[IMC-Tech] Fw: Re: new <germany.indymedia.org >new
IMC-de-mail
imc at squat.net
Mon, 22 Jan 2001 21:46:34 +0100
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------------- Forwarded message follows -------------
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Hi Germany IMC,
Thanks for the application! Did you send it to imc-tech@indymedia.org
as
well? If not, let me know and I'll forward it, but I assume you did.
You've
obviously put a lot of thought into all levels of this process, which is
great. Personally, I think your editorial policy is a good compromise
between
moderated and open publishing. One of the reasons people are so excited
about
Indymedia is because they can post an article, push "refresh" on their
browser,
and it'll pop up at the top of the newswire. (Be sure to let them know,
through your "publish" form, the URL of the newswire where it will
appear, and
that it won't show up immediately on the top of the newswire on the
front page,
just in case they're publishing from the main page and the go back there
looking for their article.) One of the many processes around Indymedia
that's
fuzzy right now is the process for allotting new IMC domains. I'm not
sure
techincally if imc-tech does that, or if imc-process or some other list
has to
okay it first. If you don't hear back from imc-tech let me know. I
posted
your message to the process list and if there's no quick response I'll
try to
get things rolling there.
I hope you had a fun meeting this weekend,
Jay
>
>
>Hello everyone at indymedia,
>
>This is by way of an official application for IMC status for the
>German indymedia group. Since there's been lots of discussion on the
>communication list lately about new IMC's, we thought it made sense
>to copy this to you all (sorry, we know people are trying to keep the
>traffic down on the lists, but it seemed relevant and important).
>
>Our group has been meeting weekly in Berlin since November, and this
>weekend (Jan. 20-21) we're holding a big nationwide gathering in
>Hamburg. After that we'll start meeting regularly in various cities
>all over Germany. There is LOTS of interest in an IMC here, and we
>have representatives from a good percentage of the alternative media
>initiatives already around in Germany. We're pretty confident that
>an IMC-Germany will constitute a major co-ordination of these
>projects.
>
>For the time being, we plan to concentrate on big political campaigns
>and demos (sort of on the model of prague.indy, back when it started
>out). We're working towards a major effort in March, to cover the
>"Castortransporte" of atomic waste. This is one of the most
>important left-radical events in Germany, and we're psyched about it.
>We've begun to form technical, editorial and media-specific
>collectives and things are getting rolling.
>
>Because the clock is ticking on all this, we're hoping that we can
>get official status as soon as possible. We've been monitoring most
>of the central indy lists, and we know there's some concern right now
>about formulating criteria for new IMC's. We just want to plead with
>you not to delay too long on our case. We have a lot of momentum
>going now, and we don't want to lose it; and it's especially
>important that we have the site up and running RIGHT, before the
>Castor events in March.
>
>It's been great working with you so far, and we're itching to REALLY
>start making our own contributions.
>
> Below are two texts, a mission statement and an editorial policy,
>that sum up our discussions so far. The latter is particular
>relevant, since it discusses our position towards open posting, which
>we know has been somewhat controversial. After much discussion, and
>some helpful input from Jay, we've come to a compromise decision.
>We've also put some technical details (contacts, etc) way down at the
>bottom.
>
>Peace and love,
>
>Indy-germany
>
>-------------------------------------
>
>Mission Statement for IMC-germany
>
>IndyMedia Germany is a network of independent, alternative media
>activists and organizations, offering grassroots, non-corporate,
>non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues. We
>work together with, and inspired by, activists here and worldwide,
>whose struggles for justice are systematically passed over and
>distorted by the corporate media.
>
>The massive consolidation of the corporate media since the end of the
>cold war has been met by a corresponding explosion of independent
>media outlets. Groups all over the world have created their own
>channels of information and distribution in order to bypass the
>mainstream media - underground journals, pirate radio and TV,
>independent film and video. When information is distributed through
>these unconventional channels, the effect goes beyond correcting
>corporate bias. At its best, independent media work erases the
>distinction between producer and consumer of information, effectively
>democratizing the media and instantiating in its own workings the
>more just society towards which we struggle.
