[New-imc] What this leads to

[Andy Mulkerin]

Arc,

I've been trying to follow this whole problem, but I don't completely
understand what the issue is. Could you explain what it is about Rogue
that makes them not worthy of being an IMC? Is it simply their fallback
procedure? We in Pittsburgh also have a consensus fallback procedure(see
http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Local/ImcPittsburghConsensus), and we were
never blocked in new-imc. Is there something more to this?

Thanks
Andy/PittsburghIMC new-imc liaison

---------------------------------------------------------
So grab a pen turn off the CNN and scratch me out some plans
to get together again.


http://pittsburgh.indymedia.org
http://www.subtext.info

On Thu, 22 May 2003, Arc wrote:

> On Thu, May 22, 2003 at 04:21:15PM +0200, boud wrote:
> > It's clear that arc (and probably eric, both from IMC Ithaca) are
> > unhappy with what is effectively a "consensus minus two (individuals)"
> > network decision regarding IMC Rogue.
>
> There is no such decidion.  Nowhere did we agree to use anything but
> pure consensus within new-imc.  Those with "keys to the building" cannot
> decide to change the rules of the group, that is a heirarchal
> organizatonal model and is against the principals of Indymedia.
>
> What is being used is consensus with a mob-rule fallback.  If consensus
> cannot be reached then it's turned into a personal issue, a flame war
> erupts to tear down the objecting party/ies, and any further objections
> are unlikely to come since they are afraid to be targetted as well.  The
> fight continues until the objectors "submit" to the will of the others,
> leave the group, or until someone decides to use their access or
> strength to make the decidion happen anyways despite the objections.
>
> Transposed into the physical world, this would be equivelent to a group
> of people in a local IMC cutting down a blocker, standing up and turning
> it into a yelling match, sometimes even going as far as a fistfight,
> everyone else in the group either leaves or stays the hell out of it,
> and in the end the only way it can be resolved is through the completion
> of that fight.  Anyone is a fool to think any form of true consensus can
> be reached in such an environment, because even before the personal
> attacks begin there's a history of such a thing happening and thus knows
> better than to dare object to anything.
>
> There is no consensus here.  It doesn't matter how many "minuses" you
> tack on to say it's consensus, consensus cannot be reached during a
> fistfight.  Rogue is not an IMC, it would be a disservice to Rogue to
> continue calling it such as it would be effectivly entering it into the
> network under extremely questionable means and leaving a permanent
> shadow of doubt and distrust that haunt the group through it's existance.
>
> This also sets up an extremely bad precident for Indymedia, since those
> with the power to do so (access to the servers) have effectivly used
> that power to make a network decidion.  This has happened in the past
> but with milder issues, the new-imc group was created to make the
> process of entering new IMCs to the network an open and democratic one,
> whereas before it was the IMC techs that made those decidions alone.
>
> If those with the power to do so do not reverse this action immediatly
> it sets precident within the network.  Even with what has happened now
> it shows, very clearly, that Indymedia is extremely sick and as far as
> the principals that it was founded to represent it's dying.
>
> I'm not going to let it die without a fight.
>