Northern Indymedia Needs You !
northern indymedia collective residue x3 | 01.08.2012 09:10 | Indymedia | Sheffield
Northern Indymedia is short of people and needs new volunteers if it is to continue as a viable project. The collective running this website needs people to step up and take over. Unless this happens, this newswire will soon have to shut down.
This project came about because some people noticed that their local independant media centres (IMC Leeds-Bradford and IMC York) had dwindling levels of activity and could be improved in many ways. Three and a half years later, those of us who are still involved feel that we succeeded but the wheel has turned full circle, and now is the time for some new people to take the reins.
The pre-history of Northern Indy can be examined on the long defunct IMC-Leeds mailing list. The first formal call to form a new collective and the minutes of the first meeting reflect some of the issues we wanted to address: empowering our communities by facilitating autonomous publishing, returning control of resources to accountable local people and helping campaigns to produce their own media output were recurring themes.
After months of hard work, the collective was able to launch this website on August 1st 2009. With help from comrades in other parts of the world and a herculean effort by one much-missed local geek, Northern Indy was born amongst omens of spatial confusion, clashing sound-systems, revelry and dirt at the Hyde Park Unity Day celebrations.
Highlights of the last few years included cooperation with autonomous tech projects & hackspaces locally (common place, 1in12) and farther afield (hacktionlab); an off-shoot radio project (radio interference); manifestations at temporary social centres, high profile public events (Leeds Engage and Change, Bradford Mayday, York Peace Festival) and political mobilisations (Climate Camp, counter-edl).
The project has many assets that might attract people interested in running an independent media centre; our server is rented from the tachanka collective with whom we have enjoyed an excellent supportive relationship; our software is custom-built by media activists with privacy and security in mind; we curate a large archive of copyleft user-generated media; and best of all, we have the goodwill and respect of many people in the communities we serve.
We hope that reading about this project will have inspired you to want to keep it going, and even to improve it in ways we haven't yet imagined. The few of us who are involved at the moment are feeling like we have had our fun, and now we want to see someone else have a go. We'd like to stay involved in a small way if there are lots of other people around, but none of us want to carry on doing it with just the small group we have now. So, this is your cue to get involved.
If you ever thought to yourself "wow, independent media is cool but someone else is already doing it" then now is the time to step up, because if you don't, we're going to have to shut down. What that would mean is that sometime soon we would disable publishing here and mothball the website, to serve as an archive but with no new content allowed. We think that would be very sad, and we hope it won't come to that, but we're telling you loud and clear so you won't be shy in stepping forward: if you don't make this work, it's going to stop working, so get in touch NOW if you want this project to carry on. The easiest way to get in touch and volunteer is to subscribe and post to our mailing list.
The pre-history of Northern Indy can be examined on the long defunct IMC-Leeds mailing list. The first formal call to form a new collective and the minutes of the first meeting reflect some of the issues we wanted to address: empowering our communities by facilitating autonomous publishing, returning control of resources to accountable local people and helping campaigns to produce their own media output were recurring themes.
After months of hard work, the collective was able to launch this website on August 1st 2009. With help from comrades in other parts of the world and a herculean effort by one much-missed local geek, Northern Indy was born amongst omens of spatial confusion, clashing sound-systems, revelry and dirt at the Hyde Park Unity Day celebrations.
Highlights of the last few years included cooperation with autonomous tech projects & hackspaces locally (common place, 1in12) and farther afield (hacktionlab); an off-shoot radio project (radio interference); manifestations at temporary social centres, high profile public events (Leeds Engage and Change, Bradford Mayday, York Peace Festival) and political mobilisations (Climate Camp, counter-edl).
The project has many assets that might attract people interested in running an independent media centre; our server is rented from the tachanka collective with whom we have enjoyed an excellent supportive relationship; our software is custom-built by media activists with privacy and security in mind; we curate a large archive of copyleft user-generated media; and best of all, we have the goodwill and respect of many people in the communities we serve.
We hope that reading about this project will have inspired you to want to keep it going, and even to improve it in ways we haven't yet imagined. The few of us who are involved at the moment are feeling like we have had our fun, and now we want to see someone else have a go. We'd like to stay involved in a small way if there are lots of other people around, but none of us want to carry on doing it with just the small group we have now. So, this is your cue to get involved.
If you ever thought to yourself "wow, independent media is cool but someone else is already doing it" then now is the time to step up, because if you don't, we're going to have to shut down. What that would mean is that sometime soon we would disable publishing here and mothball the website, to serve as an archive but with no new content allowed. We think that would be very sad, and we hope it won't come to that, but we're telling you loud and clear so you won't be shy in stepping forward: if you don't make this work, it's going to stop working, so get in touch NOW if you want this project to carry on. The easiest way to get in touch and volunteer is to subscribe and post to our mailing list.
northern indymedia collective residue x3
e-mail:
imc-northern@lists.indymedia.org
Homepage:
http://northern-indymedia.org
Comments
Hide the following 70 comments
Northern IMC
01.08.2012 09:31
IM Reader
Good riddanace to bad rubbish
01.08.2012 09:46
You've had a lot of "fun" shit-stirring and causing trouble. I live in West Yorkshire, but would rather post on the Sheffield site - a proper Indymedia site, not that dogs-dinner you lot came up with. Hurry up and close down and good riddance. Those that have had to put up with you and survived your attempts to shut down the national Indymedia network deserve a fucking medal. There's nothing "cool" about what you've done, and people would have to be daft to touch you with a barge-pole. Cops stopped paying your wages have they?
Bye-Bye
Infighting
01.08.2012 10:11
Perhaps this helps to explain the decline of Indy in Britain.
Impartial observer
We nearly lost Indymedia
01.08.2012 10:18
Indymedia user
Re - "We nearly lost Indymedia"
01.08.2012 10:28
These changes, agreed upon by the entire UK Indy community were later reneged upon by a small element who were about to lose their power (so much for non-hierarchical decision making and consensus). This small unrepresentative group today runs this site having stolen it from the collective. It is not an 'Indymedia' site, it is a site using the Indymedia name.
iggyp
e-mail:
iggyp.imc@googlemail.com
More lies from an arch trouble-causer
01.08.2012 10:36
Well what is this then?
