[New-imc] Proposal

[Libby]

Hello everybody,

Lately there has been a lot of tension on this list, which is probabely 
normal. After all this list is a communication tool for aworking group 
that has a vast diversity of people from different ages, gender, 
locations all over the world, cultural backgrounds.

The job we do here is very important for the indymedia network, not just 
for the physical growth in numbers of collectives and volunteers, also 
in the coming of age of the network, finetuning of how the agreed upon 
basics of the network can be put into practice in a wide varity of 
social and cultural context.

That is why this list is so important, we need it to communicate, 
exchange ideas and support each other, if we could do it all each on our 
own, we wouldn't need this list, a robot list that sends through the new 
applications and a brief answer of who will sponsor would do, after all 
it is imc-process that decides wheater a group is ready to join or not, 
based on the insights of the groups sponsor.

Some of us know each other very well, see each other on a regular basis, 
work togheter on other imc projects or even projects that have nothing 
to do with imc, other people we never saw, have no idea what they are 
involved in outside of the network or even in the network, that also 
complicates things. There is a huge discrepancy between the way you 
communicate with someone close, whose wounds you've cleaned after a 
severe beating and someone you don't even know is there, a part from the 
challanges of cultural differences in communication and only being able 
to communicate electronically through mail and chat (thus missing a lot 
of nuances)

It is time to turn this list from a bickoring list back into a 
communications list, there are quite a few requests being worked on and 
there are quite some new volunteers actively working on helping new 
groups, so it is essential we turn this list form a bickoring list back 
into a work tool, into a better work tool than it was untill recently.

For example, was very pleased to hear from Catherine, to hear she was on 
the list and why she was here, to find out here input in the group might 
be virtually non-existant but how the role she plays in the bigger 
setting of the network is very important. On the other hand, i think it 
is a bad sign for how the group is working to find out that people feel 
the need to be on the list in a selfappointed capacity of undercover cop 
because they feel we are doing such a bad job, that is higly 
demotivating and when i read those mails i felt like throwing the towel 
in the ring and give up. It is basically incompatible with the 
non-hiërachial and self managed way we try to work. But, even if  think 
they should have been upfront and sounded the alarm bell (which they 
sort of did in the end) instead of chosing to act like a spy, it does 
give an indication something is wrong.

I don't think we need a list purge to achieve a well working newimc 
group, but we do need to know who is here, why they are here and what 
they can (and want to) contribute in skills, experiences...we also need 
to know there is at least a minimum of dedication, commitnemt and link 
to newimc and indymedia as a whole.

That minimum show of commitment could take the shape of an organised 
annual roll call within, lets say the timsespan of a week, preferably 
within the same month, that way it is easy for all of us to check the 
archives of that particular month to find out from which background each 
contributor to the list is talking (that way people don't have to write 
up a whole resumé each time they send a mail, especially if they don't 
participate very often)i believe it would enhance every contribution to 
the working group and avoid a lot of misunderstandigs that can lead to 
conflict.

For practical/technical organisation of this roll call i propose the 
listadmins unsubscribe everybody on march the 31 st and we all 
resubscribe with a roll call in the first week of april and that we do 
this once a year with an updated resumé (none of us sit still and we all 
learn new skills in the course of a year, the list is also dynamic so 
new people will join and others will leave in the course of a year)

The roll call could consist of stating some basic information like your 
role in your local collective, which collective that is, the languages 
you speak, which new collectives you've assisted and are (willing to) 
assist now, what you see as your contribution to the newimc working 
group, special skills and anything else you feel is important to share 
with the people you work with in this group. (and yes we should consider 
the input of good ideas to work with as work in itself)

This will mean a temporary increase of the workload for the admins so i 
hereby propose to at least temporarily help with the admin work and i 
hope some more people will volunteer to do so.

I hope this will be a good basis for a new start, that will give us the 
chance to get to know each other better and work in a constructive way 
towards a better indymedia and better service to the collectives that 
wish to join the network.

Love,

Libby

PS: I'm sorry this mail turned out kinda long but i thought it was 
important to explain it well to avoid to a maximum it will be the cause 
of new misunderstandigs, after all it is kind of delicate.