[CIMC-working] is the global level untenable right now? Re: [IMC-Process] about this list (and the global lists in general)

[Chris Kaihatsu]

[the global level is maybe an impossibility at the
moment - and might even be undesirable, due to regional/cultural/etc
differences...]

I generally agree with this statement. The most important component of the
global level right now seems to be the indymedia.org website, and the
administration of its center column and syndication of local stories.

I would much rather see IMCers devoting their time to producing local
stories and reaching out to new collaborators than trying to leap straight
up to a questionably representative global level.

I don't think that anyone should quit the global lists -- it's just that
they should be seen as "extra-curricular" and not necessarily representative
of all local IMCs.

The Indymedia bank funds and ongoing funding efforts are still tangible
issues for the IMC network. Funding requests and disbursements have been
done so far on a relatively ad-hoc basis. If more structure is needed, then
that is an issue worth pursuing.


Chris Kaihatsu
(Chicago Indymedia)


jmp@nephridium.orgcom.comnet wrote on 1/4/03 10:43 am:

hi all,

my name is martin and i am part of the forming lancaster collective. I have
been following this list for a year or more.

concerning the regional/gathering/face2face issue:

perhaps there should not be _a_ global network, but a global collective of
variosu levels of regional networks, such as the one that is seemingly
forming here on the island (england, scotland, wales), namely the United
Kollektives (UK Indymedia) - from whose perspective the next level (up) in
the Indy "organisation" is the Europe-level. That means that Lancaster is
pert of UK, which is part of Europe that in the end of course is part of the
whole world.............

BUT: Do we really need a global uniformity? Do we want it?  I think not, at
least not yet....

What i mean is that a global uniformity is maybe too farfetched and removed
from our everyday..

Could, indeed should, not Africa have their contextualised/localised
constitution? And Asia, and so on?

If the global lists fail, it might just be because it is too far from our
realities; and that is why i suggest that we build our architecture from the
bottom.... forget about the global level at the moment - the US groups sort
their own stuff (somewhere else) and the global lists should be about
exchange of information and sharing experiences - learning from each other,
rather then teaching each other _what is right_ ...... imagine process as a
list that carries happy tidings, or frustrations that someone could help out
with or congratulations..... that indicates to me a sound process: exchange
of what is beeing achieved and how such achievements came about... (that
also leaves those who want to decide for others out of this forum, be
keeping decisions at local and regional levels.

just a thought that might need some clarification, but the idea should be
easy to understand: the global level is maybe an impossibility at the
moment - and might even be undesirable, due to regional/cultural/etc
differences...

//m//


----- Original Message -----
From: "changsing" <changsing@paranoici.org>
To: <imc-process@lists.indymedia.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 04, 2003 12:19 PM
Subject: [IMC-Process] about this list (and the global lists in general)


> Hello. I'd like to share some of my thoughts about how imc-process, as
> well as many other global mailing lists, have been working in the last
> few months.
> It's kinda clear to me that the facilitation experiment on this list has
> failed. The facilitators couldn't establish a ground of healthy
> cooperation, and the list failed to provide them with a policy to guide
> their job. Moreover, there has been a lack of interest around the whole
> facilitation issue, ever since it had been proposed (in my opinion).
> Also, i fail to see how someone who can't facilitate him/herself would
> be able to facilitate a whole list. Almost half of the 50 emails that
> went through imc-process yesterday are by either John or Doug (the two
> active facilitators). Needless to say, they're very long and not in the
> simplest english i've read.
> So, thank you very much john and doug for your efforts, but it really
> looks like you can't take on the task of facilitating the list, until
> you learn at the very least how to facilitate yourself.
> Also, you blocked some messages to this list without letting us know,
> and without a policy stating that that kind of messages was to be blocked.
> But, on the other side, you didn't block andy rice messages, which are
> the clearest example of attempts of hijacking the imc network.
> As if this was not enough, now you want to turn the screening back on to
> block chuck0 responses...
> No offence to you (i really appreciate your efforts), but this
> facilitation project is not working as it should, and in my opinion it
> must end now.
>
> But anyway, facilitation is probably a marginal issue, at this point.
> What we're facing is not
> the failure of the facilitation proposal, but the failure of
> itnernational lists.
> The participation is very scarce, and the rare times that some
> discussion goes on, it is carried on by just a few individuals, and
> rarely it involves (or at least it tries to do so) the whole network.
> Liaisons haven't been functioning: i've never seen liaison people
> reporting back decisions taken at local level.
> This list, as it has always been since i subscribed to it, is just
> hosting personal debates between english mother tongue imcers, mostly
> from the usa.
> It seems that we're not being able to come up with a  network-wide
> process which allows everyone to participate to discussions and
> decisions. At the same time, i think we can safely say that, on most
> local imcs behalf, there is a lack of interest towards network-wide
> discussion.
> I think it would be good if each imc could go back to local level and
> discuss wether they think it's important to define a network-wide
> decision making process, and if so, how to allow everyone to take part
> to it. It would be good to know what the smallest and poorest imcs think
>   about it, to know what stops them from participating, how they think
> we could improve things, and so on.
> (this is what we should have been doing with imc-europe-commwork, but it
> hasn't been working so far).
> Otherwise we'll keep having proposals, discussions, and decisions coming
> from the same individuals.
> changsing
>
> P.S: i hope what i wrote is clear enough. it might sound strange to you,
> but english is not the mother tongue for everyone.
>
> _______________________________________________
> imc-process mailing list
> imc-process@lists.indymedia.org
> http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-process
>
>
>

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