>
>Digitalization provides an opportunity to co-ordinate this massive
>outpouring of information, regardless of medium. The internet offers
>many alternative news and info sites, from radical enterprises like
>a-infos or Nadir-org, to more establishment services like
>oneworld.net or newsforchange.org.
>
>IndyMedia exploded onto this scene in November 1999, during the
>Seattle WTO protests which sparked the latest round of actions
>against global capitalism. The IMC site provided a clearinghouse for
>up-to-the-minute coverage of events there, and also a forum for
>in-depth treatment of the issues at stake there. Since then IMC's
>have blossomed in dozens of cities in America and numerous other
>countries. Many of these sites arise in the context of specific
>demonstrations, and then outlive those demonstrations themselves -
>for example, www.praha.indymedia.org, massively successful during the
>anti-IMF/WB protests of October 2000, and still providing an
>alternative news outlet in the Czech Republic.
>
>IndyMedia Germany was inspired by our sister IMC's. We aim, not to
>replace a-infos or nadir.org, but , first, to help co-ordinate
>existing work by media activists, and second, to fill a gap in the
>landscape of German media activism. We are neither an events
>calendar nor an outlet for prepared statements by established groups.
>Instead, we work together with activists to provide massive,
>radically democratic multimedia coverage of demonstrations and
>political events, while simultaneously presenting a forum for
>engaged background reporting. Neither "objective" nor uncritical,
>our best moments offer impassioned attempts at truthtelling.
>
>
>-------------------------------------
>
>Editorial policy for a german-language IMC (germany.indymedia.org):
>
>Germany.indymedia.org is an independent, non-corporate network of
>media activists. Our goal is to bring information about political
>campaigns and movements to a wide public, through engaged, critical
>journalism conceived as a collaborative effort with political
>activists.
>
>Both the indymedia collective and the indymedia site are open to all,
>and like other indymedia sites, we place a high value on openness and
>freedom of expression. Nevertheless, the experience of other German
>sites has led us to conclude that some moderation will be necessary.
>We aim to make this moderation process as transparent and democratic
>as possible. To this end we have formulated the following policy.
>
>"Filtering" (Censorship) Guidelines and Open Posting
>
> Open posting (OP) - the system under which there are no
>restrictions on who may post a story to the site - is a crucial part
>of the indymedia conception. This is partly for ideological reasons
>- OP is radically democratic and helps break down the distinction
>between producer and consumer of information - and partly for the
>emotional connection OP builds between users and indymedia. We
>recognize and sincerely appreciate both of these arguments.
>Nonetheless, OP has the disadvantage of laying IMC open to abuse,
>especially by right-wing groups. The recent (Dec. 2000) experience
>of the Davos IMC, together with the long-term problems encountered at
>nadir.org, suggest that European, especially German-language, sites
>are more likely to be targeted this way than American sites.
>
>Weighing these concerns, the IMC-Germany collective has decided on a
>mixed policy. Under our plan, the "newswire" (right-hand column)
>will not operate under pure OP, but will instead be moderated. This
>means that (1) there will be a delay of indeterminate length before
>any story makes it onto the front-page newswire, and (2) certain
>stories will never make it there. Despite this, there will be an
>open-posting channel on the site, probably with a link from the front
>page. This channel will operate in realtime, like the classic
>www.indy newswire. Even this channel will be monitored, though, and
>postings that meet certain strict criteria will be removed after the
>fact (our impression is that this level of censorship occurs at all
>indymedia sites, e.g. to filter out pure corporate spam).
