[New-imc] arkansas indymedia editorial policy and more information

[Squash Capitalism]

>hi arkansas IMC,
>   Great to see you organising!
>i think you forgot to tell new-imc about some of the good communication
>infrastructure you've set up (or maybe i just missed it):
>
>http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-ar/
>http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-ar-ed/
>
>i think we're still waiting on your editorial policy, but
>we have your:
here is our editorial policy (borrowed largely from imc-maritimes:
Arkansas IMC Editorial Policy

Arkansas Indymedia uses open publishing, which mean that when you post your 
articles to our site, they are immediantly displayed.

We want to be an outlet for a wide spectrum of views, however there are 
certain guildlines that articles must follow in order to stay visible on the 
main page. The following is a list of articles that will be hidden when we 
come accross them.

-Posting posted by someone who is found to be impersonating someone else.
-Posting posted by someone who claims a false affiliation with an 
organization.
-Any posting that is an advertisement.
-Any posting that is racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise promoting 
hatred and intolerance.
-Postings that contain false information about events (such as cancellation) 
that would cause confusion.
-Postings that organize specific illegal acts.

All articles that are hidden are still viewable at this address: 
http://arkansasdada.bandwidthcoop.org/newswire/hidden/index.php

If you see a posting in violation of our editorial policy, you can notify 
the editorial collective at: imc-ar-ed at lists.indymedia.org

>##################################################
>SUMMARY of comments
>(1) global communications
>(2) outreach - natural way to get diversity of topics
>(3) consensus - more details? - some how-to hints
>(4) money - recommend you have a clear process
>##################################################
>
>
>### comments begin
>
>(1) global communications

>Great! i don't remember exactly what's on the TWiki, but you're
>welcome to put your "liaison" (as opposed to representative) on
>imc-communication (no "s"):
>
>http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-communication

I just subscribed to that list.


>and the other recommended lists (last time this was discussed) are,
>i think,
>
>imc-summaries
>imc-process
>imc-finance

I will subscribe to these lists as soon as I finish typing.


>However, you'll see that the whole issue of global mailing lists is
>quite confused at the moment, including facilitation. If some volunteers
>from your group can not only join these lists (or others), but actually
>help sort out which lists are useful, how to facilitate them while
>retaining openness, help make them more useful, that would be great!
>It looks like you've got some experienced facilitators on your own
>lists.  Have a look through http://lists.indymedia.org/ .

I will notify the group and I'm sure there will be some who will be down for 
this.


>You should also consider making or joining a regional list - my US
>geography and indy knowledge is not good enough to tell you where this
>is or if there is one - you'll have to look for it - or get it
>started! It would be good if you could contact and coordinate with the
>Kansas City, Missouri, group, which i guess is close to you, which has
>made an initial request, and maybe even help them through the process
>while waiting for other US volunteers to pop up on new-imc:
>
>http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2002-December/003187.html

we will contact kansas city, and if there isn't a list for our region we can 
start one.

>(2) outreach - natural way to get diversity of topics
>
>The comments below suggest that some more f2f outreach is something
>fairly high priority for your group.
>
>i know you might feel that people from anti-death penalty groups, or
>other grassroots groups may be sceptical and ask "why are you not an
>official IMC yet?", but by answering that you want them to feel
>welcome to be involved in participation in the group *now*, at the time
>that initial habits and culture of the group are being put into place,
>you will show them that IMC Arkansas will not just be a place where
>they are welcome as guests, but where they are welcome to participate
>at an organising level.  Even if their initial responses seem
>lukewarm, they're more likely to feel the sites is theirs if they know
>they can criticise and (consensually) modify your editorial policy,
>mission statement, style of running meetings, etc. now rather than
>later.

We are going to have a f2f meeting soon. we have to hear back from everyone 
to see when the best date is. this is going to be THE major topic, and we 
are already trying to increase our amount of outreach.


>(3) consensus - more details? - some how-to hints
> > g. Adopt a decision-making policy that is in alignment with consensus
> > principles which include open, transparent and egalitarian processes,
> > --all our collective's decisions are based on consensus
>
>Are your decisions made at face-to-face (f2f) meetings, or on
>the mailing list, or can they be made in either way? Do you have
>any formal consensus method ready for the more difficult and/or
>important decisions?

The Food Not Bombs consensus info was available at our first f2f meeting, 
and we had a list of important information websites that was passed out to 
everyone. We also started the meeting off by discussing what consensus was 
and everyone seemed to have a firm grip of what it was. We decided that 
important decisions that affect the whole group would require a f2f meeting, 
otherwise we would use email to come to consensus. We have used both, we use 
email to decide when to meet f2f.

>(4) money - recommend you have a clear process
>
>http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-ar/2003-January/000125.html
>
> > ... we need someone to set up the
> > financial aspect of our collective (i.e. how to collect money, what the
> > legal ramifications of doing so involve, setting up a bank account, 
>etc.).
>
>IMHO, you also need to be sure about the process. It might sound easy
>now when things are running smoothly and people seem to understand one
>another, but it might be good to have some formality about how you
>decide on spending money. E.g., should there be a written proposal on
>each spending proposal of more than $X to the imc-ar-finance list, if
>you make such a list, with a deadline of minimum Y days before the
>proposal is considered consensed upon? How much are X and Y? X=500 and
>Y=14 ? Or can a decision be made at a f2f meeting? Or would an
>informal proposal to the existing imc-ar list without any formal
>deadline to wait for comments or blocks be sufficient?
>
someone volunteered to tackle setting up our financial collective yesterday. 
we are going to have a f2f meeting soon, and developing a concrete process 
is a major topic.

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