[New-imc] (fr) (en) processus de facto de fermeture des sites

[boud]

hi ben,

On Wed, 25 Jun 2008, ben wrote:

> 2008/6/24 boud <boud at riseup.net>:

> 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

Well, that seems rather important to me. There's no obligation for a
collective to constantly have its website online, though if it
systematically has it down, it's probably time for neighbouring imc's
or those a little more distant to start asking if the collective needs
help.

> forward to some kind of a way to deal with the problem of having so
> many dead links in the cities list.

How about mailing regional lists rather than global lists? Maybe take
the time to separate the list into regions rather than trying to go
directly to the global (in fact, semi-global) lists?

>> .. 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?

That's not an argument against the process working. It's a comment
about whether or not local collectives are willing/have time to
contribute to maintaining this aspect of our network.

Apparently not many collectives have considered this a priority,
including your and my local collectives. i was going to propose
something to my local collective, but other more urgent things have
come up and so far i haven't got around to it. If the topic comes up
on imc-europe, then probably i would comment there, since it seems
a better place for discussion than here at new-imc (or imc-process),
and i may or may not get around to proposing something to my local
IMC.

> 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.

There is a regional mailing list in your region called imc-europe:
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-europe

Nobody has defined how big or small "a region" is. But looking at...
the cities list itself you can see some self-definitions of "regions".

i don't think anyone would be offended if you said on imc-europe that
you are thinking of proposing internally to IMC UK to propose to the
network to remove IMC Serbia, IMC Croatia, IMC Armenia, IMC Paris, IMC
Hungary and IMC Moscow from the cities list since you believe they are
inactive, but that first you wanted to check if people knew more about
these. (OK, you might update that list based on the feedback you've
got in the last few hours. :) The imc-europe list is not very active,
and it might even stimulate a bit of discussion among us, or thoughts
about helping people reorganise, etc etc.

As for other regions, i don't see why anyone would be offended if you
ask reasonably politely without sounding like you have a colonial attitude
on the other big regional lists like:

http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-us
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/cmi-latina
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-africa
http://lists.indymedia.org.au/mailman/listinfo/imc-oceania


>> 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?

The problem is who is "we".

>> 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.

Try contacting regional lists. With well over 100 active collectives,
we're not going to be able to avoid centralisation and feelings that
fluent-english-language, internet-well-connected people dominate the
indymedia network in the same way that we dominate the world unless we
make at least a minimum of effort to support the attempts at
regionalisation that exist.


>> 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.

It's a symbol of rejection from the network and power relations.  And
especially of power relations similar to the dominant
political-historical-economical power relations on this planet.
Collectives are collectives of people, not just websites.

Anyway, here are the main regional lists AFAIK:

http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-europe
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-africa
http://lists.indymedia.org.au/mailman/listinfo/imc-oceania
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-canada
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-us
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/cmi-latina


horizontalidad
boud