[New-imc] Response to a distracting post
PseudoPunk
bart at indymedia.org
Thu Apr 24 13:39:07 PDT 2003
Hey,
maybe you should try to put summaries if you do such long mails.
I really won't read it now.
Greetings,
Bart
freedom wrote:
> Unfortunately sarsnic at aol.com posted to the New IMC list a copy of La's (Lara
> Heady) ithacaimc list posting. This post is entirely irrelevant to the issue
> of rogue, or any other issue before New IMC. The quality of ithacaimc
> decision making process, etc., is not relevant. Casting aspersions regards
> ithacimc's group process is irrelevant to the issue of whether or not
> ithacimc's block of rogue's application has relevance. To the extent people
> are distracted by side issues such as this, rogue's progress toward imc
> status is retarded. Lets focus on the relevant issues, help rogue solve
> them, and get rogue on line.
>
> However, because the person who blocked ithacaimc's consensus regards rogue
> also presented La's posting, it seems some people ascribe relevance to her
> posting in relationship to the issue of rogue. Therefore, I will respond.
> No one has stated what they feel the relevance is so I will have to speculate
> a bit. I will also try to bring my explanation of ithacaimc's decision
> making process back to the issue at hand, rogue's imc application so that,
> hopefully, it forms some constructive input into the process of helping rogue
> get on line.
>
> The content of La's list posting was so unexpected that a member who has been
> working closely with La on her imc radio show expressed the thought that it
> might be a forged posting to the list. (It seems it is hers.)
>
> La's accusations are so generalized that they cannot be dealt with. I have no
> idea what they are about. Who said what to whom, or about what, on our list
> that La is so upset by??? (There may have been some posts subsequent to La's
> post about which I could understand distress being expressed. My mail was
> down and I have only had a chance to glance at the archive. Still, one must
> specify one's issues in order to have them dealt with constructively.)
>
> The only thing that the group has or member of the group has said to La was to
> say to contact global to state reiterate she is (now was) the liaison. She
> had accepted the responsibility of liaison and therefore to do the groups
> bidding regards liaison responsibilities, and it is therefore hard to
> understand what tone she could take offense to.
>
> As far as denigrating ithacaimc process, the radio project is a tiny working
> group. La says she is quitting that group because of her issues about
> process. If La doesn't like the process of that group, she doesn't like
> herself. As La says in her posting, she is not able to attend our regular
> meetings, and therefore she is not in a position to comment on our meeting
> process.
>
> La has stated to me that she does not believe in consensus decision making
> process. Consideration of her criticisms, which are general and not
> specific, needs to be tempered with this fact. Ithacaimc follows standard
> consensus decision making practices.
>
> La, and the others who have posted to various lists stating they have problems
> with ithacaimc process, have, themselves, to a one, had issues about abiding
> by or using well established consensus decision making group process
> tools/techniques. I have a lot of experience with consensus decision making,
> and was asked to join indymedia so as to bring this experience to the group
> because ithacaimc was having trouble with group process. It has been
> frustrating to me that, almost to a one, the people who have complained the
> loudest about ithacaimc process have been unwilling to specify the issues
> they have with process, and agree to use group process techniques to resolve
> those issues. This may or may not apply to La. These individuals have
> strongly resisted specifying the specific behaviors they were concerned with
> in a non-specific person manner so that the group could address the behaviors
> as a group. The group did allow some well controlled discussion in group
> that allowed individuals to express concern about how other individuals were
> conducting themselves in meetings. The group dealt with these behaviors to
> some extent, but the group, including the people expressing the problems
> would not agree to use group process techniques which would have prevented
> the behaviors that were of concern. Even with group willingness to address
> problems, the individuals who had problems with other individuals in the
> group insisted in private conversations with me and others that ithaca imc
> had to kick out this person or that one before they would participate in
> ithacaimc. To the detriment of the group they have lobbied among themselves
> outside of the group process to build power coalitions to get their way, and
> barring that, supported each other to discourage themselves, and anyone else
> they talked to, from participating in ithacaimc. These complainers would not
> listen to the argument that the behaviors of concern would no doubt revisit
> ithacaimc in the form of another person, and therefore, it would be much more
> productive to deal with the behaviors and solve them regards every Tom, Jane,
> Rick, and Mary, than to kick one individual after another out of ithacaimc.
