[New-imc] [Fwd: [Fwd: New IMC Northern England]]

Ulla ulla at j12.org
Tue Jun 23 05:23:25 PDT 2009 

Hia,

although it should not be a problem that different imc's cover the same area, 
it doesn't make a good impression to define a new imc by the assumed  
shortcomings of another.  All three collectives - Liverpool, Sheffield and the 
around Leeds area have been at one time - or still are more or less - 
incredibly active in Indymedia and contribute(d) not only in the way of 
looking after their local news outlet, but have been giving incredibly more 
efforts, skill, goodwill, patience and resources to the indymedia in general.

I hope that it is down to lack of experience on the part of the new collective 
and that the form of interaction becomes more respectful and polite towards 
each other in future, otherwise I would have concerns about the new Northern 
IMC covering the same area as part of IMC UK local collectives.

I also do not really understand why it is necessary to approve that new-imc 
request hastily, as  a lot of collectives started off their websites even 
before being officially recognized with a different domain name.

Anyways, it would have been nice if the issue could have been resolved locally 
before discussing it on the global list, as it always seems impossible to make 
a decision on a global list over the head of the local groups/ 
collectives/individuals. 

On the other hand it would be sad to see the enthusiasm of the local group 
being diminished  but it would have been quicker if difficulties got resolved 
locally.

cheerio Ulla 




On Tuesday 23 Jun 2009 11:45:54 Chris wrote:
> Hi
>
> On Tue, 23 Jun 2009 01:05:46 +0100, mark wrote:
> > >  * http://sheffield.indymedia.org.uk/
> > >  * http://manchester.indymedia.org.uk/
> > >  * http://liverpool.indymedia.org.uk/
> >
> > Of note, none of these sites (or imc-uk as a whole) seem
> > to be under the editorial or technical control of a
> > functioning collective, as far as I can tell. Whilst
> > imc-northern is not seeking to detract from these sites
> > in any way, we think that as a real collectively-run
> > media centre, we shouldn't be held back by their
> > existence.
>
> It is true that these 3 cities don't have active
> collectives in the way they did when they were set up at
> the height of the protests against the Iraq war, 6 years
> ago, however this doesn't mean that Indymedia activists
> and users of the site in these 3 cities should be excluded
> from the new site that covers their area.
>
> Last month IMC Leeds/Bradford were saying, "we will be
> considering changing the name of our collective in the
> future to better represent the area that we will provide
> coverage for. Possibilities that have been discussed
> include: IMC Yorkshire, IMC North-East and IMC Northern."
> [1]. The region the proposed new IMC is to cover, The
> North of England, was only formally made clear 3 weeks ago
> [2], and when it was pointed out on UK IMC lists that
> there was to be a large overlap with existing sites it was
> said that:
>
>   "Imc uk has a very different structure to what we are
>   creating here, and our success or failure in creating an
>   alternative will be down to the engagement of the users
>   of our new site and not the need to compromise on
>   something as unimportant as a name with an altogether
>   different network." [3]
>
> It's still unclear to me what relationship IMC Northern
> wants to have with the UK IMC Network -- they made it
> clear that they "see the benefits of making a break from
> imc-uk" and want to "go through the 'new imc' process to
> establish our identity as a truly autonomous, regional
> imc" and that they "expect the rest of the network to
> respect our autonomy" [4].
>
> > > There has however been almost no attempt from the
> > > Northern IMC activists at having any dialogue with or
> > > involvement from existing Indymedia activists from
> > > these cities,
> >
> > That is untrue. Perhaps chrisc's assumption that if he
> > didn't know about it, it hadn't happened says something
> > about the (informal) hierachical way in which imc-uk is
> > currently organised?
>
> There has been no email sent from IMC Northern to the
> email lists for Sheffield, Manchester or Liverpool [5],
> these lists probably have hundreds of people on them, they
> have been going since 2002 and 2003. There have been no
> newswire or feature articles on these cities sites about
> the proposed new IMC Northern so most Indymedia site users
> in these cities are probably unaware that a new
> overarching Indymedia site is being set up. There have
> been no IMC Northern meetings held in these cities and the
> internal web presence and on-line decision making of IMC
> Northern [6] is closed -- people who haven't attended any
> IMC Northern meetings are not allowed to join in so
> activists from these cities who haven't been able to
> travel across the region to meetings (or haven't even been
> aware of the meetings) have been excluded from things like
> contributing to the proposed Mission Statment etc.
>
> > Not only have we spoken to many current indymedia
> > activists from these cities (for example, at this event
> > http://hacktivista.net/hacktionlab/index.php/HacktionLab_2009/01
> > where Jimdog and I got lots of encouragement for what we
> > were doing from other UK IMCistas), but also with former
> > IMCistas who live in these cities, who've said that they
> > would be very interested in getting involved with
> > indymedia again were it not for the dysfunctionality of
> > imc-uk. We are trying to meet their needs by setting up
> > a new imc that will be open to them.
>
> The process that IMC Northern has announced for activists
> in these cities to get involved has not been open:
>
>   "a position was decided that all such requests should
>   come from the imc's themselves...  This was relayed to
>   representatives of several regional imc's informally
>   with the note that a formal request to
>   participate/merge/interact with in another way with imc
>   northern should be proposed at their meetings which
>   would be discussed by the collective as soon as is
>   possible and a decision reached through consensus." [7]
>
> I'm not aware of this informal "note" having been passed
> onto anyone in Sheffield for example, this is not an open,
> transparent or inclusive process [8].
>
> That there has been no outreach to the existing lists or
> sites for Sheffield. Manchester or Liverpool has been
> intentional, it is not an oversight:
>
>   "the onus should be on other imc's to contact us as we
>   are not seeking to replace any existing city based imc's
>   but to compliment them" [9]
>
> > I've changed some of the wording in the outreach
> > material
>
> It is to be welcomed that much of the negativity towards
> IMC UK you previously included [10] in your outreach
> material has been removed -- the new text is a great
> improvement.
>
> > The last uk network meeting was hosted by us. None of
> > the people suggesting another meeting came to that one
> > (except chrisc, for part of it). So yes, it would be
> > nice to have a network meeting, but that's no reason to
> > delay setting up imc-northern. It is actually needed
> > right now.
>
> I agree that waiting for a UK-wide network meeting
> shouldn't be something that should hold up the IMC
> Northern process, however that lack of meetings in and
> involvement from activists in 3 large cities that are to
> be a part of this new collective is something that needs
> to be seriously addressed before the New IMC process can
> be completed IMHO.
>
> The fact that matters such as these are being discussed on
> the New IMC list, after they haven't been resolved on the
> UK lists, indicates to me that it's clear that more work
> is needed in terms of outreach and involvement etc before
> the North of England Indymedia is ready for the New IMC
> process.
>
> Chris
>
>
> [1]
> http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-network/2009-May/0509-rq.html
>
> [2]
> http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-network/2009-June/0603-pl.html
>
> [3]
> http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-network/2009-June/0618-hg.html
>
> [4]
> http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-network/2009-June/0603-pl.html
>
> [5] http://lists.indymedia.org/imc-sheffield
>     http://lists.indymedia.org/imc-manchester
>     http://lists.indymedia.org/imc-liverpool
>
> [6] https://we.riseup.net/imc-northern
>
> [7]
> http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-process/2009-June/0618-2f.html
>
> [8]
> http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-process/2009-June/0617-3v.html
>
> [9]
> http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-network/2009-June/0618-hg.html
>
> [10]
> http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-northern/2009-June/0617-ya.html
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