Some people who disagree with the theme of this page haven't been playing nicely with this wiki and have been inserting words and phrases to make those who agree with this page sound silly or stupid. If something you read here seems strange, you can find out more about this by looking at the diffs.

A number of people are identifying an ongoing trend to commercialize or do business with Indymedia and with Indymedia name[1], a number of people are getting money out of IMC or IMC related activities, and a number of IMC are getting funds from sources, some of which are identified by others as stinky, to say the very least.

There's a diffuse sensation among a number of people I know that there is something broken in "other people's practices". Let's try to clarify things and get the ground clean before facing Real Bad Consequences. One Real Bad Consequence could be having collectives leave or even the network split in two; please leave sarcasm out of this - this is a very sensitive issue that has to be treated as such.

Things listed here are controversial, they are not aimed as being ultimatums or so, and people are encouraged to start discussing instead of breaking other people heads[2].

It is worth noting that there is nothing in the principles of unity or criteria for membership in the indymedia network which addresses the issue of whether or not indymedia can have paid staff, accept advertising, or apply for funding from any source what so ever. It is also worth noting that many people agree it could be a good idea to include such considerations in the principles of unity, since they are not rules set in stone.

• Clarification on a rumour please, by Clara on IMC-Process, Oct 2003;
  • Practices at UC-IMC by Sascha Meinrath;
  • Practices at Seattle-IMC by Joseph Eisenschmidt;
  • Practices at DC-IMC by John Windmueller;
  • Advertising at NYC-IMC's print publication by Mark Pickens;
  • Proposed mutual aid advertisement on imc-us by Sascha Meinrath;

• Comments
  • BizImcComent finances and the transparency of processes by dynr (es);
  • BizIMCRabbleResponse^? rabble disagrees;

• The TMF
  • TMF intro letter by Sascha Meinrath on IMC-Finance and IMC-Communication, Jan 2003;
  • Statement from IMC-Argentina, Jan 2003;
  • IMC-SF thoughts english | español by Lisa on IMC-Process, Jan 2003;
  • Declaración del colectivo de Rosario by ivank on IMC-Process, Feb 2003

• OSI
  • OSI money for LA IMC by John Kawakami on IMC-Finance, Nov 2001;
  • Big OSI grant approved by Sascha Meinrath on IMC-Wireless, Dec 2003;

[1] By this, i mean that you're more likely to get funds when you're
    telling fundation X that that project Y will be sustained by a
    global network of independent media makers, editors and geeks. 
[2] As a consequence, keep your "why did you create this page" and 
    the like in your pocket.

-- JiBe - 17 Dec 2003
-- BrianSzymanski - 04 Jan 2004 - deleted rabble's comment about "ideological impurity"
-- JiBe - 13 Jan 2004 - cleaned more rabble mess.
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