"There is this site which exists using a stolen internet
address where there used to be a 'national' site, whatever that meant. I would advise anyone to have nothing to do with it, as it doesn't adhere to the indymedia principles of unity and is unaccountable."
"Unity"?! If are useless at everything else, you are certainly a master of divisiveness. One day I hope YOU will be held accountable for all the lies you've told, the trouble you've caused, and the people you've undoubtedly got nicked.
"Northern Indymedia is a properly accredited member of the Indymedia family and has completed the 'New Indymedia' process"
A bunch of liars and con-artists whose sole aim seemed to be to wreck Indymedia and close the site down.
"unlike this site which had its application rejected because it stole the Internet address and locked out over half of the collective that was running it."
You scumbags were closing the site down! Just as you did to York and Leeds-Bradford sites, locking out EVERYBODY ELSE.
"The person who did this is the same 'Chris' above trying to get users and volunteers to move to Sheffield."
Well done to him, but he didn't act alone did he? The Sheffield site has been there throughout and seems to function just fine. Nice to see they have open meetings. Hopefully they're not a bunch of wierdos, cranks, and grasses like the Northern 'lot'.
"Choose carefully who you wish to be involved with."
Aren't you the mentally-ill police informer who was shown the door at the Common Place in Leeds for shit-stirring there, as well as being booted out of Northern Indymedia for all your lies and shit-stirring there? Your reputation, and that of Northern IMC is well known in Leeds and Bradford, I doubt anyone wants anything to do with Northern IMC unless, like you, they just suddenly appear out of nowhere doing the police's bidding, or are just plain daft.
Harry Webb
Well....
01.08.2012 10:37
For example, ChrisC and the others involved still carry a link to the Northern site where as Northern does not. This gesture, despite all the antagonisms, puts ChrisC and the others in a good light in my books. I would, therefore, first have Northern carry a link to the UK site.
Although I have my disagreements with ChrisC and others, I feel unity and working together is more important than entrenchment. When I attended the national indymedia meeting in Bristol I was shocked at the lack of unity and believe state sponsors were involved in exaggerating the conflict and causing social fractures, over a sustained period of time.
Yes, much of the fracturing I witnessed at the time was but human failings and human predilections to gossip and bitch. Unbeknownst to many who claim to work within non-hierarchical groups, social hierarchies are maintained none the less through activating the social emotions of shame, embarrassment, ridicule etc. However, given the ‘sustained pattern’ and network mappings of people’s communications and refusal their refusal to engage in conflict resolution, well, it reads right out of the manual on how to fragment and disrupt political groupings, and I mean the manual quite literally.
Anyway, I’ll make a decision soon and as my technical ability is not too hot, ChisC, your help would be appreciated so please drop me an email.
JimAKirk
Response by Mark
01.08.2012 10:45
Well what is this then?
>>> It is a site using the Indymedia UK name but which is nothing to do with Indymedia. It has been stolen from the collective.
"There is this site which exists using a stolen internet
address where there used to be a 'national' site, whatever that meant. I would advise anyone to have nothing to do with it, as it doesn't adhere to the indymedia principles of unity and is unaccountable."
"Unity"?! If are useless at everything else, you are certainly a master of divisiveness. One day I hope YOU will be held accountable for all the lies you've told, the trouble you've caused, and the people you've undoubtedly got nicked.
>>> I have told no lies, caused no divisions, have got nobody "nicked". You are a liar
"Northern Indymedia is a properly accredited member of the Indymedia family and has completed the 'New Indymedia' process"
A bunch of liars and con-artists whose sole aim seemed to be to wreck Indymedia and close the site down.
>>> You mean a bunch of people who formed a new Indymedia that was and is open, accountable and committed to the IMC principles ?
"unlike this site which had its application rejected because it stole the Internet address and locked out over half of the collective that was running it."
You scumbags were closing the site down! Just as you did to York and Leeds-Bradford sites, locking out EVERYBODY ELSE.
>>> York and Leeds were dead, we saved Indymedia in the North.
"The person who did this is the same 'Chris' above trying to get users and volunteers to move to Sheffield."
Well done to him, but he didn't act alone did he? The Sheffield site has been there throughout and seems to function just fine. Nice to see they have open meetings. Hopefully they're not a bunch of wierdos, cranks, and grasses like the Northern 'lot'.
>>> No he didn't act alone - others helped him when he stole the site
"Choose carefully who you wish to be involved with."
Aren't you the mentally-ill police informer who was shown the door at the Common Place in Leeds for shit-stirring there, as well as being booted out of Northern Indymedia for all your lies and shit-stirring there? Your reputation, and that of Northern IMC is well known in Leeds and Bradford, I doubt anyone wants anything to do with Northern IMC unless, like you, they just suddenly appear out of nowhere doing the police's bidding, or are just plain daft.
>>> I am neither "mentally ill or a "police informer". I was not "shown the door at the Common Place" I am still a regular visitor and volunteer there.
Any more smears ?
Mark
iggyp said:
01.08.2012 10:49
Me thinks you meant 'aggregration' not 'accreditation'. This means that only articles posted to other collectives would appear on it.
In fact that site exists:
The issues that were never dealt with was posts which came from areas that didn't have a local collective, the majority of which had much tighter criteria than that of this site.
As can be seen that site does not offer open publishing at all.
"These changes, agreed upon by the entire UK Indy community were later reneged upon by a small element who were about to lose their power (so much for non-hierarchical decision making and consensus). "
They were not agreed by the "entire UK Indy community" - thus the claim of consensus is simply false. If iggyp can point to a consultation of users, he would strengthen his case, but he still cannot get over the problem that the consensus was clearly not a real consensus, or else there wouldn't still be active members of the UK Indy collective claiming otherwise.
What there was were moves to disenfranchise and railroad. Indeed so "much for non-hierarchical decision making and consensus"
As to Marker's claim that "this site which exists using a stolen internet
address where there used to be a 'national' site, whatever that meant."
He is going to have a problem explaining who it was stolen from. The url was acquired for a uk wide open publishing site, and it still serves a uk open publishing site.