>
>We hope that this policy will make the site a less attractive target
>for right-wing groups (since it takes a certain amount of work to
>reach the OP channel), but also preserve - at least partly - the
>advantages of pure OP. Obviously the very immediate bond between the
>site and the person posting will be diluted somewhat, but we hope
>that we can make up for that by being very clear about our criteria
>for censorship. We have two of them:
>
>1. The political criterion. Unmitigated and irredeemable racist,
>sexist, or fascist sentiments have no place on our site, and will be
>removed as fast as possible. Let's be very clear about this. We're
>not just talking about political opinions we don't agree with. We
>want to create a very broad, open space for discussion and debate,
>and we are open to a wide range of political opinion. But debating
>with fascists only gives them a kind of legitimacy by proxy, and we
>are unwilling to provide them with that kind of forum. We define
>political unacceptability as narrowly as we can, but certain areas
>are, and must be, off-limits for IMC-Germany.
>
>2. The bullshit criterion. Postings with no political or news
>content at all will also be removed. For an internet site,
>spam-generators are almost as dangerous as the right wing! It's
>important that our primary function as an independent news outlet be
>preserved, and we can't let ourselves be swamped by pure smog.
>
>Moderation Collective
>
>Those criteria sound good, but there's always a danger that
>moderators can abuse their privilege. We think it's important that
>moderation be done by collective, on a rotating basis, and that the
>membership of the moderation collective be drawn at frequent
>intervals from the whole indymedia collective.
>
>The moderation collective is in principle independent from the
>editorial collective that manages the center column, though there's
>no reason they can't overlap.
>
>-------------------------------------
>
>Technical Details (Mostly repeats stuff from the "New IMC" form)
>
>
>Contact: Matt Price/ Daniel Dietrich
> IMC
> c/o Meringhof
> Gneisenaustr. 2a
> 10961 Berlin
> Cell Phone: 0049-(0)179-3111212
> Email: imc-moderation@gmx.net
>
>Technical Contact: Anna and Arthur
> IMC
> c/o M99
> Manteuffelstr. 99
> 10997 Berlin
> Cell Phone: 0049-(0)179-3111214
> Email: imc-technix@gmx.net
>
>Supporting Groups:
> nadir.org
> AK-Kraak
> lotec.squat.net
> squat.net
>
>Proposed name: germany.indymedia.org
>
>General Comments: We plan to run things a little bit differently from
>most IMC's, we hope that's ok.
>
>We have our own software - developed and maintained
>by nadir.org, runs on java. The technical team thinks the softwar has
>certain advantages over active (mostly having to do with saving server-
>power -> no scripts running on main server).
>So we were planning to have the "production server"
>over here in Europe. "look and feel" would be ported over to our
>software, but the engine is different.
>
>Our main problem is bandwidth - we don't have much, it's expensive
>here, and as yet we don't have any funds - so we were hoping to use
>some indy server space for a "publication server", to which the static
>html pages produced on our server would be copied.
>
>So the dynamic side is on our server, the static is on yours,
>and gets updated whenever there's a change.
>
>Resources to Contribute: For now, translation; when we get clear on
>fundraising, hopefully some cash.
>
>Looking forward to hear from you.
>
>Love and peace
>some german indymedi@s
>
>
>
>
>
--
--
------=NEOMAIL_ATT_0.359698600135744
Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
<html>
<font size=3D3>Hi Germany IMC,<br>
<br>
Thanks for the application! Did you send it to
imc-tech@indymedia.org as well? If not, let me know and I'll
forward it, but I assume you did. You've obviously put a lot of
thought into all levels of this process, which is great.
