[CIMC-work] clarification?

[ChrisGeovanis at aol.com]

You know, what bugs me about this is the fact that the 'size' of our 
collective in no way reflects the 'size' of our community, which is intrinsically 
entwined in the way we work.  Since global has moved very aggressively in the last 
two years to 'systematize' process, et al (ironically, and predictably, an 
approach that has placed a much tighter set of hoops to jump through on new, 
non-north american projects than older US collectives), I still think it's a good 
idea to try to lay down some more formalized working guidelines for our 
'consensus' process (which at least one visitor from another IMC has observed is 
too conversational for their taste. Myself, I like conversation, but whatever).

I also think some of Ian's points below are very well taken, and would add 
that one of the problems I have with many 'consensus' processes is that they 
basically eviscerate strong minority trends, which I think can be very unhelpful 
over the long term. In short, I don't personally think that 'consensus' as a 
process tool is necessarily better than other tools, especially when it is 
employed in an unprincipled way. Let's remember that the meeting in which senior 
Nazi officials and businessmen elected to implement the Final Solution was 
governed by a meeting process grounded in -- consensus. That said, the IMC network 
at its core was organized around principles of consensus, which when used in 
a principled way, for principled ends, can also be just fine.

Other models -- parliamentary, Roberts Rules of Order, whatever -- also 
present their own pitfalls and are equally vulnerable to being employed in bogus 
ways. Just look at Congress, for crying out loud. Talk about a body that needs 
the capacity to block.

There are about a million different flavors of consensus out there. Embracing 
the concept of consensus as a core organizing principle is built into 
indymedia and basically non-negotiable. We should try to define ours more clearly.

christine

In a message dated 3/14/04 1:46:45 PM Central Standard Time, 
ianb at colorstudy.com writes:

> Subj: Re: [CIMC-work] clarification? 
>  Date: 3/14/04 1:46:45 PM Central Standard Time
>  From: ianb at colorstudy.com
>  To: ChrisGeovanis at aol.com
>  CC: ckaihatsu at myrealbox.com, imc-chicago-working at indymedia.org
>  Sent from the Internet 
> 
> 
> 
> On Mar 13, 2004, at 4:00 PM, ChrisGeovanis at aol.com wrote:
> >Can somebody clarify this for me? Am I reading this right, that 
> >Chicago is a collective with fewer than ten members, and that we do 
> >not have a consensus process in place?
> 
> Seems to be so, though maybe there was another IMC involved earlier in 
> the discussion.  For what it's worth, Ithaca seems to have it's own 
> significant decision-making process problems.  If we don't have a 
> consensus process in place, I suspect it's because we're aren't as 
> contentious a collective as Ithaca.  Specifically, we don't have 
> members that manipulate the consensus process (and while I don't want 
> to talk bad about other IMCs, I know Ithaca does have members that 
> abuse the consensus process).
> 
> Though I think she does have a point about online consensus.  Social 
> pressure is important to consensus, i.e., relationships that extend 
> outside of the decision process itself, and the informal compromises we 
> make to each others concerns over spans of time.  Online we simply 
> don't have the social connections necessary (though maybe we should try 
> to build those), and since consensus rewards disagreement so much more 
> than agreement it can be very negative and obstructionist.
> 
> Of course, if you aren't looking for authority you can avoid consensus 
> any way you please.  We don't need anyone else's approval to make 
> changes to our local's structure, site, or anything else; nor does any 
> individual need approval to post to the newswire, start their own site, 
> or do anything outside of Indymedia.  Maybe some people need to think 
> more creatively about devolution and decentralization, so they can 
> achieve their goals without needing to reach consensus.
> 
>   Ian
> 
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