If he wants I can point to the offers to meet to look for a new consensus after the Bradford consensus collapsed. But he should also then explain why not one of the bethemedia collectives has ever responded to those offers.
If the real meaning of "non-hierarchical decision making and consensus" is refusing to meet and simply launching attacks, then he and iggyp are masters at it.
Northern Indymedia have little to be proud of in this whole affair and at the end of it don't even have a viable website to offer to pass on.
ftp
Mark
01.08.2012 10:51
I'll be dropping you an email to see if your latest reply to this thread is actually you. Why would I do this? Well, I have a few emails from you in my inbox over serveral periods where you state your concerns about how Northern is run and the lack of accountability. Your comment here, whilst agreeable in some parts, has aspects that are counter to what you have said in emails to me. For example, the email you sent me in reply to mine last week, where you state such concerns?
Cheers,
James
JimAKirk
Oh the cheek of it!
01.08.2012 10:51
SYPTE
No consensus at Bristol.
01.08.2012 10:54
JimAKirk
No consensus at Bristol.
01.08.2012 11:03
And we weren't the only ones dissenting.
ftp
FTP
01.08.2012 11:08
JimAKirk
bad way to encourage new life into your project
01.08.2012 11:09
I doubt the political differences between our groups will be resolved by this, and I think potential new recruits will simply be put off.
ftp
JimAKirk
01.08.2012 11:15
ftp
Thanks FTP
01.08.2012 11:26
JimAKirk
And so it begins...
01.08.2012 11:27
Jen
Jen - did you miss these?
01.08.2012 11:33
ftp
Not again ?
01.08.2012 11:35
Were Northern in the wrong to close Leeds / Bradford ? -Yes probabaly
Was there a consensus to fork the project and lock this site ? - Yes
Did Chris and others effectively 'steal' the Indymedia UK url ? - Yes
Did mods from London, Bristol and Northern throw their toys out when they realised they had been fooled ? - Yes
Is this site an official Indymedia site ? - No
Will the fork ever happen now ? - No
Will this contribute to the decline in Indy UK contributions, unique visitors and readers ? - Sadly probably
Not in any way interested anymore
Jen
01.08.2012 11:36
JimAKirk
Replying to "Jen - did you miss these?"
01.08.2012 11:37
Jen
JimAKirk
01.08.2012 11:39
Jen
Quoting from links provided by ftp
01.08.2012 11:45
>>> Well that never happended
There was a consensus in the UK Indymedia Network that the project needed to fork,
>>> and yet it didn't happen, remind me why that was (hint Chris and the URL)
Mayday believed that part of the agreement was that their collective was to have globally recognised Independent Media Centre status at the time of the fork.
>>>> Funny how that was not mentioned before.
Be The Media had interpreted this differently and did not see it this way.
>>>> Because they made it up
The consensus that had been thrashed some 4 months before had now snapped and activists, being activists, took action.
>>> Not fair on 'activist' most I know are not thieves
in the early hours of May 1st, sleepless techies migrated the entire web site to a new server, thus effecting the fork on the agreed date but not in the way originally planned.
>>> In reality Chris stole the URL, pushed off to a server he control in Iceland and blocked out anyone who was not in his little gang.
iggyp
iggyp
01.08.2012 11:54
I've no real interest in communicating with you via comments.
The offer remains to have a meeting to reach a new consensus.
ftp
What was supposed to happen
01.08.2012 11:54
On 1st May 2011 Indymedia UK will give birth to two new projects. The Indymedia UK website will be archived, it will stay were it is now, but you won’t be able to publish news. In its place there will be two distinct projects: Mayday will provide a non-regional site with open publishing and Be The Media will present the best of radical news across the regions, including Bristol, Northern, Nottingham and London.
Indymedia UK has been covering radical news for 11 years. During this time, hundreds of volunteers have put their passion and skills into the project, volunteering their media, stories, organising skills and technical know how. For many of us it has been one of the most amazing projects we ever participated in but now we are moving on.
The new aggregator site: Be The Media is currently bringing you the best of Indymedia coverage, but we plan to expand. The site is still under development, so check back for changes. We also plan to include radical news from all over the web, not limited to Indymedia websites. We are sad to see the end of Indymedia UK and we are excited to be working on bethemedia.org.uk while continuing our local sites; Bristol, Northern, London and Nottingham Indymedia.
Local Collectives
While Indymedia UK started out with one collective maintaining the UK site, the anti war protests 2003 kickstarted collectives all over the island. Bristol set up their own website, and Scotland, Manchester, London started regional sections on the UK site. Soon Sheffield and Leeds joined in, followed by Oxford and Cambridge…
Indymedia was a hub for social justice news. But recently activity and participation in local collectives has decreased. Many regional sites need volunteers. At the same time there has been refreshed interest in other regions. Imc Northern England was set up in 2009, Nottingham set up a new site, and some local collectives have been growing and getting more active again.
As the article From Indymedia UK to the United Kollektives from 2004 says: “We realised that a uk wide project would need a decentralised structure, both technically and socially.” Today we are taking the next step of decentralisation, and are proud to present the new and shiny Indymedia Syndication Site! Everything you post to an Indymedia site, will be pulled together to get a good overview of social justice news, while at the same time strengthening the autonomy and independence of local collectives to focus on reporting that is relevant to their communities.
Indymedia still needs you! Be it reporting from the street, moderating the website, writing features, setting up a radio show, organising film screening, helping out with web design or other technical things… Find out how to get involved with you local collective or get in touch with the nearest group to set up a new one!
Why Indymedia
When Indymedia started, blogs did not exist and only few political groups had the skills and resources to set up their own website. But in the age of blogs and abundant services that allow anyone to publish on the internet, why does Indymedia matter? Isn’t Indymedia a dinosaur in the spheres of the internet, that can’t keep up with all the new services like facebook and twitter etc…?
Indymedia is a collective projects in many ways. There is the global network of Indymedia collectives. There are the editorial collectives running each site and organising events and coverage, producing films and print papers and much more. And there are the websites that are a collective effort by everyone who ever published anything, many many more people than have ever attended an Indymedia meeting.
