[UCIMC-Tech] Bring the U-C IMC's only reliable historical record back to the public please.

[dan blah]

Hey all,

Over the past few months various members have contacted me to discuss
our organizations history.  Very often the conversation will move
towards concerns of the U-C IMC moving further and further from its
original flat member empowered and controlled adhocracy to more of a
centrally controlled by a few bureaucracy.  Not being the active
member I was, I often quickly ask for a cite of assertions on the IMC
General list (imc at lists.chambana.net) where the IMC's Steering Group
and other working groups had been posting their minutes.  This mailing
list had for a decade served as the organizations most reliable
historical record.  Supporting that role, I tell them how important it
was for me to go all the way to the beginning of that list's archive
before even becoming a member.  They almost always state their
intentions to do the same after being told it contains the public
notes on how the U-C IMC got its name, who's basement the first
meetings were in, and all the other eclectic blocks that built up to
the building we all enjoy now.

For me and others who were not part of those early chapters of the U-C
IMC, having the history there to read, review, and build onto formed
the core of how we developed our sense of ownership of the U-C IMC.
In this current time at the U-C IMC where many of the founding members
and past active members have moved on, access to this history takes on
an even greater importance.  Unfortunately, that history is no longer
available to the public or even most members.  Currently, it is only
available to 35 U-C IMC members.

Thanks to the IMC-Tech folks catching me up, I understand why the list
is currently private and I am partly at fault for failing to focus on
the discussion when it took place last year.  All that aside, current
active local U-C IMC members are still asking me questions about our
history and now I have no way to cite my knowledge and they have no
way to learn as much as they want and should be able to about the U-C
IMC.  To maintain one of the core tenants of being an Indymedia
Independent Media Center that embodies so much more than just being a
community center, those archives and future notes and discussions that
define our organization must be available to all members and the
public.  I propose that we re-open up the archives that were public
for nearly a decade and continue to ensure Steering and all other
working group minutes continue to be public (as they also were for the
same decade) while respecting and ensuring those needs that lead to
its privatization remain met.

The technical problems around this make the practical implementation
of this a bit tricky.  I apologize, the rest of this is a little
geeky.  As Bob proposed in October, instead of re-purposing the imc@
mailing list to be the private spokes and core member only list it is
now, an imc-spokes@ mailing list should have been created and used for
this purpose.  My assumption is that there was concern about the imc@
being the most common way people contact the U-C IMC and because of
this it was easiest to just restrict the imc@ list associated with
that alias.  What I would have proposed is that the imc@ address via
aliasing be forwarded to an imc-spokes@ mailing list and the old
public imc@ mailing list be accessible by emailing imc-members at .  This
would've preserved the highly search indexed public imc@ mailing list
archives, allowed a public list for recording as in the past, and
allowed a restricted private list for more internal functions.  I
propose that we do this now.  The main issue to this at this point is
moving those private messages currently on the imc@ mailing list to
the new imc-spokes@ mailing list and combining the imc-members@
mailing list with the older busier imc@ mailing list.

All members, lets discuss!  IMC-Tech Group members, please lets
discuss what holes exist in my tech proposal on the IMC-Tech Group
list.

In solidarity,
-- 
Dan Blah

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