[Resolve] A summary of the Darwin dispute

[takver]

A summary of the Darwin dispute

I am a features editor with Melbourne Indymedia, and with global
features (www-features) I have been active as a features editor for
about 3 years, and have been a journalist contributor since 2000.

I have not made any pronouncements on any email lists besides
Melbourne previously on the Darwin dispute, but I have contributed to
the collective decision of Melbourne Indymedia Collective to
disaffiliate Darwin with a deadline of 4 September.
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/resolve/2006-August/0820-c3.html

I am writing this as a response to Pina to give some background
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-communication/2006-August/0825-78.html

==Synopsis==

A falling out between individuals in the Darwin Collective in February
2005 has resulted in the collective being dysfunctional and delisted
from Indymedia. Two factions predominate. One faction has applied
(February 2006) to NEW-IMC to register Arafura IMC. The faction whose
primary member is Mick Lambe continues to demand use of
darwin.indymedia.org, and has conducted an 18 month campaign of
personal attack and abuse against other Darwin activists, Indymedia
activists around Australia, Indymedia Collectives via Indymedia email
lists and Indymedia newswires to achieve that end. The Melbourne
Indymedia Collective believes "as Mick Lambe is unable to work with
so many Indymedia collectives, has been banned from several lists and
whose behaviour has resulted in two hosting collectives refusing to
continue work with him, that the time has long past to part company
and work separately."

==Sources==

For the genesis of the dispute in March 2005 also refer to
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-darwin/
http://lists.cat.org.au/pipermail/imc-oceania/

An attempt was made to resolve the Darwin issues on the Resolve Email
List (February 2006 - present)
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/resolve/

==Detailed Background==


The essential element in this dispute surrounds the events at a Darwin
Indymedia Collective Meeting on February 6 2005, held at One Mile Dam
Community. Prior to this meeting the collective consisted of Mick
Lambe, Fiona Clarke, Viki Zangari, Gary Meyerhoff and Rob Inder-Smith.
At One Mile Dam, Mick ropes in David Timber, Mindy and Freddy (who is
sleeping in a corner) as new members. When Gary turns up, Mick tells
him to "fuck off" as it is his home, and Mick later claims that
Meyeroff and Inder-Smith were expelled at this meeting.

On 12th March Mick announces expulsion of Gary and Robert on the Oceania list
http://lists.cat.org.au/pipermail/imc-oceania/2005-March/002550.html
It takes another 7 days before Mick announces the expulsions on the Darwin List
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-darwin/2005-March/0319-nk.html

Although it is claimed that Meyeroff and Indersmith were expelled at
this meeting, Fiona claims this was a sham meeting. In an email to the
Darwin list on 31 March 2005 she says: "Neither Rob Inder-Smith nor
Gary Meyerhoff were
expelled from the DIM Collective"
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-darwin/2005-March/0331-8f.html

Vikki was also at the meeting (first meeting) and verified Fiona's account.
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-darwin/2005-April/0401-u9.html

Fiona "In the interest of free and open discussion and to try to save
Darwin Indy from destruction I am calling for a Special Darwin
Indymedia Collective
Meeting to be held on Saturday 16 April, 2005, 9am at The Roma Bar,
Cavenagh St, Darwin."
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-darwin/2005-April/0402-na.html

Around the 2 April Mick expels Fiona. Gary Meyerhoff contests the
membership of Darwin: "You and the three NEW collective members do not
constitute the Darwin Indymedia Collective. Rob, Viki, Fiona and I are
as much members of the collective as you."
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-darwin/2005-April/0403-18.html

By the 5th April 2005 Mick was posting abusive and "slanderous
statements" on the Darwin Newswire against other Darwin media
activists arising from the dispute.
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-darwin/2005-April/0406-9q.html
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-darwin/2005-April/0406-9k.html

On April 7 Mick explained the reasons for 4 expulsions:
"Gary and Rob are not fit to run or belong to anything. That's why
they were expelled. Viki and Fiona lied about that expulsion that's
why they were expelled."
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-darwin/2005-April/0407-8p.html

On April 14 Mick is accused of restoring hidden newswire comments that
breached edpol and were personal attacks on other activists
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-darwin/2005-April/0414-bl.html

Perth sends a statement that challenges whether the expulsion of 4
members was legal. "Now, when darwin indymedia joined the imc network,
it agreed to use
'consensus decision making'. *Thats* the *official* indymedia
methodology. The problem for us, is that based on this, you cant kick
out four members
of a collective if even one of those members disagrees with being kicked
out. The alternative that has been adopted is generally "Consensus + 1".
Whereby the individual doesnt have a say in that decision. Its not
considered to be a particularly GOOD model, but perhaps as good as it
gets. However, in a collective of 8, "Consensus + 4" just isnt consensus.
Its not even voting! Even the original  decision to remove gary and
rob was debatable in its correctness policy wise. When fi said that
she did not support that decision, then it means that the decision is
withdrawn. Consensus is always retractable."
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-darwin/2005-April/0415-0b.html