It is true, everyone can set up their own blog nowadays. But if you have ever tried to do this, you know how hard it can be to maintain one. Or to get people to look at it. Also, most of those services are hosted by corporations. No matter how much love you put into your blog, how many followers you have on twitter and how many people said they will come to your facebook event: The corporations behind those services not only know where you are updating it from, and who is looking at your stuff, and might easily hand over that information to anyone who asks. But they can also lock you out and shut you down in an instant. And if you are unlucky, you risk loosing years of work, with no possibility to address this.
Not only does Indymedia still provide one service, that you don’t get anywhere else on the web: anonymous posting. It also allows you to get in touch with the editorial collective directly, and address any grievances that you may have. Decisions are made not with profit in mind, but on a consensus basis. And we have learned from all the server seizures Indymedia has suffered over the years and always keep backups.
Another important advantage of Indymedia is that it often works well as a contextualised archive of not only campaigns and mobilisations, but also of the social movements themselves. In an era where info flows through the internet in a very fast and fragmented manner, Indymedia manages to collect reports, photos, audio and video together in the form of thematic documents – features or pages – which are then easily retrievable for future reference.
On a blog, you can control the content. On Indymedia you will always see your posts in the midst of stuff that may be not so exciting for you, or you even disagree with. But also you will always come across other random stuff that you didn’t know about. Your posts will be embedded in a mesh of reports about social justice, and contextualised in a wider struggle. They won’t sit isolated and only attract people who are already interested in what you care about. Someone may go looking for information about something else entirely, and come across your post.
Indymedia is so much more than just yet another website on the ever expanding universe of the internet. It’s not just a website. It’s a constantly evolving project requiring continued effort on the part of a global network of enthusiastic and passionate media-producers and other supporters of radical media – including a large number of technically-gifted geeks who volunteer their time to ensure that your personal information and identity remain safe and secure from malicious meddling by corporations and law-enforcement institutions attempting to squash political dissent. And not simply for paranoia’s sake – we’ve recently witnessed this very thing happening – check-out information on the Fitwatch website shut-down or the disappearing twitter accounts.
Lots of campaigns and groups have their own blogs nowadays. But a lot of them don’t keep backups. So the campaign is over, the group is dissolved, the person maintaining the blog disappears, or the police have the site taken down. What happens then? A whole strand of the history of social movements disappears. The writing, reports, the information and the artwork disappears and becomes inaccessible. Anyone should aim to not only use internet for the short span of the present, but also for the future.
Indymedia has facilitated and championed citizen, grass-roots reporting for over 10 years and is unique in its web presence. It links together the myriad of ever-constant political analysis, campaigns and direct-action groups via news and information. In demonstrating an overview of social justice movements, it allows networks and other links to forge, both in reality and in people’s minds. The Indymedia project has always pushed a political envelope in a journalistic sense – encouraging its users to look beyond an alienated and fragmented, single-issue focused reportage of radical resistance.
More info on corporate social networking | Indymedia and the Enclosure of the Internet | Tech tools for activists
History
The first time UK protests were reported live on the web was the June 18 protests 1999 (archived version 1 and version 2) in London. At the time, there weren’t any blogs, twitter or facebook, and there was no Indymedia. There wasn’t any wireless internet either. So a ‘media centre’ was set up in the offices of one of the few friendly internet providers at the time, and reports were manually uploaded to the site as they were coming in from the City, across London Bridge and into the offices at the other side of the river brought by a network of carriers.
Half a year later, people set up the first Independent Media Centre for the Anti WTO protests in Seattle. They introduced something new on the Internet: on the website, you could go to an online form, and post your own articles. Up to that time, the internet had very much been a place were you could find information, but sharing information required some technical knowledge. Any city could set up their own indymedia site. The UK was one of the first to join the global network of Independent Media Centres. If memory serves, it was the third Imc to start, and the first not based in the US.
Indymedia UK made its first public appearance during the RTS’s Guerrilla Gardening protests of Mayday 2000. Visible at the centre of the demonstration as bike-powered computers were set up at Parliament Square allowing people in the action to type their reports unmediated for the first time. Then, the articles written by you were carried to a publishing hub in the basement of the Foundry pub where a Media Centre had been set up consisting of several computers, a dispatch telephone number where people could call in reports from the actions, and a single dial-up connection powered by a very long telephone cable extension plugged to a single phone socket. Believe it or not, this was ground-breaking technology at the time!
One of BeTheMedia
ftp
01.08.2012 11:57
I have no interest in communicating with you via the comments section of this supposed 'Indymedia' site. You have my email, use it if you want to speak with me.
Jen
What Happened next
01.08.2012 12:00
There was a consensus in the UK Indymedia Network that the project needed to fork, so that Indymedia members with different views could all work on developments they were happy with rather than come into constant conflict. An agreement was made in December to implement the fork on May 1st but the agreement broke down at the eleventh hour. Mayday believed that part of the agreement was that their collective was to have globally recognised Independent Media Centre status at the time of the fork. Be The Media had interpreted this differently and did not see it this way. The consensus that had been thrashed some 4 months before had now snapped and activists, being activists, took action. Be The Media started implementing the changes to the site shortly after midnight on May 1st. Mayday saw what was happening, considered the blocks to have been ignored [1] and felt that if this proceeded it would have in effect shut down the UK Newswire. After several hours of discussion and consideration they agreed they couldn't let it proceed like this and so, in the early hours of May 1st, sleepless techies migrated the entire web site to a new server, thus effecting the fork on the agreed date but not in the way originally planned.
The continuing disagreements between the parties will hopefully get resolved after the dust has settled. This unfortunate state of affairs has sadly led to much acrimony within Indymedia and the disagreements are yet to be resolved.
But it's not all bad news.
Lots of improvements to the site are in the pipeline and will hopefully be rolled out in an incremental manner, these will no doubt include many of the enhancements that were developed to implement the redesign agreed in Nottingham in 2008. You can see an implementation of this redesign here and the original static mock-up here.
The UK Indymedia site is now running on a faster server with a far lower carbon footprint, in Iceland, where there is the promise of radically progressive Internet laws thanks to the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative.
The next meeting of the Mayday Collective is on Sunday 22nd May 2011, the day after the Sheffield Anarchist Bookfair, at which the Mayday and Sheffield Indymedia collectives will host a discussion.
