[Imc] IMC Print Meeting Notes - 16 May 2002

[Michael S. Feltes]

THESE ARTICLES HAVE NOT BEEN POSTED TO THE PRINT NEWSWIRE
(http://print.ucimc.org) FOR COMMENT.  PLEASE POST THEM ASAP.

Sandra Ahten - Lipton/Kennis Profile
Meredith Kruse - A20 Report Back
Ben Schaffer - COUCH/Cooperative Living

NOTE WELL:

Between now and next Thursday, 23 May, please take some time out to view
and make comments with these articles on the print newswire
(http://print.ucimc.org).  The subject of our next meeting will be to
collectively edit the following articles and return the annotated articles
to the authors for final drafts.


IMC Print Group Notes
16 May 2002

Present: Darrin, Josh, Paul, Sara, Michael Feltes, Indigo, Miles, Mike
Walcher, Orion

D: It appears that we have all of the material for the May/June issue.
Layout will begin this weekend.

For posterity's sake:

We've had internal problems all along, but it began to get more heated
when Sandra suggested a few changes and in one of her emails she suggested
firing all the current editors.  She wanted to shake things up,
apparently, and that's happened.  In general, there was this idea that we
were a hierarchical organization that people avoided because they assumed
that they would be edited to death, so that this shakeup is part of the
ongoing experiment.

Cosmetic changes to the public i will ensue.  Some of the idea is to shake
off some of the stodginess and strait-laced look of the paper.  It is
also, according to Sandra's straw poll, is that it is not immediately
apparent that it is a community-written paper.  The changes will include
a greatly enlarged line, "Publication of the IMC" and pics and bios of
authors.  Also a redesign along the lines of the St. Louis "Confluence" or
the WEFT Revue.

There seems to be consensus that the previous editorial structure is not
working well, or at least the subject of great controversy.

Some ideas include the elimination of editorships, replaced by
"solicitors".  The idea is to reinvigorate the print newswire, so that
articles will be subjected to collaborative review and revision.

To Darrin, it seems that there are two ways to go: one is to have an
editorial structure, or to use the newswire and group meetings as a
collaborative editorial process.  SOme discussion ensued as to what
combination of newswire and group meetings might work.

Darrin proposes that we have one meeting each issue where we get together
and do editing.  Final draft deadlines would be set on a Thursday, and we
would get together with the drafts and comments put on the bulletin board
of articles we had previously earmarked for the issue to a final

Josh makes a friendly amendment, that the final drafts be set a few days
later after this meeting, so that the comments made in the editing meeting
can be communicated to the author so that revisions can be made.

Michael makes the point that under this structure, the prerogative of the
final draft resides with the author, not the editors.  The authors would
be free to implement changes suggested in the editing meeting or not, and
other than grammatical changes, their notion would be final.

Will we apply this structure to this issue?

Josh makes the point that this structure would put us at the first or
second week of June, this meeting being the meeting at which the articles
are selected, next week being the collective edit meeting, and final
drafts by the authors that Monday.
Alternatively, we could do the collective edit ASAP to keep our


The "conspiracy issue":

Preliminarily scheduled for July.  Sandra Ahten seems to be gathering the
energy for this issue.


Schedule A (Josh):

Next Thursday (23 May):  Collective edit meeting
Monday (27 May): Final drafts for implementation of changes by authors


Articles:

Andy Assad - Israel/Palestine (999)
Josh Michaels - Israel (1623)
David Green - Israel (900)
Sandra Ahten - Lipton/Kennis (700)

Al Weiss - Municipal Utilities (1023)
Meredith Kruse - Report back from A20 (2200)
Pauline Bartolone - Hate Groups on Shortwave (923)
Liam O'Donoughe - CCHCC (1883)
Ben Schaeffer - COUCH/Cooperative Living (2000)


It seems that there is one too many articles for 8 pages.  We could go to
12 pages and include all of these articles plus other info.

Josh's idea is that we go to 12 pages, and make the center 4 pages feature
the four articles relating to the Middle East.

Proposal:  June Issue

12 pages, center four pages centering on Middle East articles, then the
other 6 to 7 pages with other articles.  New Confluence-style layout.

All articles as above.

May 23: Collective edit date
May 27: Final drafts from authors
May 30: Layout finished
June 1: Printed at Villa Grove

This schema is agreed upon.

Distribution:

Jason Pitzl-Waters has flyering lists that WEFT's PR Committee has put
together.  They may be a good starting place to rework lists.

action item (MF): contact Jason Pitzl-Waters to obtain flyering lists


meeting dissolves