[IMC-US] Re: [New-imc] Philly IMC concerns on IMC-US

Thu Oct 2 10:58:32 CDT 2003

Thoughts on the issues of a bilingual site, open publishing, and "direct
participation".

- bilingual site

I am definitely in favor of building out the bilingual capabilities of the
IMC-US website, along the lines of the http://biotechimc.org/ example. 

But I'm also wondering why the Philly IMC hasn't taken steps in this direction
for its own website. A similar portion of that city as of the United States is
Latino/a, but the phillyimc.org website doesn't have any Spanish on it, and the
local paper doesn't make any mention of Spanish-language content that I can see. 

The Indypendent from NYC has pushed for that type of inclusion, and it has taken
a lot of effort. Some other local, US-based IMCs have tried, too. But in general
the US-based IMCs are almost entirely English-speaking. It would be great to
change that, but it should be done at the local level. The local IMCs should
drive the regional one, not the other way around. 

So, while I support building towards a multilingual IMC-US site, I don't think
it is a critical step. Much more critical is for local IMCs like Philly and NYC
to become fully accessible to the people in their local region. We can take
those steps while we strengthen our regional networks.

- open publishing

I agree with the suggestion for open publishing Ana outlined.

- direct participation

Rather than saying "the IMC US internal discussion include direct participation
from all the US-based and US-territory-based IMCs whose news they syndicate" I
would say "the IMC US internal discussion be open to direct participation from
all the US-based and US-territory-based IMCs whose news they syndicate" since
that reflects how the network is in general. Local IMCs can choose their level
of participation.

In solidarity,
Josh
(from NYC, but not a liason)

Quoting Ana <ana at indymedia.org>:

 Thanks Philly IMC. I think these are very constructive criticisms and 
 suggestions. Thanks for taking the time to think them through and write 
 them out. Im ccing imc-us here so everyone on that list can see them. We 
 will take all your comments all to heart, and already have most of these 
 things in mind. 

 regarding spanish pages, we would really need to organize a spanish team to 
 make this a realistic ongoing project. Its great that Suzq has volunteered 
 to help with this, but we need more people to make it actually happen. Its 
 possible that we dont get a team like that together before the site goes 
 up, but we should at the very least announce on the site that we would like 
 to construct those pages and solicit people to be on that working group. 
 The NYC IMC's Indypendent newspaper has a latina working group that creates 
 their own two pages each issue, and im sure some of those peopel would be 
 interested in participating in creating latina pages on the us site. I will 
 ask and similarly, we can ask all participating IMCs to do some outreach 
 and find at least one person who will want to be part of that team. This 
 will be a long-term goal and project. But I agree that is important that 
 imc's in the us start thinking bi-lingually. 

 The one other area that is still under debate is whether the site should 
 have open publishing or not. Many folks (including myself) feel that not 
 having one would help keep the focus on local IMC's. We want all features 
 to link back to local IMCs or IMCs of other countries. Having an open 
 publishing feature would mean imc-us starts having original content, which 
 is not necessarily a good thing.  But of course we want people to realize 
 they have the power to publish, so one solution might be to have a 
 prominent button on the front page saying PUBLISH YOUR MEDIA and that would 
 take you to a page that explains open publishing, links to all local U.S. 
 IMC publishing pages, and www.indymedia.org's open publishing page. Would 
 that satisfy your request? We're all still talking about this, but I would 
 like to get your response to this suggestion. 

 thanks
 ana

 Quoting Mike R <micro.zen at verizon.net>:

 > The Independent Media Center of Philadelphia does not place a formal
 > block on the entry of IMC-US, but expresses concern and makes the
 > following
 > suggestions:
 > 
 > - That the founding documents, mission statement, and the official text
 > of the site itself be translated at least into Spanish, and that the
 > site
 > provide readers with the technical ability to post in the different
 > languages spoken within the US, and to view posts sorted by language.
 > That there be a regular interface between IMC-US and the translation
 > listserves and collectives an international translation tools already
 > available within Indymedia, in order to make this linguistic diversity
 > real.  That participants in internal discussion make an effort to keep
 > the
 > mailing list bilingual, and that the coordinators conduct real outreach
 > to
 > include non-english-speaking participation, and that this be reflected
 > in
 > the outreach statement of the founding documents.
 > 
 > - That the phrase in the outreach statement, "Additionally, the
 > outreach
 > group would contact other independent media organizations (especially
 > those in areas where there are no IMCs) to spread the word about the
 > US-IMC website" be changed to "Additionally, the outreach group would
 > contact other independent media organization (especially those in areas
 > where there are no IMCs) to encourage mutual aid and support,
 > collaboration, and to invite input and support to the US-IMC website,"
 > so
 > that the process is more reciprocal.
 > 
 > - That the IMC US internal discussion include direct participation from
 > all
 > the US-based and US-territory-based IMCs whose news they syndicate.
 > 
 > - That there be a clearer explanation of the process of human involvement
 > in
 > decision-making within IMC US.  If it is not to be a purely automatic
 > syndication site, then the process of feature-writing and sorting of
 > features should be made more clear and should include direct
 > participation
 > from representatives of all of the sites syndicated, with provisions
 > for
 > broad democratic participation, for example by providing for periodic
 > face-to-face meetings based regionally.
 > 
 > - That the IMC-US list be made more accessible to broad participation
 > of
 > Indymedia volunteers by linking to the IMC-US internal list from the
 > site
 > http://lists.indymedia.org, placing founding documents on Wiki pages at
 > http://docs.indymedia.org, and encouraging broader participation in
 > the list. 
 > 
 > - That the site layout be changed so that the syndication newswire
 > header
 > reads, "collected features from participating Indymedia Centers within
 > the
 > US," rather than just, "Collected from the IMC Network".
 > 
 > - That wherever the official site text and documents make reference to
 > "America" "American" or "Americans," these be changed to "United
 > States"
 > and "US and US-territory residents."
 > 
 > - That the newswire have an open publishing feature as well as a
 > syndication
 > feature, using for example the same format as the global site, to
 > encourage democratic participation in the news-making process.
 > 
 > - That inasmuch as the site layout and feature selection are influenced
 > by
 > human decision-making, the coordinators emphasize cross-border
 > collaboration, such as projects of the Northeast North America
 > grouping,
 > border camps, the current realities of the impact of US policy on the
 > rest of the world and especially Latin America, and other trans-border
 > issues.
 > 
 > - IMC Philly is already actively involved in regional organizing such
 > as
 > NENA and regional and national independent media collaboration on
 > issues
 > such as radio broadcasting and media ownership.  We will maintain
 > contact with IMC-US to help encourage broader and more democratic
 > participation
 > and diversity.  At least one of our volunteers, SuZQ, will stay
 > involved with IMC-US process and will volunteer translation assistance.
 > 
 > 
 > -Mike R
 > Philly IMC
 > 
 > 
 > _______________________________________________
 > New-imc mailing list. Lista de correo New-imc
 > New-imc at lists.indymedia.org
 > http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/new-imc
 > 

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