Contrary to some rumours that the site has been "taken over by unknown elements", "hijacked" or "stolen", UK Indymedia will continue to run as an activist resource in the original spirit of Indymedia. The site is still being cared for by mostly the same people, all of whom are long standing Indymedia volunteers with much experience. These people are involved in several collectives including the Mayday collective, Sheffield Indymedia, Birmingham Indymedia and Oxford Indymedia [2]. Hopefully other collectives and activists will also get involved as they have time to meet and discuss the outcomes of the fork.
Footnotes
1. Due to Mayday being blocked at New IMC, Mayday, Birmingham, Sheffield and Scotland had blocked the fork from taking place on 1st May 2011.
2. To clarify: there are members of the Mayday collective who are also members of the three regional IMCs mentioned. Not all members of those three regional collectives are part of the Mayday. At the time of writing Oxford Indymedia for one has had no direct involvement in the action taken described on this page; its involvement is primarily because it shares the same hardware and software platform as the UK Indymedia site. Oxford Indymedia has yet to make a statement on what has happened and shall be discussing this at its monthly meeting.
(see the url for links)
ftp
Homepage:
https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/05/479160.html
Other Indymedia sites are available - indeed they are Chris
01.08.2012 12:05
Many of the collective have unparalleled experience in providing help and advice for group and individuals who are seeking a voice for their views and news.
See here
With the majority of activist news and events London based and centred it makes sense to work with the Indymedia that reflects that part of our land.
Our meetings are open and advertised well in advance, join us and make a difference in your community.
Indymedia London
e-mail:
imc-london@lists.indymedia.org
Homepage:
http://london.indymedia.org/
London is indeed a great site
01.08.2012 12:10
JimAKirk
The quote says it all.
01.08.2012 12:12
What happened is now well documented (even by those in the Mayday collective as ftp has shown here).
The website was not archived - we are using it here.
Members of the Be the Media collective were blocked from the process and remain so today. This view is not just mine, it is the view of the global Indymedia community as well who have repeatedly called for Mayday to reverse their theft.
Remembering the Bristol meeting
London is indeed a great site
01.08.2012 12:13
Thanks !
Yossarian
Yoss
01.08.2012 12:15
JimAkirk
from the link I gave
01.08.2012 12:18
The archive exists - it is on a server not controlled by those who run indymedia uk.
The thread is now being trolled.
No way did yossarian write that comment.
ftp
Play the troll card
01.08.2012 12:22
Jen
For clarity and accuracy
01.08.2012 12:24
"The archive exists - it is on a server not controlled by those who run indymedia uk"
In fact Indymedia UK does not exist, this site is not Indymedia UK it is a site using the Indymedia UK name but without the support, consensus, or approval of the wider Indymedia community. It is in real terms a fake site
No name
re: playing the troll card
01.08.2012 12:25
Other guideline busting comments will also be hidden.
ftp
This is part of a broader IMC crisis
01.08.2012 12:54
A bunch of Indymedia volunteers, some of whom were also involved in keeping shared indymedia services running, have announced their intention to quit the project in summer 2012 (several others have already done so before, and not many new people have joined). It’s now neccessary to take stock and see
which currently unmanaged resources or understaffed tech working groups there are
which of those are still needed by whom
how those who need them will continue to operate and finance them
which other steps need to be taken to keep the Indymedia project or a subset of it running (process, cooperation and mutual exchange amongst activists and IMCs)
For now, this document will only cover the first of these topics. Please create separate wiki pages and link to these here regarding all the other topics, espcially about the topic of reviving or cleaning up the remainders of the global IMC process.
Indymedia domain names
The indymedia.org domain name is currently maintained for Indymedia by brazilian organisation ABDECOM. This group can be contacted at
The domain name is currently hosted with french domain name registrar Gandi. Financing is unclear (check imc-finance or contact ABDECOM) which can result in the domain name to expire and be taken over by domain name grabbers.
There are other domain names more or less loosely affiliated with shared Indymedia, such as indymedia.us, imc.li. ABDECOM does not manage these.
Nameservers
The Indymedia.org nameserver records were (and may still be) managed by the working group called DNS working group.
There are two authoritative nameservers for this domain name, one of them is hosted with Riseup, the other with fs-dl.net.
These may be shared resources. Financing is unclear (check with imc-finance, the members of this working group or contact the hosting providers).
The working group used to be available at
Indymedia (contact) database (contact.indymedia.org)
(Please add any information you can provide on this topic.)
Mailing lists and @indymedia.org email addresses
Those were managed by the working group called Listwork. The Listwork working group has now mostly dissolved.
There is one server, sarai, which these services run on. It is hosted with Riseup. To date, most IMCs use this service (others host elsewhere). Financing is unclear (check imc-finance or contact hosting provider).
These mailing lists (web interface at
The working group used to be available at
Global mailing lists
imc-process
Purpose: global decision making
Members: every IMC which has passed the new-imc process
Moderators: gdm at indymedia dot org (annouced retirement), bartolomeo at indymedia.org, elisa at riseup.net
imc-communication
Purpose: general Indymedia discussion
Members: individual Indymedia volunteers
Moderators: anna at mail.nadir dot org, remid at riseup dot net, apb at swissmail dot org, chiapas at aktivix dot org
new-imc
Purpose: affiliation of new IMCs
Members: members of the New-IMC working group
Moderators: genex at indymedia dot org, boud at riseup dot net
imc-finance
Purpose: global finances
Members: individual Indymedia volunteers
Moderators: ???
imc-tech
Purpose: general Indymedia tech discussion
Members: individual Indymedia volunteers
Moderators: ???
imc-drupal-dev
Purpose: Indymedia Drupal CMS discussion
Members: individual Indymedia volunteers
Moderators: gdm at indymedia dot org (annouced retirement), andrew at scoop dot co dot nz, harlequin at cat dot org dot au
Indymedia documentation project / wiki (docs.indymedia.org)
The Indymedia wiki / documentation project was managed by the working group called IMC Docs. This working group has now mostly dissolved.
There is one server, amanita.indymedia.org, which this service is running on, hosted with Tachanka. Hosting has been financially arranged a while ago but may need to be renewed at some point if it is to continue (check imc-finance or contact hosting provider).
