[IMC-US] PROPOSAL (was indymedia and google)

[Joshua Breitbart]

I think an Oceania-style site would work just fine, especially if 
there was a way to promote an article from the wire to the center 
column. When I say promote to the center column, I mean with no 
editorial changes, just that an abstract and photo became visible.

In place of a US editorial team, local editorial teams could 
occasionally produce compilation features drawing on the work of many 
IMCs. These could then be promoted to the US center column. This 
would be a lot easier for a local team to do once there was a US 
features wire.

So all a US editorial team would do is promote 1-3 features a day to 
the center column and categorize the wire. (I am opposed to deleting 
things that are "obviously local" for reasons I can explain 
separately.)

We lose a little bit of the collaboration that comes from producing 
features together, but there's no reason local editors couldn't 
contact editors from other IMCs, or cc the US-features listserv.


Josh


At 4:03 PM -0700 7/21/04, john duda wrote:
>why don't i go ahead and set up usimc as a very basic syndication site
>a la oceania.indymedia(pretty much working now except for some
>template bugs)?  in other words, no editorial features and no open
>publishing...
>
>like bht said, editors can remove things that are obviously local, and
>we can also use the "startpage special" category in mir to feature
>syndicated articles of exceptional relevance.  also, editors can make
>up for what the feeds don't provide by grabbing abstracts for features
>from local sites that lack a detailed feed.  editors can also do the
>work of sorting local features into topics, so that what we wind up
>with is an intelligible, comprehensive, categorized, archived, and
>searchable site of all us indymedia features. 
>
>this way the site could be up and running as early as *tomorrow*.  and
>we can have the discussion about the google/open publishing issues
>after the dnc...maybe even after the rnc.
>
>my two cents,
>john
>
>
>
>
>On Wed, Jul 21, 2004 at 03:25:59PM -0700, bht wrote:
>>  hey all, i have been reading the discussion over google and listened to it
>>  at the allied media conference.  I would like to say a few words about it.
>>
>>  I am not against people trying to get google to list indymedia articles, I
>>  actually think it would be great to get them up there, it would be great
>>  outreach and advertisement, and make all of us work a little harder
>>  moderating the sites :-)
>>
>>  However, this discussion is turning into "how can we not be indymedia for
>>  google yet still be indymedia enough for indymedia"...and i dont really
>>  like it.
>>
>>  Having said that getting google listing is great, I would also like to
>>  think that sticking to what indymedia is is also important, it this
>>  respect it is more imnportant to stay indymedia instead of pandering to
>>  the interests of larger entities to get exposure.
>>
>>  THere is a gap of whether we are tactical and whther we are alternatives
>>  to corporate media.  I like to think that we are tactical and offer a
>>  community support role and should stick to our communities.  If we do
>>  enough outreach there the people that need to read our sites will and it
>>  wont be cluttered with all these people that dont have the interests of
>>  our communities at heart.
>>
>>  Therefore, I think it would better to stick to being indymedia and not try
>>  to change /enough/ to be accepted by google.  I know that it is some
>>  peoples heartsong for this and I guess that there isnt much I can do to
>>  change that.
>>
>>  This is the us site that is supposed to represent us imcs and reflect the
>>  indymedia tactic.  So, personally, it would make me happy if we could talk
>>  about how to get indymedia us finished int ime for these larger events
>>  that are taking place NOW.  Or we can deliberate about this for a couple
>>  of months.
>>
>>  bht
>>
>>
>>  > Maybe if the site directed people to another site set up just for open
>>  > publishing with a
>>  > different root address that would be enough distance to make google happy.
>  > > us.indmedia.org linked to us.openpublishing.org or something.
>>  >
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