--
TomR - 09 Jul 2004
Main Bristol page:
ImcBristol
This page stores the Current Agenda for the Next BIMC meetings at the Folk House
http://www.bristolfolkhouse.co.uk/main/map.htm
Oct 2008
- guidelines for race/religion/isms - where do we draw the line around race and religion? can we draw up some draft guidelines to help.
- Proposal for adding to moderation of comments;
- Top Level Debates; One of the issues is that every time an article on a certain subject is posted, e.g.climate change, it simply turns into a top-level debate about climate change per-se and no about that article. While it might not be totally 'off-topic', it is a repetition of an existing debate and may be putting off people posting articles as they know where it is going end. It is proposed that all top-level posts be moved to a thread where that debate is happening and if that thread has become too big, an imcvol creates a new article to house them. We then have a list on the wiki of top-level issues (climate change, zionism, feminism etc.) and threads for vols to use to house off-topic-top-level comments.
- Owning Threads; Before, as there was only a couple of us moderating (well mainly one person!) it was easier to keep track of the comments and who was posting as imcvol. Now there is a few of us doing this role, it can get a bit confusing. I propose to help this that when a vol starts to moderate a thread, they email the list and from then on, 'own' the thread, i.e. they are the only vol moderating that thread. That does not mean that they can't ask to advice or help - and if are busy/away can request that another vol take over - but we try to keep it to one vol per thread.
- imcvols can't debate a thread you are moderating which brings me to this point, it is suggested that vols can't moderate a thread they are posting to, so if you take on a thread you can no longer debate in it under any name or must not 'own' a thread you are already posting on.
- keep imcvol posts short'n'sweet try to keep the information that we post as an imcvol to a minimum; we can explain a decision but we don't get drawn into a debate over a decision online, we encourage people to come to a meeting to chat about it, as that is the best place for it.
Aug 2008
- Comments - Discussion about comments, the amount on the issue of global warming. Decided to keep current guidlines and to apply them to compartmentalise the posts, so keep comments about if global warming is happening on threads about is global warming is happening, and keep other stories that are linked for discussion of those stories and not allow the same debate to dominate all threads.
- Banned User - The banned user (clive hammond) as per the guidlines, agreed is unbanned. S. to see if we can inform him of decision. If breaks guidlines again, will be banned again.
- Video - Discussion about getting better video tech on the site. Agreed best to allow people to post video to the site. Some said would be an advantage to allow YouTube? (and similar) to be cross posted - but we need to look at privacy issues. Not a problem to get more server space/bandwidth. Tech meeting on the 26th to go into this further. N. to research the privacy issues of allowing YouTube? to be embedded. S. to ask UK for feeback on solutions to embedding video.
- Anarchist Bookfair - S. & T. to do talk/discussion on media democracy at event. S. to give a bit of a talk about media at climate camp too.
- Open Source Journalism - discussion about ways of making articles on the site better and ways of doing this. Floated idea of an 'open source journbalism' group to further this.
June 2008
- Disciplinary procedures/implementation agree that the calendar month is from the first hiding of a comment. Hidden posts for disruption, respect and/or racism, sexism etc. (Not off-topic). J will have a think about a de-banning procedure that we can apply.
- Hidden Articles transparency
- Organise a tech meeting to talk about stuff to those interested in the tech.
- Recruitment campaign to link to meeting about tech issues.
- Is there are non-tech option? Email developers.
- Organise osalait session and editorial session.
- Expansion report - Offline and Indycycle summaries Hard Copy: Been a success so far, but can be made better! Need de-brief meeting (suggested 7/7/08). OK to do article. K to send PDF of article & will create static page. Need to have a think about paying for this ongoing as has cost £270, which we can afford, but not on a quarterly basis. Need to do a fund raising page. Indycycle is a success – good coverage on launch. Needs more ongoing plugging. Plan to do a flyer about it. Suggested to look at front page design to make more prominent; e.g. swap regions for indycycle? Need to do ongoing support for the project.
- Indymedia UK meeting report Is moving on from controversy. Main issues are anti-Semitism, also on what to do with 911 stuff. Suggested to think about our positions on these while we don't have much pressure about it. If comes up, will refer to next meeting to discuss. Links to meeting notes: https://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/private/imc-bristol/2008-June/0602-o6.html
- Hacktion lab report (assuming someone's able to go along) Was good, very techy. Workshop on RSS feeds and aggregating them. Could look at RSS feeds about/from bristol into a page on the site? (we have talked about similar ideas before) Impressed as stuff done for climate camp and easy to put in tech/IT systems for events.