The docs.indymedia.org wiki is run using the Perl based Foswiki software (probably an outdated version by now) on Debian GNU/Linux.
The working group used to be available at
SoS request ticketing system (sos.indymedia.org)
(Please add any information you can provide on this topic.)
The ticketing system which was used is OTRS (Perl). If people want to continue using it: it needs to be taken care off, both the software needs an update once in a while as cleanups of old accounts and tickets. The server itself needs to be maintained too.
Indymedia key server (keys.indymedia.org)
(Please add any information you can provide on this topic.)
the global indymedia.org website
This is currently unmanaged. The contact tech list is:
The global website is based upon the ‘mir’ CMS. Some documentation is available on docs.indymedia.org but the main website for mir is no longer available and the software itself has been unmaintained for a number of years now.
The global site itself is divided between a publish server and a static mirror (which is what most people see).
The publish site is hosted on traven.indymedia.org but this is (as of early March 2012) about to be decommissioned and turned off. All sites on it are being migrated to a server hosted by tachanka.org and will be archived, although there might be a grace period for the global indymedia site. It is worth noting that the publish server requires an https (i.e. secure) connection, and that the certificate was invalidated at the beginning of June 2011. This means that most people have not been able to access the publish site (or have ignored lots of big scary warnings when they do).
The mirror – which hosts the www.indmedia.org static html page that is visible to most users – is hosted at chavez.indymedia.org. There does not appear to be anyone maintaining the global mirror, although there are some people still with access to the server itself.
The other, major working group involved in the global website is
Jan 2011: 5
Feb 2011: 1
Mar 2011: 2
Apr 2011: 1
Jun 2011: 0
Jul 2011: 0
Aug 2011: 0
Sep 2011: 0
Oct 2011: 1
Nov 2011: 0
Dec 2011: 0
Jan 2012: 0
Feb 2012: 3
There is, of course, a historical utility which should be preserved.
One of another IMC
Reasons why IM Northern was set up. Makes for still relevant reading.
01.08.2012 13:35
29TH OCTOBER 2008, 1900h
THE COMMON PLACE, LEEDS
Present: Mark, GH, CB, Ptg, RD, ED
Apologies: JF, GK, JW
Introductions:
============
We introduced ourselves and said why we were interested in Indymedia. We
found that we have a wide variety of different backgrounds and skills
but not much direct experience of working with an IMC, with a couple of
exceptions. We agreed an agenda for the rest of the meeting.
"Where are we now?"/ Current Problems:
====================================
-Background to why this meeting was called
-paucity of content in LBIMC news wire, and reasons for this
-disagreements within the collective and with posters about moderation
-lack of resolution process so some people just leave if they don't like
the way things are
-using IMC-UK guidelines rather than having our own at the moment
-the 'vicious circle' of people not visiting the site often because
there's little new to see, therefore our community feels less ownership
of the IMC, so people don't think it's worthwhile writing news, or it
doesn't occur to them at all, so there's no new content... etc...
Mark gave feedback from the UK network meeting the previous weekend; it
seems that most of the above problems are not restricted to LBIMC, but
are evident across the UK and beyond. You can read the minutes from the
network meeting at
Taking stock of our resources:
===========================
Humans:
- Those present were keen on forming a new collective to revive the IMC
- There are several other people who expressed an interest but weren't
here (it was a very cold night...)
- There are at least two people who've been grafting away keeping things
ticking over, who we'd very much like to stay involved
- There are a broader pool of people who subscribe to the IMC-Leeds list
who might want to get involved if it looks like something's happening
- Some of us have connections within our "communities of interest" that
we could use to try to get people writing about all the awesome stuff
that happens, but is seldom reported
- Some geeks from the common place IT collective are working on an
exciting new way of doing live video despatch (anyone interested, come
to the common place tech skill-share/development group, Sunday 2nd
November, 1000-1600h and/or join tcpit at lists.riseup.net)
Machines:
- Several of those present had audio/video recording gear that we can use.
- We can use the café computers in the common place to work and do
training on
- The common place also has a cinema we could use to screen political
films
- Our web presence is a regional page on the UK server, which runs the
Mir content management system
- We don't have to worry about the physical upkeep of the server, but
anyone who would like to help should join imc-uk-tech (mailing list)
What next?
==========
- some of the problems we face are going to take a lot of work to address
- we need to be realistic about how much we can do, and how quickly
- we agreed that a good way to get to know each other better would be to
arrange an 'internal' skill-share; i.e. the 6 of us will each teach
something to the other 5 (hands-on or talking for a few minutes). This
isn't to be promoted as a major 'recruitment' event although it
shouldn't be exclusive:
*ED offered to give training on using mini-DV and SLR cameras
*RD will talk about journalistic research skills
*Ptg will write a story about something
*CB will talk about promoting the work of the IMC
*GH will talk about the work of Media Lens, and the problems of the
'liberal' media
*Mark will show people how to moderate the content of our website
- we have been asked by the UK network to put somebody forward as the
UK-Contact list member. GH volunteered, all agreed.
- we have been asked by the former list owner for someone to take over
ownership of the IMC-Leeds and IMC-Leeds-Contact mailing list, and to be
the superuser (creates new logins). Mark volunteered, all agreed.
Action points:
============
- ALL to prepare our bit for the skill-share
- ALL to join the IMC-Leeds mailing list if haven't already, and maybe
the UK ones if interested
- Mark to book The Common Place for our next meeting
- ALL to think about what level of privacy they want in this work, eg.
getting a new email address
- RD to announce the next meeting (i.e. the self-training/skill-share)
- GH to join the uk contact mailing list
- Mark to draft minutes for checking by all present before circulation
- ALL to have a read of the indymedia process/docs wiki
- Mark to ask someone with the ability, to make him a superuser
- CB to make a list of what needs changing on our website
A mod from long, long ago
the overseer/leader who initiated and led this split
01.08.2012 14:07
It's all in the horseshit
can one explain
01.08.2012 14:38
can somone explaine the right indy site that hasn't had it's structure messed or taken over etc..
dumber
axes ground and super sharp
01.08.2012 14:53
But that's not going to move this on is it.
