[CIMC-working] (filtering lists) Fwd: [Imc-communication] IMC Network E-mail Protocol and Improvement

Sat, 04 Jan 2003 23:22:12 -0600

I agree with Joseph's statement here -- it is better to err on the side of
allowing posts, perhaps necessitating liaison- or user-level email
filtering, rather than relying on a global-level-list filter
("facilitator").

Chris Kaihatsu
(Chicago IMC)

-- Forwarded Message --

Howdy do:

We do an exhausting quantity of leading edge activism here. Our
communications are truly revolutionary in the advanced systems and
methodology employed, and much more so in the level of trust and abiding we
give to each other. Our e-mail lists are used in ways that would greatly
impress anyone attempting to do technological work on such a wide scale as
we do. The use of wiki's, and of course the web sites in general cause folks
to look to us as a model for organizing in the future. We are reaching a
point of needing to asses and improve some practices and efforts as we are
becoming just mature enough to be able to say 'we tried that good idea-and
it wont work for us'. That is the benefit of maturity-one lives long enough
to learn from, and make a few mistakes. One benefit of being in a network is
being able to share skills and to trade experiences. We do well in our
efforts to not reinvent the wheel while replicating the basic imc structure
in places everywhere, otherwise our growth would not be as robust and smooth
as it is. Being able to trade experience and abilities in this age with the
tech savvy people of indy means we reach the end of our-anybody's-ability to
cope and proceed. The current problems on the lists, one of which I am
responsible for helping to repair, are few and far between when we consider
the hundreds of lists and members involved. Let's keep our focus on news
production, and promoting social change thru opening up the media to
everyday folks, from everyday folks. That simple concept is what makes us so
important.

The use of e-mail lists to do our work, and the way we have structured our
lists has it's own effects to be sure. The lists are becoming so predominant
that we might consider the cause and effect of working through lists. In
Seattle we have 15 lists, I believe. That is probably more than 1 list for
every 3 core members, defined in this case as people who post to any of
these lists regularly. Cross posting is good and necessary, and must be
restricted somewhat. For instance a proposal I'll make next month about
contact database completion will go to our Spokes list for discussion and be
cc'd to Tech so they can tell us if it's feasible as we discuss. Our events
list will be notified upon completion via their list, while the space list
will be notified as well. The Media WG's list , which does much work on
infrastructure, will need no notification, except about an upgrade of one
computers which will be necessary for this to happen. 10 other lists will
get no post, except the imc-seattle list will be informed at the beginning
end. And this is for one small one horse proposal. List management thus
becomes an art and can be a filter on the ability of folks unfamiliar with
their use. We have lists, lists on lists, local lists about global list,
global lists about local imc's. And let me just say thank you to our
Listwork members. Their work is truly invaluable, but they just make the
lists by and large, they don't determine their procedures or usage. Perhaps
a recognition of the importance of our lists will cause us to direct some
organizational-structuring resources to their maintenance and improvement,
while preventing us from becoming a servant of the medium.

The relationship of major network lists (Process, Communication, Finance,
Strategies) is difficult for members to understand. To ban cross posting or
irrelevant posts completely would restrict posts from people who did not
learn the differences between lists, or perhaps did not know of the
existence of other lists. To allow very much cross posting would lead to a
bad place too. As imc-seattle@lists.indymedia.org co-admin, I filter spam
and the like, but in our populist organization there is very little
information I feel comfortable restricting. The more controversial or at
odds with my views all the more reason to shine the light-that is what we do
here. Having a great co-admin is the asset that makes our efforts go
smoothly, and simply leaving any non member posts I see but don't want to
pass along, but just can't make myself delete, is all we do. We've talked
several times about items of course. I ramble, but I guess the point I make
is we are setting up information filters for ourselves that can limit or
induct people into our efforts-and bringing people into their own news
making is what we do best. Add to this fact that we are English centric (I
speak only English) in a large and diverse Network and world, the inherent
difficulties in using e-mail to resolve disputes, and what else you want to
add in, perhaps e-mail is not the holy grail it sometimes seems to be. I'm
not sure how the facilitation of lists works, and from this mornings
discussion on imc-process@lists.indymedia.org, even (especially) the
facilitators are working to understand what they do-and what is expected of
them. They need some support now. We'll be helping ourselves by using the
assets that are our IMCN list admins and facilitators.

Resolution. Empowerment, Facilitation. Ask each other what these terms mean.
Think about what we want to do as to a collective. The recent proposal to
build a central directory of list administrators and resources is one which
might help.  Let's not set up imc-listadmins@lists.indymedia.org - but then
again....

Thanks again to Listwork: You make our primary tool for internal organizing,
the indymedia list serves, the most powerful, open, transparent, democratic
system there is.
Hats off.

Joseph
Seattle Collective
relayer@speakeasy.org

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