still special, afaik its the only
blog-like
project that his hugely and globally collective, not just an individual or a
handfull of people. I think it's important for us to explore new tech
solutions, and the possibility to hook up with the blog scene, with rss ses
of
topics or local sites (mickfuzz and stuart talked about this recently), with
trackbacks and all that stuff.
And I think this new cms effort is not just a tech issue, we can all
contribute
to it, it's our strength that in indymedia, the boundaries between techs and
users are not as hard as elsewhere.
During the July 2006 "techmeet" in Sao Paulo, Brazil, people from both the
Mir
and SF-Active dev teams got together to discuss a number of CMS-related
issues.
One of the main topics of discussion was a proposal for the future of the
indymedia CMSes. Here is a summary:
http://techmeet.sarava.org/English/CMSProposal
Another development is the concept of "social software", the idea that the
movements need a platform more like a radical "myspace", with blogs and
sites
and communication channels that can be anything from completely public and
completely encrypted. The riseup collective is working on such a platform:
http://cats.revolt.org/cats-vii/crabgrass/one-pager/
Does this make indymedia redundant? Or do we have some social software
already
with the chat, the wiki, the lists etc? Or are we going to change indymedia?
Here are a few thoughts about this, scroll down:
http://www.ainfos.ca:81/en/ainfos18620.html
2) NEW IMC UK SERVER
There is a strongly supported proposal on the tech list to talk about our
server
set-up during the network meeting.
chrisc proposal for tech / server discussion on network meeting 30 Oct 06
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-tech/2006-October/1030-wf.html
zak agrees to have a tech session 30 Oct 06
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-tech/2006-October/1030-jc.html
I strongly support this. I also would like to ask the present techs to give
us
non-server-admins an introduction. Tell us what needs doing in order to get
a
new imc uk server, to speed up the website, etc. Tell us about the options,
tell us what you are discussing.
The reason I am so much into an open server discussion, in which
non-server-admins can attend as well, is that I see the urgent, pressing
need
for more autonomous servers. This is the main outcome I took back from the
"digital struggles" stream at the pga meeting this summer.
The movement needs autonomous servers, badly. There are quite a few, in
different countries, really cool projects, from riseup to nadir, from boum
to
autistici. But there are by far not enough of them. And Indymedia is in
constant need of server space and functioning collectives that maintain
them.
People who know how to do it, and are willing to learn. Even central
applications like the twiki (docs.indymedia.org) have been known to break
down
for months! Whatever the reasons are, i think we need to learn better how to
run our own autonomous servers, technically, socially, collectively,
politically. And the best way to learn it is to get one and try it out.
I noticed during the "digital struggles" that the existing autonomous server
projects are trying to connect with each other, but this is not an easy
task -
different politics, different views on tech, but a very strong will to work
together. I talked to pp from each project and found out that each one
relies
on its own support structure - social movements, lawyers, press, media...
So -
if we as indymedia uk want to strengthen this network of autonomous,
political
servers, we need to build one, complete with local and international support
structure and all.
I also noticed that many of the people who run autonomous servers regard
indymedia more as users, not so much as "fellow techs". And if I am not
completely mistaken, there were no heavy server techs from indymedia at that
meeting. Yet I think that indymedia is a node in the global autonomous
political server infrastructure, and we in the uk are able to do our bit to
make it stronger. For example by setting up a really strong mir server to
host
imc websites that run on mir.
I talked to different people about what they thought about an imc uk server
for
mir websites etc. The general response I got was always similar. Get a
server,
work on it, build your own support around it. People were reluctant to give
views on where they thought this server should be hosted, which countries
would
be good, which legal structure would be best. Every group has their own
model,
they all have advantages and disadvantages, nobody thought that their model
was
easily transferrable to another country, another collective, another
political
situation. What counts is to work on a server, learn to run it better, make
connections, swap ideas and experiences, move it around if necessary.
So - I think at the network meeting, we should find a way to get a server,
work
out what it should do, see who will be working on it, make a decision about
where to host it, put it on the imc uk process list, see if there are any
refinements, and go ahead and do it. Fast. And I think it is important that
us
non-server-admins are involved, and support the decision.
Why do I think servers are so important? Well the last weekend, again. The
uprising in Oaxaca. Thousands of people defending the radio at the
University
against tanks, helicopters, army, paramilitaries and police. With their
bodies,
not much more. Indymedia servers were part of the technical infrastructure
to
broadcast this radio over the web. The media technology was worth defending,
see here a live translation from the radio broadcast in Oaxaca last sunday:
<luna_> we call for people to come to the radio building to keep us on air
<luna_> in ths heroic, peacefull and popular resistance
<luna_> we also call for water, food, blankets
<luna_> so they can keep their resistance
<luna_> the confrontation in tecnologico carries on
<luna_> police against people
<luna_> front to front"
I think we have a responsibility to chip into the global infrastructure of
political servers, as local collectives and as a wider network. Because we
can.
Here are a few links about the state of the current plans to buy a new imc
uk
server.
yossarian/zak/mish proposal 6 Jun 06
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-process/2006-June/0606-2n.html
gdm proposal 1 Aug 06
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-process/2006-August/0801-dl.html
gdm next steps 17 Sept 06
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-process/2006-September/0917-9t.h
tml
gdm stating that his bloc was processual 30 Oct 06
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-tech/2006-October/1030-dg.html
jebba, andi, yossarian assuming that we can move on to get a server 31 Oct
06
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-tech/2006-October/1030-i8.html
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-tech/2006-October/1031-zj.html
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-tech/2006-October/1031-4j.html
3) SHOW AND TELL
http://imc-uk-history.mine.nu/
and
https://docs.indymedia.org/view/Local/ImcUkWritingAltMedHandbookDraft
look fwd to see you this weekend
best
ionnek
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Also other list of similar interest Indymedia United Kollektives process:
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