Personally, I think your editorial policy is a good compromise between
moderated and open publishing. One of the reasons people are so
excited about Indymedia is because they can post an article, push
"refresh" on their browser, and it'll pop up at the top of the
newswire. (Be sure to let them know, through your
"publish" form, the URL of the newswire where it will appear,
and that it won't show up immediately on the top of the newswire on the
front page, just in case they're publishing from the main page and the go
back there looking for their article.) One of the many processes
around Indymedia that's fuzzy right now is the process for allotting new
IMC domains. I'm not sure techincally if imc-tech does that, or if
imc-process or some other list has to okay it first. If you don't
hear back from imc-tech let me know. I posted your message to the
process list and if there's no quick response I'll try to get things
rolling there. <br>
<br>
I hope you had a fun meeting this weekend,<br>
<br>
Jay<br>
<br>
><br>
><br>
>Hello everyone at indymedia,<br>
><br>
>This is by way of an official application for IMC status for the
<br>
>German indymedia group. Since there's been lots of discussion
on the <br>
>communication list lately about new IMC's, we thought it made sense
<br>
>to copy this to you all (sorry, we know people are trying to keep the
<br>
>traffic down on the lists, but it seemed relevant and
important).<br>
><br>
>Our group has been meeting weekly in Berlin since November, and this
<br>
>weekend (Jan. 20-21) we're holding a big nationwide gathering in
<br>
>Hamburg. After that we'll start meeting regularly in various
cities <br>
>all over Germany. There is LOTS of interest in an IMC here, and
we <br>
>have representatives from a good percentage of the alternative media
<br>
>initiatives already around in Germany. We're pretty confident
that <br>
>an IMC-Germany will constitute a major co-ordination of these <br>
>projects.<br>
><br>
>For the time being, we plan to concentrate on big political campaigns
<br>
>and demos (sort of on the model of prague.indy, back when it started
<br>
>out). We're working towards a major effort in March, to cover
the <br>
>"Castortransporte" of atomic waste. This is one of
the most <br>
>important left-radical events in Germany, and we're psyched about it.
<br>
>We've begun to form technical, editorial and media-specific <br>
>collectives and things are getting rolling.<br>
><br>
>Because the clock is ticking on all this, we're hoping that we can
<br>
>get official status as soon as possible. We've been monitoring
most <br>
>of the central indy lists, and we know there's some concern right now
<br>
>about formulating criteria for new IMC's. We just want to plead
with <br>
>you not to delay too long on our case. We have a lot of
momentum <br>
>going now, and we don't want to lose it; and it's especially <br>
>important that we have the site up and running RIGHT, before the
<br>
>Castor events in March.<br>
><br>
>It's been great working with you so far, and we're itching to REALLY
<br>
>start making our own contributions.<br>
><br>
> Below are two texts, a mission statement and an
editorial policy, <br>
>that sum up our discussions so far. The latter is particular
<br>
>relevant, since it discusses our position towards open posting, which
<br>
>we know has been somewhat controversial. After much discussion,
and <br>
>some helpful input from Jay, we've come to a compromise decision.
<br>
>We've also put some technical details (contacts, etc) way down at the
<br>
>bottom.<br>
><br>
>Peace and love,<br>
><br>
>Indy-germany<br>
><br>
>-------------------------------------<br>
><br>
>Mission Statement for IMC-germany<br>
><br>
>IndyMedia Germany is a network of independent, alternative media
<br>
>activists and organizations, offering grassroots, non-corporate,
<br>
>non-commercial coverage of important social and political
issues. We <br>
>work together with, and inspired by, activists here and worldwide,
<br>
>whose struggles for justice are systematically passed over and <br>
>distorted by the corporate media.<br>
><br>
>The massive consolidation of the corporate media since the end of the
<br>
>cold war has been met by a corresponding explosion of independent
<br>
>media outlets. Groups all over the world have created their own
<br>
>channels of information and distribution in order to bypass the=20
<br>
>mainstream media - underground journals, pirate radio and TV, <br>
>independent film and video. When information is distributed
through <br>
>these unconventional channels, the effect goes beyond correcting
<br>
>corporate bias. At its best, independent media work erases the
<br>
>distinction between producer and consumer of information, effectively
<br>
>democratizing the media and instantiating in its own workings the
<br>
>more just society towards which we struggle.<br>
><br>
>Digitalization provides an opportunity to co-ordinate this massive
<br>
>outpouring of information, regardless of medium. The internet
offers <br>
>many alternative news and info sites, from radical enterprises like
<br>
>a-infos or Nadir-org, to more establishment services like <br>
>oneworld.net or newsforchange.org.<br>
><br>
>IndyMedia exploded onto this scene in November 1999, during the=20
<br>
>Seattle WTO protests which sparked the latest round of actions <br>
>against global capitalism. The IMC site provided a
clearinghouse for <br>
>up-to-the-minute coverage of events there, and also a forum for=20
<br>
>in-depth treatment of the issues at stake there. Since then
IMC's <br>
>have blossomed in dozens of cities in America and numerous other
<br>
>countries. Many of these sites arise in the context of specific
<br>
>demonstrations, and then outlive those demonstrations themselves -
<br>
>for example,
<a href=3D"http://www.praha.indymedia.org/" eudora=3D"autourl">www.praha.ind=
ymedia.org</a>,
massively successful during the <br>
>anti-IMF/WB protests of October 2000, and still providing an <br>
>alternative news outlet in the Czech Republic.<br>
><br>
>IndyMedia Germany was inspired by our sister IMC's. We aim, not
to <br>
>replace a-infos or nadir.org, but , first, to help co-ordinate <br>
>existing work by media activists, and second, to fill a gap in the
<br>
>landscape of German media activism. We are neither an events
<br>
>calendar nor an outlet for prepared statements by established groups.
