italy imc and local collectives [ was Re: [New-imc] Handing out local URL's through the IMC-UK network]

[blicero]

On Thu, May 08, 2003 at 09:13:52PM -0700, Sheri Herndon wrote:
> hi tony,
> 
> i think evan's last email in response to your questions had some good
> suggestions, particularly the less bureaucratic and more flexible while adhering
> to the values and principles, etc.  having some accountability.
> 
> to use the examples of the imc brasil collective and talk to them as well as
> italia indymedia.  they do something similar.  what would then be great is if
> that information about how they are doing it on the national level would be
> shared wtih the new imc list.  that way some of that would be transparent and
> then the information would be available for others in similar situations who are
> seeking some models and templates to check out.  
> 

summary: a brief summary of how italy imc deals with local collectives

since one year and a half italy imc has been articulating as well with
autonomously working local imc collective (city or region based)

this was a major change in italy imc way of working and is still under
experimental phase
italy imc has always been for its national character and for the network
it was built upon heavily relying on internet for coordination and
network building, stressing heavily the "everyone is indymedia"
statement trying to pass on a transversal way of doing things rather
than behaving as a media collective

so we were more a network and less a collective than other imc, even at
local (italian) level

at some point we felt we had enough experience and will to experiment
local collectives as a form to better interact with territories and to
explode our range of possibilities 

this meant that people who was already working withing italy imc
framework and had already tested and worked along imc principles, and
who felt they could develop a local imc took the challenge.

so some local imc came to be
the way they came to be, still fix our standards (and it always proved
to be a good balance between decentralization and networked community,
between structure and relation, between communication and organization,
ecc)

the standards are:
- a local category to classify posting can be asked by anyone more or
  less :)
- before having a local mailing list and page open one group of person has to have
  been working for some time on the national lists, posting material on
  the newswire and proposing media making in their territories; a trust
  relationship has to be felt by people on national list and meeting
  toward the work all this people is working
- before having a local subpage public and a indymedia.it subdomain
  assigned one has to feel to be able to guarantee a constant update of
  the central column

when someone asks to open a new category we repeat the above things and
invite him/her to contact the nearest local imc to better discuss the
thing :)

relationship between local and national environemnt is dynamic
we have wg which discuss and elaborate proposals and a national
discussion list (italy-list) that is the final decision making body
when something concerning those group is decided autonomously in local
imc, a mail is sent to that group for knowledge and further comment, as
well as a mail to the general list for the same reason 
this can vary for more in-progress things (like decision about projects
and finances, which have a more complex relationship) 
but is quite strict for other more technical stuff (features when
published are communicated to both italy-editorial and italy-list as
well as local imc :)

local imc are basically free to do as they like within the general italy
imc (and imc) sets of principles and values (i.e. a local imc cannot go
against italy imc principles :))))

ideas and opinions on this model has been varying 
especially because italy is so politicized that having independent node
of a network (more similar to collectives) work in transversal way on
the territory and networking relationship on a national level has been
very difficult
but we keep trying and believing imc at local level can be a excellent
recombining factor for a political landscape, like italian one, where
factionalism and hegemonic dynamics are really sickening :)

this is it
i cc italy-process list so that if someone has to add something 
he/she can :)

ciao
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