[New-imc] Brisbane IMC application!

[asgers at 4zzzfm.org.au]

http://www.brisbane.indymedia.org.au

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Brisbane Indymedia membership application to the global IMC group
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Membership Criteria:

A. PRINCIPLES OF UNITY
We all agree with membership criteria and the declarations of the IMC and
Global Working Group has stated in the NIMC Mission Statement and
Principles of Unity, <http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-
imc/2001-May/000160.html>

B. COMMITTED MEMBERSHIP
We have several members who are commited media activists, who have been
active in maintaining a functional and popular IMC for several months.

Tim Anderson - Has been involved in organising fundraisers,organsing and
maintaining (and will be "staffing" when centre is open) the IMC space,
part of editorial collective. Have been involved in filming and video
production ofevents etc. covered by indymedia eg:Woomera 2002,Mayday. Have
a strong desire to make independant media available to the general
public.To challenge corporate owned,government sponsored "mainstream" media.

Danni Zuvela - A passionate objection to the mainstream media industry and
particularly its insidious Brisbane players got Danni  into independent
media. Danni likes making media as much as consuming it and has an
unhealthy interest in avant-garde art of most kinds.

Asger Strodl - I'm involved in organising fundraisers for IndyMedia, am on
the editorial collective, I contribute articles to the features and
newswire, I liase with 4ZzZ when required, I helped to get the space we
work out of at 264 Barry Pde Fortitude Valley, I am also involved in
presenting an Anarchist radio show, and other general activist activities.

Linda Rose - Media activist, has worked in community radio (4ZzZ 102.1fm)
for 3.5yrs + worked on uni (GU) mag, freelancer + interested in community
television, involved in doco making.

Barry Saunders (b at z) - is resident techno-luddite, radiokid and theory
bitch. combining an interest in deep ecology, indigenous issues and
primitivism with a love for techno-whizz-bangery, he spends his time
studying at uni, doing environmental journalism and community radio. he can
be often found talking about environmental crisis, sex radical theory,
global anarchist revolution, translating indigenous concepts into english
with anyone who can't get away fast enough. he writes editorial pieces for
brisbane indymedia and is working on a community radio file hosting
website. he enjoys needling the authoritarian establishment left,
particularly on issues of empowerment, censorship and free choice.

Adam Ceremuga - like many others, Adam followed the Seatle protests by
looking at indymedia. Adz is involved with interactive web experiments and
video activism. Being php/perl iliterate he is totally unsiuted to web
smith duties and has been banned from making corporate web sites.
Kim Kaos - into freeing furry little mammals and chooks. Veganarchist and
general shit stirrer, who loves the idea of creating a forum that will
actually take all the rants she can produce. Makes quality documentaries,
and is a published author in a number of magazines. Fantasic radio
personality on 4ZzZ's Anarchy Show, and zine producer.
Gerry Keaney -  The public face of the revolution in Brisbane. Good
organiser, very well dressed and has a philosophy thesis to procrastinate
over.  Has a number of websites as well as published many zines.

C. OPEN MEETINGS
Indymedia Brisbane organizes regular meeting every fortnight Monday's 7pm.
Alternate monday's are set aside for subcollective meetings. The meetings
are open for anybody to attend, and meeting minutes are posted on a mailing
list
 The indymedia brisbane organising/discussion list at
<http://lists.cat.org.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/imc-brisbane>
<http://lists.cat.org.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/imc-brisbane-fundraising>
brisbane imc fundraising collective <http://lists.cat.org.au/cgi-
bin/mailman/listinfo/imc-brisbane-kill-your-tv> (video and multimedia)
indykids <http://lists.cat.org.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/imc-brisbane-
space> brisbane independent media space <http://lists.cat.org.au/cgi-
bin/mailman/listinfo/imc-brisbane-tech> brisbane imc technical collective
and publically archived at -
<http://lists.cat.org.au/pipermail/imc-brisbane/2002-June/>
We alos have an announce lsit for peopel who want to keep up to date but
not be bored by our day to day ramblings at
imc-brisbane-announce at lists.cat.org.au
We meet at the Incubator; 264 Barry Parade, Fortitude Valley