<br>
>Instead, we work together with activists to provide massive, <br>
>radically democratic multimedia coverage of demonstrations and <br>
>political events, while simultaneously presenting a forum for
<br>
>engaged background reporting. Neither "objective" nor
uncritical, <br>
>our best moments offer impassioned attempts at truthtelling.<br>
><br>
><br>
>-------------------------------------<br>
><br>
>Editorial policy for a german-language IMC
(germany.indymedia.org):<br>
><br>
>Germany.indymedia.org is an independent, non-corporate network of
<br>
>media activists. Our goal is to bring information about
political <br>
>campaigns and movements to a wide public, through engaged, critical
<br>
>journalism conceived as a collaborative effort with political <br>
>activists.<br>
><br>
>Both the indymedia collective and the indymedia site are open to all,
<br>
>and like other indymedia sites, we place a high value on openness and
<br>
>freedom of expression. Nevertheless, the experience of other
German <br>
>sites has led us to conclude that some moderation will be necessary.
<br>
>We aim to make this moderation process as transparent and democratic
<br>
>as possible. To this end we have formulated the following
policy.<br>
><br>
>"Filtering" (Censorship) Guidelines and Open Posting<br>
><br>
> Open posting (OP) - the system under which there are no
<br>
>restrictions on who may post a story to the site - is a crucial part
<br>
>of the indymedia conception. This is partly for ideological
reasons <br>
>- OP is radically democratic and helps break down the distinction
<br>
>between producer and consumer of information - and partly for the
<br>
>emotional connection OP builds between users and indymedia. We
<br>
>recognize and sincerely appreciate both of these arguments. <br>
>Nonetheless, OP has the disadvantage of laying IMC open to abuse,
<br>
>especially by right-wing groups. The recent (Dec. 2000)
experience <br>
>of the Davos IMC, together with the long-term problems encountered at
<br>
>nadir.org, suggest that European, especially German-language, sites
<br>
>are more likely to be targeted this way than American sites.<br>
><br>
>Weighing these concerns, the IMC-Germany collective has decided on a
<br>
>mixed policy. Under our plan, the "newswire"
(right-hand column) <br>
>will not operate under pure OP, but will instead be moderated.
