[New-imc] Online form: Proposed new IMC! (imc-london)

[anap at riseup.net]

Submitted by: ana <anap at riseup.net> on Friday, May 1st, 2009 @ 6:16:11 am (-0700)

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Online Form Fields
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proposed_imc_name:
imc-london

proposed_imc_url:
london.indymedia.org

current_url:
london.indymedia.org.uk

city:
London

state:
England

country:
United Kingdom

contact_name:
ana

contact_email:
anap at riseup.net

contact_phone:


tech_name:
yossarian

tech_email:
yossarian at aktivix.org

tech_phone:


focus:
regional_focus

critical_dates:
no

supporting_groups:
Groups that are already users of the london site:
london.indymedia.org.uk/groups

    * Rampart – Squatted Social Centre
    * The Library House – Squatted Social Centre
    * Belgrade Road – Squatted Social Centre
    * London Action Resource Centre
    * 56a – infoshop, food coop and bike workshop
    * Housmans Bookshop
    * dissident island – online radio
    * ReelNews – video production and distribution
    * Colombia Solidarity Campaign
    * London Coalition Against Poverty
    * London Guantánamo Campaign
    * NoBorders
    * Legal Defense and Monitoring Group

introductory_statement:
Some of the current indymedia london people were part of the group that started off imc uk – I would refer to a statement made at that time but there was no new-imc process yet, back then :) So, some people in the group have been doing this for 8,9 years, then opened up the network to the rest of the uk, and now that we have a shiny new site, we’d like to have the domain london.indymedia.org.
This is not breaking up with the uk network at all; we continue to participate in its process (although admittedly not so much in its website now that we have our own) and we heavily support it financially.

resources:
A new codebase for Indymedia

Yossarian is currently participating in the new-cms project.  At the same time, Yossarian and the rest of the London collective have worked hard for the past year to create a brand-new indymedia-specific content management system which is in use by London and Denmark imc's (take a look at http://london.indymedia.org.uk to see it in action). This CMS is also being evaluated for use by several more Indymedias, and people in London are working to broaden the organising group behind this new software.  We now have people contributing code and ideas from the imc collectives in London, Cambridge, Nottingham, and Leeds in the UK, as well as Ireland, the US, and Brasil. 

Sysadmin and listwork

Gdm is heavily involved in global processes and server projects, although only tangentially in London; Ana is involved in new-imc and listwork.

Server hardware

As part of the uk network, we contribute with time and with money to the acquisition and maintenance of servers.

outreach:
For the first years of the existence of the group we organised "open meetings" every few months. We have also organised days of trainings. Now we invite people to the meetings directly. We have always advertised these events on the site and the mailing list imc-london, which is publicly archived and open to subscriptions. Since the launch of the new site, we've also been doing "workshops on demand" to introduce the new functions of the site. A weekly OffLine (although there are gaps occasionally) is released with a calendar of events and some news. There have also been regular public film screenings organised by the London group over the years, and these are also seen as outreach opportunities. We are now discussing the possibility to have a regular Indymedia Cafe in cooperation with the Library House social centre. Also the London group is regularly invited to give talks and presentations to universities in London that deal with media studies. We also set up stalls in event!
 s that take place in London, specially at the Anarchist Bookfair that takes place every year in autumn.

identity_makeup:
It reflects very well the "european-ness" of London. There is more gender balance than it used to be actually. 

steps_represent_diversity:
As stated above, the group now has a better gender balance than it has had in the past, and there is a quite diverse make up of backgrounds and 'nationalities' of those participating in the day to day running of London IMC. There is still a lack of representation of people from different ethnic backgrounds, as most of those actively involved in the group are currently Western Europeans. Having said that, the group is pretty open and willing to include anyone that wants to participate and agrees with our mission statement and editorial guidelines, and that's why our meetings are open and publicly announced. The group has a clear anti-racist, anti-homophobic, pro-gender balance stance, and it is against any sort of discrimination in terms of people's identities.

Our current take on this is to be as open as possible with our meetings, our lists and to make sure we do not discriminate anyone as regards to ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion and so on.

steps_involve_new_workfields:
There are regular trainings offered to anyone that wants to be involved in administering the site, as well as trainings being offered on different aspects of doing indymedia. People in the group have different skills, and we have always worked with the premise that we learn from each other, and that the sharing of knowledge, skills and equipment is what makes the group active and functional. In this sense our techies are always very eager to share knowledge and explain technical aspect to the rest of the group. It is also a fact that the technical aspects of new IMC-London website (cms implementation, functionalities of the site, and so on) have always been discussed at a 'political' level before being written and implemented. In this sense we could say that the new CMS for the new IMC-London site has been written customised for the discussions the group has been having.

As for the gender issue, we don't see gender as a division in relation to what people in the group does or doesn't not do. Work is being done by volunteers in the group on the basis of their skills and willingness instead of any particular gender, race or any other personal form of identity.

Mission Statement:
https://london.indymedia.org.uk/pages/mission-statement

Editorial Guidelines:
https://london.indymedia.org.uk/pages/editorial-guidelines

How to contact imc london:
https://london.indymedia.org.uk/pages/contact-imc-london


username:
ana