[IMC-US] Re: [Imc-us-editorial] relationships, ego, pride, and features

[lotus]

On Apr 4, 2005, at 9:08 AM, bht wrote:

> not having a clear vision or idea for indymedia.us creates a big 
> problem.  i have been thinking about it alot and i dont really want 
> to.  but i have and such is life.

You raise a number of important points here bht.

In its simplest form, we need a new mission statement, or a set of 
goals that we at least all agree with. The current one: 
http://indymedia.us/en/static/mission.shtml only seems to contain one 
sentence about the mission of us indy:

"Culling content from over 50 IMCs in the United States, 
www.indymedia.us is a critical tool for making local issues relevant to 
both a national and global audience and vice versa."

> as i understand an affinity group, it is a group of folks that feel 
> comfortable with working together and can do so well.  the affinity 
> groups has a common vision and a general agreement on tactics.  the 
> affinity group is tight because of these common points.

Should we talk more about tactics? Doesn't it take time to become 
comfortable with people?

> that is kind of what idy.us is like right now.  it is called an 
> affinity group because we all consider ourselves in some way shape or 
> form part of the indymedia network or part of indymedia.  however, 
> because indymedia has no clear common vision, so we have no clear 
> common vision.  our affinity is based on a word that is interpreted in 
> many different ways, it is based on a ghost.

surely we need a clearer set of goals.

> now, here i am.  and i am frustrated becasue i see this project and 
> this inadequate means of communication (email, irc, etc) and there are 
> good people putting out energy into this project and alot of people 
> leeching on and just trying to get on in there...which (and i have 
> alot of passion in my person this very moment) in some sort of way 
> reminds me that i was talking about something else.

Can you be more specific about what you consider leeching on?

> i think it is important to define to editorial roles of indy.us.  many 
> imc collectives exist with editorial boards that compile and write 
> features for their local sites and they think the features are great 
> and they put alot of time into them and they they they.  things become 
> owned, it becomes their feature and they want to see that get good 
> comments, becuase that feels good.  so they want it to be on their 
> site and then they want to promote it on indy.us. and on and on.

Personally, I think that when a textual description of an important 
event doesn't exist, its important for an editorial collective to come 
up with one. Especially if indymedia volunteers have spent a lot of 
time working on photos and video.

Also, an imc volunteer has a different vantage point, especially with 
larger events, to look at many events and provide a summary or a 
broader understanding. I feel that this is an important role for 
indymedia us to play.

As I've said, my goal when working with indymedia is to create links 
and networks between people and actions in order to create stronger, 
bigger movements. More specifically, I'd say anti-capitalist movements. 
That being said, my goal with indymedia us is to be able to look at 
lots of actions happening around the country and tie them together to 
allow those people to see themselves as part of a larger movement so 
that they can be more informed and more motivated. On the other hand, i 
would hope that global indy could do a similar thing globally, 
providing global context, links and networks.

But to do this, people in indymedia.us would actually have to do the 
work of compiling links from various sources, looking at different 
events around the country and providing context, probably by doing some 
writing. I don't this is in opposition to the goal of subverting the 
media hierarchy by encouraging people to be their own media, but in 
harmony with, adding to it. Also, people are free to comment on the 
stories to say that the features are crap or are great.

> i am not singling out anyone here, but my thought processes brought it 
> to this that eventually pride and ego would be major players in the 
> site with no vision or goals or guidelines.  because everyone has a 
> different agenda and may not even know that other folsk dont 
> necessarily agree with them.  i think that leads to folks having hard 
> feelings and feeling isolated.  especially in the case with features, 
> becuase if someone writes a feature and for whatever reason someone 
> else doesnt want it to be featured, is it possible that personal 
> emotion and hurt because of that could creep into things?

Sure it is. Hopefully with open discussion we can avoid that. I think 
that phone (or better, in person) conversations really help to avoid 
the misunderstandings that often come out of email. Maybe we should do 
more of that, using some free voip technology.

> at portland imc the features are culled from the newsiwre volunteers 
> add linkks to stories, maybe an image, thats it.  pdx imc volunteers 
> do not write the features, although since it is open publishing 
> volunteers may also write articles.  there is a bit of a buffer 
> between the volunteers and the writers.  the allows for an aura of 
> selflessness that contributes alot to the health of the site and the 
> speed of the feature wire and adding it all up the popularity of it.

But portland is a local site with a different function from a national 
or global site.

> i am hard up to give out admin accounts, because lack of process 
> allows whoever wants to do something for as much as they want to do 
> that, and that can shape the (actually that HAS shaped) what the site 
> is.  and we have never talked about it.  we have never asked each 
> other if we feel comfortable with the way the site is moving or where 
> we want it to move.
> ...
> i dont know if that makes sense or not, i am typing and thinking so 
> furiously.  okay.  i am just going to stop.  i think that i have made 
> my intentions clear enough.  i want to talk about vision.  i want to 
> really know what people want to do and what this site is what role it 
> plays and where it fits in.  that knowledge is paramount to my 
> involvement with this project as it is currently just sucking up too 
> much of my time.

so lets talk about it. thanks for getting the conversation going!