The concept of the dual narrative - in order for peace, both sides have to accept that they each have a truth and that those truths are contradictory. Until you can accept that you will never resolve this contradiction, until you can accept that it is very much the truth for the other party, then you will never be at peace. If people in war zones can work towards this, I believe you can too.
I'm glad that there is in effect (for us humble users!) a UK Indymedia site still at this URL. I'm also glad that people can start up other projects, whether they be local IMC collectives or aggregator sites.
And yes, I'm sure you are incredible in other more constructive ways too.
wow, you guys, you're incredible
@dumber
01.08.2012 15:22
It isn't that simple. There are well-meaning hard-working media activists in all of the various factions. Each site has its pros and cons. None of them are perfect. All of them are useful and have a right to exist.
If anyone tries to tell you that there's a simple answer - that one side is right and the other is wrong - they are biased and you should take their opinion with a huge pinch of salt.
Here's hoping sanity can prevail and IMCers can let the past go and start to work together - or at least stop slagging each other off in public. Certainly none of this is doing the movement any favours.
New people getting involved in indymedia collectives, without the emotional baggage and hardened attitudes that some IMCers are currently bringing to this, can only be a good thing!
cautious optimism
About time
01.08.2012 16:01
An Indymedia user
Mark
01.08.2012 16:15
If you're the person I think you are, you got ME nicked, and two other people, for fuck all apart from your lies. I had my door kicked in, had my house turned over, was assaulted, and spent 24 hours in custody as a result of YOU. If anyone who knows me would like to see the paperwork relating to this they are welcome to get in touch with me.
Mark Barnsley
Beg to differ
01.08.2012 17:26
Mark R? You're one, the other, or both.
"I was not "shown the door at the Common Place" "
Yes you were.
"I am still a regular visitor and volunteer there."
How's that then, bearing in mind the Common Place hasn't existed for ages now?
Old CPer
James
01.08.2012 17:38
I'll be dropping you an email to see if your latest reply to this thread is actually you. Why would I do this? Well, I have a few emails from you in my inbox over serveral periods where you state your concerns about how Northern is run and the lack of accountability. Your comment here, whilst agreeable in some parts, has aspects that are counter to what you have said in emails to me. For example, the email you sent me in reply to mine last week, where you state such concerns?
Cheers,
James
________________________________________________________
Hope you IMCers can all be friends again.
James, you seem like a decent bloke, good luck with trying to sort Northern IM out. Don't expect any consistency from you-know-who though, he's either away with the fairies or working for the cops. He's even stabbed most of the other Northerners in the back, as I'm sure you, and they, well know.
anon
Unfortunately anon
01.08.2012 20:50
JimAKirk
Unfortunately JimAKirk
01.08.2012 21:46
Your email to that server appears to be getting through
another anon
Disinformation, trolling and the information war
01.08.2012 21:51
One of the root issues at the heart of the UK Indymedia split was how to deal with the (apparently) professional trolling this site gets, the London / Northern IMC approach was to try to ignore and work around the problem, by, for example, removing the ability for articles to have comments posted to them.
An example of the disinformational trolling is the first (now hidden) comment on this thread — it's in my name but it wasn't posted by me, I didn't see this thread till there were over 40 comments here.
The approach that the people running the UK Indymedia site take to disinformation is different from the London / Northern IMC one:
The above is taken from the Mayday Indymedia Founding Statement.
Another example of disinformation was an article posted to this site in June 2009, "Indymedia UK, the rise of the independents" — this is probably the best documented example of disinformation posted to this site and the documentation of the disinformation led to repeated calls from London / Northern IMC and others for the wiki page exposing the disinformation to be deleted — this is a really bad way to deal with disinformation.
London / Northern IMC continue to claim that the domain name, indymedia.org.uk, has been "stolen" (see for example this email from a few days ago), but they show no interest in resolving this dispute through the process of consensus decision making, we sought a return to consensus but the response was a witchhunt. London and Northern still have their indymedia.org.uk subdomains — nothing was "stolen" from anyone — the activists running this site simply prevented the London / Northern attempt to shut it down and asserted their autonomy.
Chris
another anon
02.08.2012 00:43
JimAKirk
Moderating activists
02.08.2012 05:46
If you get bounces then it's the anti-spam measures blocking you by accident, if you don't get a bounce then it means that the imc-northern list admin(s?) has decided that emails from you need moderating and they are being held till they can review them and either let them through, reject them (if rejected you get a email saying they have been rejected) or discard them (you don't get a email to say they trashed your message).
another anon
The murky world of northern indymedia
02.08.2012 08:15
1 in 12 member
Concensus
02.08.2012 09:07
@
re: Consensus
02.08.2012 10:16
Nurse Ratchett
1 in 12 member
02.08.2012 13:14
JimAKirk
Good luck
02.08.2012 15:38
This has all been a very bad affair, and it's not hard to see who benefits. It'd be surprising if the state HADN'T taken an interest in Indymedia. Of course, people often lie and are manipulative without it having anything to do with the cops, but as you said earlier, some of this stuff really is straight out of the manual. I'm not sure that there's only one dodgy individual involved, but I'm pretty sure at least one individual is dodgy. The way he behaved right from the moment he appeared from nowhere should have put a big flashing blue light right above his head.
1 in 12 member
Physician heal thyself
02.08.2012 16:20
Indeed. The phrase "Physician heal thyself" has certainly been used a lot in relation to him. Along with some other choice phrases I might add!
Does anyone know if it's true he was under suspension because of a complaint by a patient when he first turned up on the scene? I've heard that from more than one source. He's admitted working with the cops before, and that might have given them more leverage over him. Not that I think he'd need any leverage to try and cause harm to those he disagrees with politically.
Jam Sandwich
1 in 12 member
02.08.2012 16:33
JimAKirk
yawn
02.08.2012 20:01
no accountable
@ no accountable
02.08.2012 20:17
Clearly, no-one should ever spend time reflecting on what happens when our decision making structures break down, or what it is that causes groups to fall out!
But at least this site exists for you to share your illuminating thoughts with us. It almost didn't.
almost a disciple
The Global History Project.
