[New-imc] Latest timeline of the new sf.indymedia group's violations

[Otto Nomous]

Latest timeline of the new sf.indymedia group's violation of the 
mediation agreement:

Approx. 12/1: Noah (a member of the new sf.indymedia group and 
linefeed.org) come to the IMC space trying to take the mini-disc 
recorder. Noah verbally treatens Sunny from indybay.org and physically 
pushes her out of the way. When asked to explain himself or take 
responsibility for this action Noah's response is: "why don't you call 
the pigs. no court would convict me of assault."

A week before the sites could split smoothly and right before the 
coverage of the SF election (12/9, which garnered lots of attention 
from the community), one member of the sf.indymedia group (with no 
agreement even from the people in his own group) locks the 
sfbay.indymedia.org group out of the shared site by taking away the 
admin passwords and hides any attempts to complain on sf.indymedia.org.

12/10 11am: After already having failed to hand over the DNS for 
indybay.org and linking to it as a feature on their website as they 
were supposed to in the previous month, the sf.indymedia.org group now 
claim that they first "want their stuff back and then they'll turn over 
indybay" which was not part of the agreement.

12/10 11:30am: Ian (also known as ibm), a member of the new 
sf.indymedia group, claims that the DNS is "in Josh (also known as 
espe; another member of the new sf.indymedia group and linefeed.org)'s 
hands since he owns the DNS".

12/10 12:45pm: Ian informs a member of the indybay.org group that 
indybay.org should be handed over "when Josh get his equipment out of 
the space."

12/10 3:28pm: The indybay.org group is informed that Ryan (also known 
as gekked; a member of the new sf.indymedia group and linefeed.org) 
acted unilaterally to change password access to sf.indymedia.org 
without informing anyone and that the sf.indymedia group will discuss 
it at their meeting that weekend. And that "the decision to not give 
sfbay.indymedia the DNS entry wasn't a group decision but Ian sees it 
as something they have to consense on to overrule."

12/13 9:30pm: After learning that Ryan (gekked) of the new sf.indymedia 
group has deleted the sf-imc email list AND the ecr (Enemy Combatant 
Radio) list without warning anyone, a member of the indybay.org sends 
an email to the global listwork list asking for the archives and the 
ecr list to be restored emphasizing that "those 2 imc-sf lists have 3 
1/2 years of organizing history on them, and it is really important for 
us to still have access to them."

12/14 2am: Another member of indybay.org points out that that "the new 
sf.indymedia group is going against the agreement by redirecting 
aliases to their new email addresses" and that "when we said we were 
deleting the lists, we meant that and they agreed to this."

12/14 12:29pm: indybay.org members find out that Ryan (gekked) has 
deliberately pointed indybay.org to a non-existent ip adress 
(172.100.100.3). It seems obvious that the only reason for doing such a 
thing is to sabotage the indybay.org domain by making people stop using 
it before it is handed over to the indybay.org group.

12/14 12:55pm: An appointment is made with Josh (espe) for 12/15 at 7pm 
"to pick up the switches and werner from the space" and to switch the 
indybay.org DNS.

12/15 7pm - 10pm: Josh and Ian from the new sf.indymedia group show up 
to the SF Bay Area IMC space. Josh informs members of indybay.org that 
"all this time it was Ryan who had access to the Everydns account for 
indybay.org, not Josh" and that "since indybay.org was updated to point 
to a non-existant IP address just a few days ago, Josh can't access 
it." The indybay.org group then asks Josh to change the DNS to 
something indybay.org group can control and also to hand over the 
ownership of the indybay.org domain. Josh responds regarding giving 
ownership of the domain that "he felt his collective hadn't reached 
consensus for him to do that. He did say he would do "it" within 24 
hours, however."

Another indybay.org member tells "Ian that if it didn't happen within 
24-48 hours the sfbay-imc would be sending out an email to the 
indymedia network outlining the terms of the agreement and what needs 
to happen." Both Josh and Ian leave the space before telling anyone and 
without taking any of their equipment that were boxed up for them.

12/16 10:30pm: After the 24 hours have passed, Ian and Ryan inform the 
sfbay.indymedia group that "they are refusing to budge on indybay.org 
immediately, but Ryan asks to give him time (he said by Thursday) to 
draft up a list of their group's concerns and recommendations to 
resolve them, then have a memorandum of understanding between the two 
groups whereby they transfer the domain ownership." Having already gone 
through long mediation process where an agreement was finalized, 
indybay.org members reject any further arbitrary negotiation.

12/16 10:40pm: indybay.org members are convinced that the new 
sf.indymedia group were trying to sabotage indybay.org by messing up 
the very things that were of value to the domain (the fact that people 
linked to it and that it was in the Google cache). The new sf.indymedia 
group is continuing to violate the mediation agreement where both 
groups' "concerns" were heard during "the 20+ hours of negotiating 
process and hundreds and hundreds of hard earned IMC money were spent 
on coming up with the agreement with a third party facilitator.

12/17 3pm: After a member of indybay.org group contacts Nessie, a 
member of the new sf.indymedia group, he receives an email response 
saying that their collective is not allowing communications with the 
indybay.org group (and that he was violating something just by 
responding to the email).

12/17 10pm: The DNS indybay.org is now finally pointing to the correct 
site: sfbay.indymedia.org. There are, however, no signs of the 
indybay.org domain ownership being transferred over.

12/18: An announcement post published on sf.indymedia.org by Whispered 
Media about a local video screening gets hidden. Whispered Media has an 
office in the same suite as the indybay.org group.

12/19 3pm: An announcement post published on sf.indymedia.org by a 
local organizer about a benefit show for indybay.org gets hidden 
multiple times.

12/22: Ryan from sf.indymedia.org contacts a member of indybay.org 
saying that their "draft letter to the sfbay group is in circulation 
and should be consensed on shortly."

12/24: The indybay.org newswire begin to get spammed multiple times 
with messages saying not much more than "CHECK OUT SF.INDYMEDIA.ORG" 
and attacking indybay.org, effectively filling up the Breaking News 
section of the newswire with identical spams. The indybay.org website 
had already been filling up by this point with anonymous posts and 
comments accusing indybay.org of being COINTELPRO-like and claiming 
that indybay.org is just a "east bay IMC" that the sf.indymedia.org 
group "allowed to form".

12/30: Ryan from sf.indymedia.org sends an email saying "we want to 
retain ownership of indybay as a bulwark against further mediation 
violations"

12/31: Ryan from sf.indymedia.org writes again saying "we went to pick 
it up and josh was attacked by lisa, wayne and mark. We want it dropped 
off somewhere with no strings attached." He is referring to 12/15 when 
Ian and Josh came by the space to pick up the equipment. Josh left on 
his own without telling anyone or taking any of the equipment that was 
boxed up for them. Ian left with Lisa (from indybay.org) that night on 
BART back to the east bay.

1/4/04 10:48am: Ryan (Gekked) from sf.indymedia.org sends out a public 
letter accusing indybay.org group of the very things that they have 
committed: violating the agreement and committing sabotage. Ryan claims 
in the letter that "the notes from the mediation clearly spell out that 
Indybay.org ownership was not decided to be given to anyone."