[CIMC-work] Re: the CALENDAR situation -- URGENT

[donald goldhamer]

Christine and all,

>Wait, why are we abandoning the calendar? Is the proposal to hose the
>'Upcoming Events' section on the front page and redirect to the calendar
>section only? I know a fair # of people who go to the calendar for info on
>upcoming stuff.
>What can we do to remedy this situation?
>christine

I've been totally out of touch (for medical reasons) for nearly a month,
and am trying to catch up.

I believe that this situation with the calendar has resulted from some
serious errors on our part, including:
  - a failure to use the consensual process 
  - a failure to consult the people most directly involved with the calendar
  - message overload on the working list
  - inattention (myself included) to urgent messages on CIMC-working
  - fatigue, burn-out, need for relief for a hard-working volunteer

Some information (correct me if I've misstated anything):

 - The Chicago-IMC event calendar is/was, to my knowledge, the only "open"
   calendar in the Chicago area -- i.e. anyone can post an event.

 - Because of past abuse of the calendar by a few tendencies, we had to
   make it a moderated process, which has been handled exclusively by
   Elizabeth Fraser (one of the CIMC-tech crew who chooses not to attend
   meetings).

 -the calendar-moderation process is a heavily manual process.  There was
  hope that newer IMC software would relieve that, but the basic software
  we have been using is fairly flexible although not intended for a
  moderated process -- it allows titles, links to details, links to URLs,
  colors, borders, ....

 - some persons modified the CIMC front page, in stages, to include a
   top-of-the-center-column upcoming events section, and later to add a
   pointer to an article based on the CCAWR calendar which was labeled
   "CALENDAR OF EVENTS".  (I do not know who maintains the article based on
   the periodically updated CCAWR calendar, or who re-issues that calendar
   itself.)

 - this diverted readers from the open, dynamic CIMC calendar, and some
   persons proposed completely eliminating the "EVENTS CALENDAR" button,
   which is the ONLY remaining link to the open calendar, and is greatly
   obscured by the "UPCOMING EVENTS" section.  Postings decreased, and
   after several appeals, Elizabeth announced that she would give up trying
   to maintain it.  No one responded to her, and NO collective discussion
   or decision took place.

 - people posting their events to the CIMC calendar were not warned to send
   the information to CCAWR; and if they did, their postings were not
   included , if at all, until the next bi-weekly update.  Unlike the CIMC
   calendar there was no longer ANY functional self-posting event calendar.

At present, people posting their events to the CIMC calendar (including,
for example, the Crossroads Fund) are completely ignored -- their events
are never made public.

We need to:
 1. decide if CIMC values an open, self-posting events calendar
 2. decide if we want to find another mechanism for an open calendar
 3. decide if we have the resources to administer it -- currently a
    moderator, an email list specifically for problems and questions
    regarding the calendar (chicago at indymedia.org, I believe)
 4. correct our website to reflect the actual situation and to handle, in
    some fashion, postings to the CIMC calendar.

I also think we need to make appropriate apologies for the high-handed way
Elizabeth was treated and attempt to find a replacement for her.  It is my
understanding that, for a variety of reasons including the above process,
she is no longer able to administer the calendar.

Let's not let this one fall through.

--Don

P.S.  Our tech-crew is very small:

  Ian B is busy trying to deal with the switch to another software system
and the immanent probable "death" of stallman -- the IMC server.  That is
another issue which, as I hear, is the result of global's unrealistic
expectation that IMC would receive nearly free bandwidth forever, but I'm
not knowledgeable about the details.

  I'm just getting back online after a month, and may have to go 'offline'
again during the next few months

  Mitchell is spread very thin with non-technical work

  Elizabeth finds it necessary to cut back her involvement