[CIMC-work] Letter to US-IMC, take 3

[Mitchell Szczepanczyk]

I was supposed to do this sooner, but that whole holiday and time crunch
prevented me from doing this.

As promised, here's a third draft of the letter regarding US-IMC, 
in terms of the discussion had at the mid-December CIMC meeting.  Garth,
et al.--take a look and let me know what you think.

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_ Z  Mitchell Szczepanczyk
  /  http://home.uchicago.edu/~msszczep http://www.chicagomediaaction.org
     http://www.geocities.com/szczepanczyk http://chicago.indymedia.org

Chicago Indymedia would like to express some reservations about the
trajectory of the US-IMC project.  These can be summarized in the 
following points.

Point one: Improving diverse representation.  Ostensibly, one motivation
of US-IMC was and is to reduce American emphasis and increase global 
south participation in such things as the global center panel and the
syndicated feed of center panels on the right-hand column of 
Indymedia Global.  We are concerned that the global south was not 
consulted as to their opinion would be on this matter--either in the
specific sense (if this was a good or effective idea) or more generally 
(what should be done to increase global south activity in Indymedia?),
and that this may be both an effect *and* contributing cause of a downward
trajectory in terms of adequate representation.

Point two: Accountability.  Who decides what would be center paneled on
US-IMC?  What criteria would be used?  Would all of the IMCs in the
United States have a potential say in the matter?  Can any IMC in the
U.S. block a decision on US-IMC?  How much time should be sufficient for a
decision on US-IMC to be made?

Point three: Redundancy.  Based on the traffic to date, US-IMC sounds like
it would replicate the global site, but include only US contributions.  
What new content or contributions, if any, would the US-IMC bring to the
network?  If there aren't any, how then is US-IMC an improvement to the
network?  

Point Four: Global impacts.  The issue of US-IMC isn't just a matter for
the United States.  A significant portion of the global movement is 
in the United States and any effort involving the US could have massive
reverberations, positive and negative, across the global indymedia 
movement.  Perhaps the politics involved with a US-IMC should be brought
before the entire indymedia network--simply because of the possible global
reverberations.

It would appear that a number of considerations that were not brought or
considered to the attention of the US-IMC organizers.  We therefore ask
that these issues be satisfactorily addressed.