From FreeWiki

October 3, 2005 -- Toban's perspective

Present: Damian, Kirk, Maria, Toban, and several students from the alternative media course

Here's a summary of what came up in night's meeting -- that is, here's how I see it:

(Maybe I'm going too in-depth here. Please tell me what you think!)

Some of Indymedia's principles are consensus, public meetings, transparency, egalitarianism, and "open publishing." (If you want to know more about this, check out this document: http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/PrinciplesOfUnity) No one seemed to have a problem with these values.

We will be doing outreach to community groups -- to get credibility, to inform them about our site so that they will be able to use it, and possibly to find more volunteers. The big question, which Kirk mentioned in his message this morning, is how much of the outreach should happen before we've made more progress with getting the web site and everything else together. The project isn't much more than an idea at this point, and we would have something more tangible if we waited. But are there benefits to making connections with the communty groups right away? We definitely might find more volunteers. Addressing the diversity (race, class, etc) of people involved in this project is something that we have different ideas about. Again, it seems to largely be a question of whether we do this outreach now or later. The idea of making connections with homeless shelters came up, but I'm not sure what this would entail.

We talked about why we want to set up an Indymedia site. The people who approve new IMCs want a letter from us: "an introductory statement about why you want to participate in the Indymedia Network," so we came up with some ideas for what could go in the letter. I'll put together a draft letter based on what was said. If anyone wants to add to it -- whether you do this before or after I make the draft -- please feel free to share your views.

There was some preliminary talk about an editorial policy. I think we focused on the open newswire stories, submitted by the public, as opposed to features written by us. We talked about whether foul language should be prohibited to some extent. I don't think anyone wanted harsh restrictions regarding swearing, and the prevailing view seemed to be that although swearing has value as a means of expression, it can be overdone -- out of habit, etc. We also talked about whether personal attacks should be prohibited. Maria pointed out that some prominent figures, such as Bush, are more than people -- they play a part in a broader system. Another editorial policy issue that came up was the degree of specificity of the policy, which Damian sees as a source of frustration. Say we ban "flaming." Do we then precisely define it? Or should we have a policy that's more vague than mentioning things like flaming?

In the end, a lot of people liked the idea of taking an editorial policy from another Indymedia site and then changing it. I'll do this soon.

For the official Indymedia name of the site we chose "London, Ontario." (This name can be different from the logo on the site, and what we call the site. It's just the name that will be in the web URL, and that will be displayed on other Indymedia sites.) If the Indymedia people reject that name, as they apparently sometimes do, we're going to try for "London, ON."

Damian is going to start our application to joing the Indymedia network. It turns out that he is involved with the group that approves new IMCs, so getting accepted shouldn't be a problem. Damian is also going to look into web space for the site from other IMCs in Canada. Finally, William's is noisy, and we should try to avoid meeting there in the future. There are definitely other possibilities. Maria and Kirk might be able to get space at the Western campus. I'll call libraries.

If anyone wants to add anything to that, then by all means please do so!