> Interestingly, the "problem" individuals have all been willing to let the
> group use group process techniques which would address/eliminate/resolve the
> problem behaviors. The complainers have to a one not been willing to give
> group process a chance to address behavior problems.
>
> Several of the people who have complained about ithacaimc process have quit
> after not being allowed to dictate terms. In every instance of this which I
> can recall, the group has been able to reach what I believe any objective
> outsider would consider workable or good to excellent solutions. This is
> hardly a break-down of process. This is a case of process working and
> individuals being angry at not getting to dictate terms.
>
> Let me illustrate with two specific examples.
>
> Our imc is male dominated. The males are aware of this, consider it a
> problem, and are concerned with making a space that is comfortable for
> females, and working to recruit females. At a point where there were several
> women who once were active and were no longer, ithaca imc decided to have a
> special "expatriots" meeting to end speculation about why people were no
> longer active and hear from them why. Several women, to their credit, came
> to this meeting and told us. We made the mistake of meeting too long instead
> of scheduling a continuation. Emotions were frayed by the end of the
> meeting. We should have ended and scheduled another meeting. We were to
> anxious to solve the problems. The next few meetings the men met and
> resolved to do whatever was necessary to facilitate these women's
> participation. We women's concerns were specifically addressed. We even
> resolved that we were willing to have meetings in which men would not be
> allowed to speak so as to ensure women's belief that we were serious about
> valuing their participation. These things were posted to the ithacaimc list
> and communicated personally to the women. None of the women resumed
> participation.
>
> Second example: A person was concerned that our meeting did not spend enough
> time on media, and spent too much time dealing with group process and other
> things which did not interest this person. This person demanded that we
> permanently schedule the first forty minutes to talking about doing media.
> One person blocked this motion, stating that they felt strongly that it was
> not a good idea to permanently devote a specific time portion of a meeting to
> anything. That person, and the each other person attending the meeting
> stated and reiterated their acceptance of the proposing person's contention
> that it was important to spend significant portions of meeting time on media.
> The group consensed on making media the second agenda item after approval of
> the last meeting's minutes, and everyone stated their willingness to devote
> even more than forty minutes of a meeting to media issues, and encouraged the
> proposer to ask for whatever time they felt necessary each meeting. Though
> the proposer was enthusiastically supported in the intent, though not fact of
> their proposal, this was not good enough, the proposer. In private
> conversations outside the group process the proposer expressed contempt for
> the person who blocked, frustration with the group, and stopped
> participating.
>
> To my eye, ithacaimc consensus process worked well in both of these
> situations, but individuals failed to accept workable solutions to problems.
> I believe these individuals were committed to winning, and not to reaching
> consensus. Had they been willing to reach consensus and work with the group
> it would have strengthen ithacaindymedia and move the group forward.
>
> Ithacaimc is having growing up pains. We have the expertice and even
> wilingness to use very good group process, yet people complain about poor
> process. We therefor DO have process problems. It is a great frustration to
> me that the people who state problems with process do not bring their issues
> to the meeting and stick it out to let group process techniques take care of
> the problem.
>
>
> We are aware of the problem, committed to working on the problem, and actively
> doing outreach.
>
> To bring this back to rogue's application process: My assessment is that the
> root of ithacaimc's problems are the group's beginnings. Ithacaimc was
> established with only vague notions of consensus process, and when it turned
> out members weren't all groovy, buddy, buddy, "everyone sleeping with
> everyone else and meetings totally focused on doing media" (at their old imc)
> things quickly broke down. That's where I came in. Once the belief that
> ithacaimc had poor process was established the belief percisted and is
> prooving very difficult to recover from.
>
> I believe ithacaimc would have been much better off had someone blocked
> ithaca's application until ithaca had an adequate decision making process in
> place.
>
> In the long run, however frustrating it is now, rogue will be much better off
> because of the blocks that have been made.
>
> (No, I am not blocking "for the good of rogue". Whether or not the blocks
> serve the constructive purpose I hope they will serve is largely up to rogue.
> My blocks [stated in a previous post] are for the reasons I stated. That
> said, to the extent rogue accepts my offer to help I will do everything I can
> to help the New IMC process be helpful to rogue.)
>
>
>
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>
>
>
--
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http://thepits.be | bart at thepits.be
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