This <br>
>means that (1) there will be a delay of indeterminate length before
<br>
>any story makes it onto the front-page newswire, and (2) certain
<br>
>stories will never make it there. Despite this, there will be
an <br>
>open-posting channel on the site, probably with a link from the front
<br>
>page. This channel will operate in realtime, like the classic
<br>
><a href=3D"http://www.indy/" eudora=3D"autourl">www.indy</a>
newswire. Even this channel will be monitored, though, and <br>
>postings that meet certain strict criteria will be removed after the
<br>
>fact (our impression is that this level of censorship occurs at all
<br>
>indymedia sites, e.g. to filter out pure corporate spam).<br>
><br>
>We hope that this policy will make the site a less attractive target
<br>
>for right-wing groups (since it takes a certain amount of work to
<br>
>reach the OP channel), but also preserve - at least partly - the
<br>
>advantages of pure OP. Obviously the very immediate bond
between the <br>
>site and the person posting will be diluted somewhat, but we hope
<br>
>that we can make up for that by being very clear about our criteria
<br>
>for censorship. We have two of them:<br>
><br>
>1. The political criterion. Unmitigated and irredeemable
racist, <br>
>sexist, or fascist sentiments have no place on our site, and will be
<br>
>removed as fast as possible. Let's be very clear about
this. We're <br>
>not just talking about political opinions we don't agree with.
We <br>
>want to create a very broad, open space for discussion and debate,
<br>
>and we are open to a wide range of political opinion. But
debating <br>
>with fascists only gives them a kind of legitimacy by proxy, and we
<br>
>are unwilling to provide them with that kind of forum. We
define <br>
>political unacceptability as narrowly as we can, but certain areas
<br>
>are, and must be, off-limits for IMC-Germany.<br>
><br>
>2. The bullshit criterion. Postings with no political or
news <br>
>content at all will also be removed. For an internet site,
<br>
>spam-generators are almost as dangerous as the right wing! It's
<br>
>important that our primary function as an independent news outlet be
<br>
>preserved, and we can't let ourselves be swamped by pure smog.<br>
><br>
>Moderation Collective<br>
><br>
>Those criteria sound good, but there's always a danger that <br>
>moderators can abuse their privilege. We think it's important
that <br>
>moderation be done by collective, on a rotating basis, and that the
<br>
>membership of the moderation collective be drawn at frequent <br>
>intervals from the whole indymedia collective.<br>
><br>
>The moderation collective is in principle independent from the <br>
>editorial collective that manages the center column, though there's
<br>
>no reason they can't overlap.<br>
><br>
>-------------------------------------<br>
><br>
>Technical Details (Mostly repeats stuff from the "New IMC"
form)<br>
><br>
><br>
>Contact: Matt Price/ Daniel Dietrich<br>
> IMC<br>
> c/o Meringhof<br>
> Gneisenaustr. 2a<br>
> 10961 Berlin<br>
> Cell Phone: 0049-(0)179-3111212<br>
> Email: imc-moderation@gmx.net<br>
><br>
>Technical Contact: Anna and Arthur<br>
> IMC<br>
> c/o M99<br>
> Manteuffelstr. 99<br>
> 10997 Berlin<br>
> Cell Phone: 0049-(0)179-3111214<br>
> Email: imc-technix@gmx.net<br>
><br>
>Supporting Groups:<br>
> nadir.org<br>
> AK-Kraak<br>
> lotec.squat.net<br>
> squat.net<br>
><br>
>Proposed name: germany.indymedia.org<br>
><br>
>General Comments: We plan to run things a little bit differently from
<br>
>most IMC's, we hope that's ok. <br>
><br>
>We have our own software - developed and maintained<br>
>by nadir.org, runs on java. The technical team thinks the
softwar has <br>
>certain advantages over active (mostly having to do with saving
server-<br>
>power -> no scripts running on main server). <br>
>So we were planning to have the "production server"<br>
>over here in Europe. "look and feel" would be ported
over to our <br>
>software, but the engine is different.<br>
><br>
>Our main problem is bandwidth - we don't have much, it's expensive
<br>
>here, and as yet we don't have any funds - so we were hoping to use
<br>
>some indy server space for a "publication server", to which
the static <br>
>html pages produced on our server would be copied. <br>
><br>
>So the dynamic side is on our server, the static is on yours,<br>
>and gets updated whenever there's a change. <br>
><br>
>Resources to Contribute: For now, translation; when we get
clear on <br>
>fundraising, hopefully some cash.<br>
><br>
>Looking forward to hear from you.<br>
><br>
>Love and peace<br>
>some german indymedi@s <br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
</font></html>
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