02.08.2012 21:01
Having read ALL of the comments on here including the hidden ones, there is some craft gone into this. Much of the structure of the negative comments appears to be 'inline' with a lot of the disruption seen on other newswire content over the past 2 -3 years. It looks good.
So what are we to make of this then...that Indymedia UK is a terribly divided community and is in need of abandonment? Well that suits a few I suppose. The wrong few of course.
Maybe its all just politics and here it gets despicable, so despicable in fact only the heirarchy and its minions would be stupid enough to do this all in public!
Maybe its time to for a realistion that our community just isn't tight enough. This whole thing about anonymity is its own worst enemy....its juts too good an opportunity for disruption. Wear a mask, and you lend the state the same anonymity...all the anonymity it needs to break its own laws in abundance to crush your ambitions.
As it goes on the streets, it goes here too.
The way it is at the moment, is that no campaign attached to Indymedia can be effective if the Indymedia community is divided against itself. This bickering is either extreme foolishness on our part, or some supreme and truly squalid fascism on the part of Indymedia's detractors.
The whole question of autonomy 'in public' needs to be addressed. Indymedia will end up becoming the state's greatest tool if this continues.
D.A.L
Read it again
02.08.2012 22:39
Maybe read the thread again mate, the only people I can see calling for the abandonment of Indymedia UK are the same shithouses who tried closing it down before.
Tarka Dhal
@almost a disciple
02.08.2012 23:05
Hogwash. WIthout an effective decision making structure the whole thing becomes chaos and nothing will get done. There needs to a concerted point of focus where ideas and decisions can form as a consensus.
>> But at least this site exists for you to share your illuminating thoughts with us. It almost didn't.
Thats the whole purpose of the site. are you suggesting that members shouldn't be able to post their thoughts? That would be no better than the state
no accountable
Full Disclosure...
03.08.2012 08:33
I would urge everyone not to work with this crank who conspired to castrate the common place, de-rail Leeds/Bradford Indymedia and get people nicked.
Rudeboy
@ Rudeboy
03.08.2012 09:26
No thought not
Keep on with the smear attempts, I am laughing at you all.
Mark
"Fake" sites and bitter ironies
03.08.2012 10:37
Further up in this thread the UK Indymedia site is refered to as a "fake site", apparently without any irony.
This is ironic because the people calling this site "fake" wanted to shut it down, if they had got their way this site and this thread wouldn't exist. This thread doesn't exist on Northern Indymedia because their version of this article doesn't allow comments to be posted, they call the UK IMC site "fake" and "stolen", when they are the ones who wanted to steal it from the UK activist community and kill it.
Those wanting this site shutdown went to extreme lengths to ensure that the collective running this site (at the time called the Mayday collective) and Sheffield Indymedia were blocked from becoming "official" on the New IMC list, look at the archives from December 2010, January, February, March, April and May 2011 — a massive amount of time and energy was put into blocking.
Now contrast this with the traffic on the New IMC list in the last year, August, October, December 2011, January and July 2012 — apart from IMC Oxford's application nothing has happened, New IMC applications from Venezuela-Centro, Alacant and Tunisie have been ignored — the people wanting this site shutdown put far more energy into the attempted closure of this site and the blocking of Sheffield than they have put into helping proposed new sites get established. They have also called for the archiving of the global site, though thankfully that didn't happen.
At the last UK Indymedia Network meeting in Bradford, December 2010. the activists running the UK Indymedia site made it clear they wanted to continue, the following statement was read out at the meeting:
However at the meeting a compromise was agreed, this involved the Mayday collective passing the New IMC process by 1st May and then this site being renamed, this is why the notes refer to a.indymedia.org — to get a.indymedia.org the New IMC process needed to be passed, but that was blocked by friends of Be The Media — the essential prerequisite for the fork agreement proceeding wasn't in place so the implementation of the fork was then blocked by several IMC's including IMC Scotland, but this block was ruled as "invalid" and dispite the very clear lack of consensus for this site to be archived on 1st May 2011 a activist from IMC Bristol proceeded to archive it. Faced with a choice of allowing the UK Indymedia newswire to be shutdown where there was no agreement for this to happen or migrating the site and continuing to run it, the latter option was chosen.
Then Be The Media activists from London and Northern did everything they could to ensure that the activists who wanted to keep the UK Indymedia site alive were purged from the global Indymedia network and they succeeded in this, accounts and list memberships were suspended, wiki accounts were deleted, lists were shutdown, and an additional result of their authoritarian purge appears to have been an acceleration the death of Indymedia as a global project, at a time when it's needed more than ever. Judge for yourself who and what is "fake" and what has been "stolen".
Chris
"Principles of Unity"
03.08.2012 13:10
Chris wrote:
And as a direct result of these punitive and authoritarian actions a number of techs resigned, which definitely hastened the demise of the global network.
It is difficult to see how theose actions are consistent with POU 1 and POU 6 in particular:
I have hidden comments posted at 12:49/12:47/12:31/12:17/11:43 as trolls.
The comment at 10:48 was also hidden as non news.
ftp
“Laughing”? Well at least it makes a change from blubbing everywhere?
03.08.2012 22:06
03.08.2012 08:33
...we've seen what you've been up to Mark R, we won't forget the lies you told and the smear campaigns you instigated. You are a grass and a saboteur and there is plenty of evidence to prove it.
I would urge everyone not to work with this crank who conspired to castrate the common place, de-rail Leeds/Bradford Indymedia and get people nicked.
Rudeboy
@ Rudeboy
03.08.2012 09:26
Care to back that up with any facts ?
No thought not
Keep on with the smear attempts, I am laughing at you all.
Mark
If you're the person I think you are, you got ME nicked, and two other people, for fuck all apart from your lies. I had my door kicked in, had my house turned over, was assaulted, and spent 24 hours in custody as a result of YOU. If anyone who knows me would like to see the paperwork relating to this they are welcome to get in touch with me.
Mark Barnsley
Very bold scumbag, you been on the prescription medication, or has your handler just been assuring you everything will be alright? My statement posted two days ago, and the offer contained in it still stands. Fuck you scumbag, at least Mark Kennedy was a fucking copper, what’s your excuse low-life?
Mark Barnsley
Update on Marker
04.08.2012 09:22
JimAKirk