D. MISSION STATEMENT
Our mission, as we have come to accept it......
To provide an open forum for empowerment of the community through
participation in the production and publication of media in an open
publishing context
To provide news and analysis of ideas, issues and people neglected and
marginalised by the mainstream media, with the long-term goal of furthering
self-determination
To create powerful alternatives to the consumption of mainstream,
particularly
Corporate-controlled media; to wean the community off the "cathode ray
nipple", with news values that are driven by community concerns, rather
than motives of profit, ratings and marketshare.
To operate not just as a reaction to the hegemonic order, but to actively
subvert that domination through information and participation
To work with other indymedias to improve the overall quality of indymedia
and strengthen networks
To actively pursue parallel methods of organisation with the identification
and creation of positive, equitable and sustainable models of society
To foster a culture of independent media production, distribution and
consumption in a region currently dominated by monopoly media and in doing
so we will build a powerful, informed community.

E. EDITORIAL POLICY

Editorial collective

The editorial collective is made up of anyone who wishes to be part of the
collective. Four to
six people (inclusive) will be chosen by the editorial collective to have
the password to the
editorial system. Editorial collective members are accountable and
instantly recallable by the
general collective. Editorial collective members make decisions by modified
consensus.
Editorial decisions are to be clearly explained when made to the editorial
list, and may be
challenged by the collective or an article or comment poster. These
decisions must be recorded
and available to the general collective.

Roles

Hiding posts that contravene newswire protocols. These decisions will be
available to
the general public via the administration pages of the site.
Uploading and editing features.
Collating features along with the general collective.
Fact checking:

If a factual error has been identified in an article that will be linked to
by a feature, the editorial
collective will e-mail the article author asking for clarification before
it will be shown or added
to the features area. If no contact is available it is the editors
responsibility to check the facts
themselves.

Responsibilities

Editors should not abuse their role to create their own pseudo column.
Editors may only edit technical problems with an article, unless they have
the permission of the author (see Newswire protocol).
Editors will not edit the content of a post. if the said post is deemed
inappropriate it will be hidden from the newswire. Hidden posts are still
available through a clearly labelled link on the Newswire page. Illegal
material can be deleted completely.



Editorial Policy and Process Aims

1. To provide an unmoderated, open-publishing newswire in accordance with
established
Indymedia policies and philosophy.

2. To maintain the newswire and website as a community space that welcomes
members of
disempowered or marginalised groups.

3. To acknowledge that words have the power to cause injury, but that
instances of injurious
speech or writing should also be seen as opportunities for analysis of
prevailing attitudes.

4. To preserve the quality of the website as a useful media resource.



Newswire protocol

Brisbane IMC hosts an open-publishing newswire. Members of the editorial
collective
regularly monitor the newswire, keeping their eyes open for particularly
significant,
informative contributions to add to the front page's centre column feature
section.

A working definition of Open Publishing

Open publishing means that the process of creating news is transparent to
the readers. They
can contribute a story and see it instantly appear in the pool of stories
publicly available.
Those stories are filtered as little as possible to help the readers find
the stories they want.
Readers can see editorial decisions being made by others. They can see how
to get involved
and make editorial decisions. If they can think of a better way to shape
editorial decisions,
they can copy the software because it is free, change it and start their
own site.

For information on copyright, please see the Copyrights section.

Why a post may be hidden.

The Brisbane IMC editorial collective, in order to maintain the quality and
integrity of the
newswire and the media commons it creates for our community of
participants, may "hide"
posts to the Newswire when the content contravenes the guidelines that have
been put in
place (see below). All hidden posts (exceptions noted below) must be
notified to the editorial
collective email list so that all members of the collective have the chance
to agree or disagree
with the hiding of post.

Notifiable removals

Posts the author has requested hidden.
posts which are incorrect or misleading with the intention of causing harm.
Posts which impersonate another individual with the intention of causing
harm without at some point making it clear that they are not that person.
posts that incite violence for its own sake
postings without any new relevant content that appear to be posted in order
to take up space.
notices for political parties or any other organizations except Brisbane
Indymedia.
notification or cancellation of upcoming events (these may be transferred
to active brisbasne)

Non-notifiable removals

Unreadable posts (ie.-photos posted as text)
posts titled "test"
Duplicate posts.
Advertising of products or for-profit services. -
Non-contextualised pornography or entertainment.

We remind IMC participants that hidden articles are not deleted from the
site except stuff we
are legally liable for.

