[New-imc] anna artalk as contact for imc berlin/likely block by imc germany

[boud]

hi pete, new-imc,

It is clear that there has been a long-term conflict between anna
artalk and the rest of IMC Germany. If anna wishes to be part of a
reorganised local, autonomous Berlin collective, then clearly a wide
discussion among activists in Berlin would presumably have to occur
and some consensus evolve. From what you (pete) say, it sounds like
the conflict is not just "National", but also local: between anna
artalk and the other Berlin activists. This is more serious. i don't
expect that new-imc would try to solve this conflict.

On Sun, 6 Jul 2008, pete wrote:

> Artalk is regularly registering new e-mail accounts (approximately 30 in
> june08). She is using those e-mail addresses in order to masquerade as other
> people and to lead discussions with herself.
>
> The following mail accounts can definitely be assigned to her:
> oubs at riseup.net - shared project box
> streikzentrale at gmx.net - shared students´ protest box
> imc-berlin at gmx.net - imc-berlin - inbox for the new-imc-list, forwarding to
> named admins.
> The two other accounts could either be owned by herself or the the
> problematic people associated with her.

i don't know whether or not remi wanted his name put on anna artalk's roll
call, but in any case, remi has been a francophone imc activist for
many years. He is even an admin on the imc-process list. i think he's
from IMC Paris, but in any case, he is *not* anna artalk, and he is
*not* a problematic person. [Hint from conflict resolution ideas: 
isn't it better to focus on the conflict resolution process rather than
describing individuals as problematic?]


> More fake adresses from Artalk which are banned on IMC-Lists (all of them
> used in the last few weeks!!):

Clearly anna artalk has reacted to the unsolved conflict by seriously
violating netiquette. However, that does not mean that she could not
be part of a local, autonomous, face-to-face media activist
collective.


> Her enmeshment with drug dealers and right wing activists, extruding other
> political activists from former alternative and free areas (e.g. OUBS in
> berlin), also seem to be problematic.

...
> She has repeatedly threatened IMC-activists, wrote them impending mails and
> menaced to publish their names and addresses.

These points sound quite serious, and they *do* suggest that she could
have great difficulty being part of a local, autonomous, face-to-face
media activist collective which would be accepted in the indymedia
network.


> The e-mail addresses, mentioned by her as contact addresses in the
> application form, have been solely registered by herself. Those addresses
> have already been banned from the IMC-lists.

AFAIK, we don't have an "application form" for new imcs. We do have an
initial contact form for the contact database, and AFAIK that has not
been filled in. If you mean the email addresses in
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/new-imc/2008-July/0701-xx.html
then you are incorrect to use the word "solely". remi is not anna artalk
and he has not been banned from any IMC mailing lists AFAIK.


> Additionally she has already edited hundreds of subpages of some political
> wikis.

Editing wikis is not in itself a problem. On an open publishing site,
we expect people to openly publish. On an open editing site, we expect
people to openly edit. Otherwise, it's like G8 members claiming to
be democratic and participatory when in fact people who try to participate
in serious decision-making in the G8 are systematically oppressed
in various ways, including various rejection mechanisms.

> Especially the project wiki.bildung-schadet-nicht has been highly
> abused affected by her spam activities.

A project claiming to have a wiki has to either openly restrict the
right of people to participate, or else accept that about 1 billion
people will potentially expect that they can freely edit the webpages.

Indymedia got the idea of open publishing to become accepted as
"normal"; the wikipedia got the idea of open editing to become
accepted (by many people) as "normal". The community behind a wiki
website has much more structured and relatively less authoritarian
ways to deal with spam compared to a community which to a certain
degree is based on mailing lists.


> For those reasons an acknowledgement of this new "IMC Berlin" is
> concordantly refused among IMC activists in Germany.

IMHO it would probably be more relevant to have an opinion just from
IMC activists in *Berlin* rather than the whole National collective in
the Federal Republic of Germany.  The fact that anna artalk is Nationally
rejected by IMC Germany and IMC Poland seems like a rather weak reason
to dismiss the idea of creating an autonomous IMC Berlin, in which she
is one participant among many. Some of the comments above suggest that
she would have difficulty being part of such a collective. However,
that's up to you (collective you) to sort out locally.

anna artalk:
   if you really have a group of people in berlin organised, then you
are going to have to sort out the conflict at least with the indymedia
people living in Berlin but also other activists in Berlin. i suggest
you try organising some face-to-face meetings to try solving the
conflict. Since IMC Germany apparently already says it would block a
proposal, there is no chance of a Berlin collective being accepted
until the conflict has been resolved. If you can meet up together 
in Berlin and get a consensus opinion in Berlin, then hopefully 
IMC Germany would drop its objections. Please do not email me
privately: this has to be sorted out among Berlin activists. i don't
live in Berlin.


horizontalidad
boud (just one volunteer in the new-imc working group)