[IMC-US] comments and concerns about us.indy

[ekearns at umich.edu]

a couple things,

first, in response to chris's comment about people not knowing how to get
involved with us.indy -- isn't this the point of the documentation that bht has
been doing on the wiki? my understanding is that bht is attempting to share the
knowledge of the admin functions by publishing that info (and he is also asking
for other current admins to help with that task). now people who are voicing
interest in participating with us.indy need to take some personal
responsibility and read that documentation, ask bht or john (bht at indymedia.org
or john at manifestor.org) for admin access and then login and look around.

i am frustrated with the amount of discussion that happens on this list, coupled
with the lack of action pertaining to the site. from what i can tell, admin
responsibilities do not seem to require very much time from individuals, if the
workload is shared. personally, i am hesitant to devote my time, due to the
apparent lack of process within this collection of people. without process or
decision making mechanisms, it is very hard for new people to become involved.
informality can be nice, to an extent, but as a new person on the list, when i
don't see process then i don't see an easy avenue for involvement. have ya'll
talked about decision making? common visions for what should be in the center
column? or is everyone satisfied with only promoting the stories that come from
their own local imcs?

I don't feel like there are any solid working relationships on this list. I've
only been reading the discussion for a couple weeks now, but I see the same
email addresses (almost all men), from the same IMCs that are always at the
forefront of any discussions surrounding indymedia. I don't like listservs
because it's too easy for the people who spend the most time in front of their
computers to speak the loudest and have the most consistent input. I know that
I'm continuing the trend of writing an unorganized, ranting email, but I'm
trying to figure out why I'm not active with the site and my inclination is to
identify all of the problems before beginning to think of solutions....

could we maybe have an irc meeting within the next week? It seems as if several
people have concerns about this project. I feel like it would be constructive
if we made a list of those concerns and then got together to talk about them.
Maybe regularly scheduled irc meetings could be a part of our process? I would
feel more comfortable participating in real time discussions as opposed to
reading/writing long winded emails. anyone else?

emily.
michigan imc.