If you don't agree with a decision #8230;

We strive to make decisions in the most consensual, transparent and
accountable manner. If
you have any questions or concerns regarding our policy or our practice, or
would like to
volunteer with Brisbane Indymedia, please contact us at imc-
brisbane at lists.cat.org.au, Better
yet, join the collective! We meet on Monday nights at the Indymedia centre
254 Barry
Parade, Fortitude Valley, Old. Meetings start at 7pm.


Features

Members of the editorial collective can decide to institute a feature piece
(which can be a
summary of materials posted to the website, along with other additional
relevant outside
information). It should contextualise the events it describes. It may takes
its lead from the
Brisbane newswire. If it is a new topic it should be on an issue we expect
newswire articles
for. E.g. background to an upcoming event that hasn&#8217;t hit the news
yet.

Who can be a feature editor?

A feature editor must be:

Part of the editorial collective.
Willing to research the background of the feature that they are responsible
for.
Committed to updating the feature regularly for a month, with postings from
newswire and other relevant content (or must actively seek a replacement
should they be unable to continue).
Willing to accept the input of the wider collective

How is a new feature decided?

A member of the collective posts an idea for a feature to the editorial
collective list.features must not incite abuse or violence against
disempowered members of the community..
If no one voices any disagreement to the feature idea within 24 hours, the
person, or a number of interested people in collaboration writes a feature
and posts it to the lists with links to referenced articles.
If there are no objections within 24 hours, it goes up via the features
form. if there are serious objections, the online decision making process
is invoked (see "Online decision Making). Iin extraordinary circumstances,
where timeliness is of the essence, a feature writer may gain the approval
of two other editorial collective members and immediately post a feature.
During protests and immediate actions where getting a non corporate
viewpoint out is important editors who have been trained in posting
features have posted at least 3 features and already are approved by the
general collective.
Editors can be mandated to update the features column individually during
these periods. This mandate is to be delegated prior to the event and only
last for that event. The features posted under such a mandate shall be
examined after or during the event by the editorial collective and problems
noted, discussed and rectified if that person wishes to fulfill that task
again.
People wishing to post features shall commit to one two hour face to face
or online meeting a week, at a time and date to be set by the members.
Anyone can write features but the editorial collective checks them for
accuracy and appropriateness and has the responsibility of posting them.

Timeframe and number of features.

We aim for around 1-3 features a week. The idea is that the front page of
the site changes on a
fairly regular basis without overwhelming anyone with work.

Transparency of process

A prominent link to the following will be placed on the features area of
the site:

our policy/guidelines
our e-mail list address
our meeting times.

Copyright of features and articles

All posts made to the newswire are effectively covered by the principles of
copyleft. The
author maintains the moral right to be recognised as the author of the
article in question, but
the article is free for redistribution for non-profit and educative
purposes. Articles may be
reproduced in full for any purpose and in any media provided the
reproduction is under the
same principles as laid out here, that is, the same representations of the
copyleft must appear
alongside the article. Unless otherwise stated by the author.

However, for profit media may quote from articles or features in accordance
with Australian
'fair use' copyright principles.

F OPEN PUBLISHING
Brisbane IMC uses Open Publishing on its web site,
"http://brisbane.indymedia.org.au" (soon to be
"http://brisbane.indymedia.org")

G. DECISIONMAKING POLICY
Brisbane IMC uses consensus-based decision-making processes.

H. GLOBAL REPRESENTATIVE
Adam is on the imc-communication list as well as oceania list.
Barry is on the oceania list.
Danni is on the New-imc list.

I. . NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS
Brisbane IMC will contribute as possible to network-wide communication, as
well as the oceania regionlisation process.
The indymedia brisbane organising/discussion list
http://lists.cat.org.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/imc-brisbane

other lists
http://lists.cat.org.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/imc-brisbane-kill-your-tv
http://lists.cat.org.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/imc-brisbane-tech

J. AFFILIATIONS
Brisbane IMC has no affiliation with any political party, state or
candidate for office

K. COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE
Brisbane IMC will not engage in commercial enterprises that inure to the
benefit of any of its members.  BIMC is committed to the
decommercialization of information and will disassociate from any local IMC
that decides to become a for profit media corporation

L.  LOGO & CITIES LIST
We love it.  Both appear on our site