The next meeting, advertised by Fiona for Darwin Indymedia Collective,
was held on 16 April with Viki Zangari, Fiona Clarke, Stuart Highway,
Gary Meyerhoff, Rob Inder-Smith attending, and apologies from Vikki
Riley. This meeting authorised the changing of admin passwords and
suspention of Mick's admin access. See minutes:
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-darwin/2005-April/0416-n7.html

Vicki, Gary, Stuart Highway confirm the minutes
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-darwin/2005-April/0416-0s.html
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-darwin/2005-April/0416-v7.html
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-darwin/2005-April/0416-kt.html

See also Statement by the Darwin Indymedia Collective and members of
the Darwin activist community including an early history of Darwin
Indy
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-darwin/2005-April/0416-my.html

This then begins a long period where Mick attacks other Darwin
Activists, Perth IMC (who acted as sponsor and host to Darwin IMC),
and later Sydney IMC, Melbourne IMC. Even collectives such as Adelaide
and Aotearoa whave been attacked by spam messages to their newswires
by Mick. In late 2005 and early 2006 Adelaide argued for the domain
name to be returned to Mick's group, and still received abusive
newswire posts.

===Comments on the meeting from 2006 (Resolve list)==

Fiona (Darwin IMC) on the expulsions meeting in February 2005. She
claims she "was bullied into going to that "meeting", I wrote, you
spoke, then long
after, you typed up minutes that elaborate on my rough notes to the point of
fabrication. Fact is, the "meetinng" itself was a sham, my
participation was coerced, not voluntary, and I since withdraw all
support for you and any implied support for your claiming unanimous
expulsion of Gary Meyerhoff and Rob Inder-Smith."
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/resolve/2006-February/0225-s3.html

Fiona again:
"Mick Lambe's meeting at OMD which kicked off his whole hate campaign was at
best – unconstitutional, unethical, unfair, discriminatory, illegal -
breached the Points of Unity, and DIMC at the time had a 'rule' that you had
to have been to two DIMC meetings in order to vote – only Mick fulfilled
that criteria, therefore the "meeting" is invalid. It was wrong.
Nasty, manipulative and wrong."
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/resolve/2006-July/0723-ho.html

Stacy (Sydney IMC) also made this the essential issue:
"that the collective responsible for Darwin.indymedia.org became
disfunctional when one member (Mick Lambe) claims to have expelled four members
of the collective in the period around March 2005.  I do not understand the
basis for these actions, nor do I understand Mick's arguments that they were
justified by the actions of those people.  I do assert that if the actions of
any of the members are serious enough to either justify expulsion of a majority
of the collective, or if the expulsions were not justified but pursued
regardless, then the collective is effectively disbanded."
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/resolve/2006-February/0208-9r.html

Gary Meyeroff provides a fairly long summary history of the whole
affair, but as he was 'expelled' at the meeting in March 2005, Mick
believes this is a biased account.
NAPNT, Darwin Indymedia and Mick Lambe - A brief history
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/resolve/2006-March/0325-x4.html


In January 2006 Gary tried to get things up and running again.
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-darwin/2006-January/0101-t8.html

However, Mick used this as an opportunity to mislead the indymedia DNS
people to point http://darwin.indymedia.org to his rogue IMC site
hosted on axxs. Gary sent an email to the DNS people and the situation
was rectified once the deception had been identified. And_ from
Melbourne also objected to the DNS redirection without being formally
discussed as part of resolving the Darwin dispute. He has since come
under personal abuse and attack from Mick on the newswires for raising
this as a process issue.
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-darwin/2006-January/0109-1l.html
http://lists.cat.org.au/pipermail/imc-oceania/2006-January/003044.html
http://lists.cat.org.au/pipermail/imc-oceania/2006-January/003053.html

-------------------------------------------------------------

After reading the Darwin list archives, the Resolve list archives (Feb
2006 to present), and Oceania list archives, it is my belief that the
expulsions at the meeting on February 6 were illegal as they did not
conform to consensus decision making and the local membership criteria
: "DIMC at the time had a 'rule' that you had to have been to two DIMC
meetings in order to vote" (Fiona).

The following meeting on April 16 was widely advertised (at least on
the Darwin list) and the minutes are clear, concise and show
commitment by those attending to work for a resolution. Effectively
the Darwin Collective was dysfunctional with two factions, one of
which has maintained a level of public personal abuse and attack on
anyone who challenges Mick as the rightful Darwin Collective on both
indy email lists and newswires.

It has consumed an enormous amount of energy by people trying to sort
this out and find a solution, even to the point of encouraging both
groups in Darwin to apply to NEW-IMC for a site. Mick has repeatedly
rejected the option of reapplying through NEW-IMC.
See "A Proposal for a new Darwin IMC"
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/resolve/2006-February/0226-2d.html

During August 2006 the Melbourne Collective hid at least 20 newswire
articles which we attributed to Mick posting, and an even greater
number of comments which we attributed to him. All of these posts
breached our editorial policy in at least one or more grounds. We also
had to hide a significant number of personal attacks on Mick or the
Darwin collective. Mick's reputation is such that he has built up a
substantial number of antagonistic readers some of whom reply
provocatively to his statements.

I think Mick has shown he is incapable of working in solidarity in a
network environment, personally attacking other activists in public
rather than trying to resolve conflict, almost continuosly for a
period of 18 months.

Takver - one of
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