[New-imc] (fr) (en) processus de facto de fermeture des sites Re: State of the nation - 25% of indymedia sites are dead

[ben]

2008/6/24 boud <boud at riseup.net>:
> ben: i do not understand why you make no reference to the wiki page in this
> email. There is a page here: https://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/DeadImc
> where we can surely try to manage this more efficiently than by email alone.

I forgot that existed - it was a year ago. Thanks for pointing it out.


I wasn't suggesting we deal with this by email alone, I was merely
trying to kick the ball back into play as it's been a year and little
to show in the way of progress.

> For example, your list quoted below includes ....
snip

I'm not interested in errors in the list. I said it was not exhaustive
and would probably include errors. I have no interest in sparking yet
another exchange of emails about whether a particular site is up,
down, soon to be back or whatever. I'm merely interested in moving
forward to some kind of a way to deal with the problem of having so
many dead links in the cities list.

> .. an "en-masse" proposal by an individual cross-posted to many
> different mailing lists is probably not the most efficient way of removing
> from the cities list those IMCs who really *are* inactive, while improving
> regional communication among IMCs and supporting a bottom-up culture.
> The following de facto process for closing down suspected dead IMCs
> exists, works and seems reasonable to me:

If this 'de facto process' works, why is it that there are still so
many dead links, as many or perhaps even more than a year ago?
While it may be true that some sites have been removed using that
process, that fact remains that there are many many more that have not
been removed,

> 1. An IMC, i.e.  a collective rather than just one active individual,
> which is geographically more or less in the region or is one of the
> geographically closest IMCs to the suspected "dead IMC", discusses
> the issue internally according to its participatory, non-hierarchical
> decision-making process, and if it consenses that the "dead IMC" really
> should be closed, it makes a standard proposal on imc-process.

Great. Unfortunately non of the dead sites are in the region of IMC-UK
so it would appear we (and me) don't get to participate any further in
the non-hierarchical process. If that is the case then the only
proposal I could make to IMC UK would be the same as I made to IMC
London, that we use our own edited version of the cities list to
exclude the dead links.

> This process has been carried out several times in the last few months:

That's great, five down! Any reason we need to wait another year to
deal with the rest?

> Is there any problem with this de facto method?

Only that generally it is NOT happening. While you can point out some
recent activity by one collective to remove sites in their region that
they know to be dead - generally that has not been happening.

> Please remember that even if many collectives appear inactive now, they
> *were* active groups of real, local activists who wanted to make
> independent media. We cannot just throw away the networking contacts
> based on a decision among those people who are electronically most
> active and fluently english speaking (including me).

It's not about throwing away local activists or networking contacts,
it about removing links to dead sites. Flagging an IMC as inactive
could always be reversed should it be done in error or in haste, or
the status of the site was found to have changed.

Ben