- Consolidating recent expansion/future directions Suggested to have the summer to think about future directions, community stuff, non-news-led content and so forth. (Link to old future directions: ) and more....
- AoB
as follows:
-
- Proposed Dispute Process (for internal BIMC disputes)
- Start: An article/issue is published/arises and is deadlocked over what status it should be. It then goes to disputed status if blocked (not via stand-aside) as to what should/should not happen to the article/issue. At this point the article moves into 'disputed' status (statement on the page to say it is disputed): No more emails to list at this point onwards. Lists/Individuals involved to be told of this point and if anyone still emails about it, they can be blocked. Dates for all events in process and that it is in process should be added to disputed page. Once process starts, for voice to count need to agree to abide by the process.
- Next stage is Mediation (prefer to use, in order; meetings, phone/skype, irc chat, email). 1 week to organise and and 1 week to mediate. Mediator is somebody from within the collective agreed by both sides.
- Mediator as arbitrator If there is an mediator, both sides can option that they can be the arbitrator and make a decision. 1 week max to do so.
- From here consensus minus one of those on the list involved who can participate can decide the outcome. At this point onwards those who can participate in a decision – need to be a member of a collective or vouched for by a collective or a known contributor.
- Forced arbitration – go to global resolve list, as for an arbitrator who then decides. And we all stick to it.
April 2008 (BIMC Meeting 21/04/08)
Indycycle/FreeCycle Idea – Thought it looked great. Debate as to how/what is needed to launch it with. Suggested to add photo upload, though this might not be ready. Suggested a white background like the IMC site, suggest drop down boxes for new entries for Offered or Wanted and for Item or Service. Need to write terms & conditions, help guide and plans for launch. (links You can see the details on the wiki page here
https://docs.indymedia.org/view/Local/BimcFuture#Freecycle_style_page A module for the BIMC homepage has been developed that would look something like the calendar listing. It would link to a page that might
look like this:
http://www.carfree.org.uk/indycycle )
knowledge exchange – Talked about not keen on BIMC going for funding itself. Great idea to offer people traning. Suggested Lee talk to Sy as both are thinking similar things with event and host independent event and invite media groups to it? (re: SW Independent Media meetup day idea )
Offline – Looking good, lots of great ideas. Next meeting is 30th 7pm Folk House.
UK IMC Meeting – In London on 17/18th
http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Local/UkNetworkMeeting2008London
Who is up for going? Agreed that BIMC would pay costs of those attending, as last time.
Tech Issues – Lee said had mate who would help with tech side. Lee and Crash to chat about this.
Wiki/Editorial Training – Editorial 6pm, Wiki 6.30pm at the Watershed before the offline meeting on 30th April!
referencing promoted newswire – Talked about issue of 'trust' that a newspaper can say 'sources say' and it is (sometimes) trusted. What about IMCs? Could there be a method of validating sources? If so are there legal implications? Ideas that emerged, to look at UK IMCs
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/ 'chosen' article (have a box round them in newswire) and look at adding a Sources page where user are encouraged to reference article properly. Also idea for a Freedom of Information service, so people can give us an application and the money and we submit it on their behalf and post the docs received to the site. We can add text and link to publish and help pages to encourage users to reference sources more.
We ran out of time for:
- Mike's Hacktivism conference
- Moderation issues - how tightly are we going to enforce the new temp banning guidelines for 5 posts which breach the respect guideline, if we stick to it rigidly several users would now be on a temporary ban...
Notes:
'journalistic' training at BIMC
People have mentioned the possibility of offering more 'journalistic'
training at BIMC. I have also been pondering how to call the
government's bluff over 'knowledge exchange' in higher education (i.e.
they say it is about 'public', but it is really about commercialising
education). There is a lot of money around for 'knowledge exchange', and
I would like to divert some of this to support BIMC's expansion,
particularly in things like training and development. As some of you
know, UWE (where I work) has Mediawise.org.uk and we have a fair few
investigative journalists attached to my department. We are also being
pressured to run short courses. The main question for me is, How I could
do this without UWE trying to make any claims, and for BIMC is, Do we
want to go that route? I will approach my institution pending our
discussion just to see what the options are. I was thinking of running
workshops/short courses in A. investigative journalism and B. freedom of
information law.
references/trust
I have only chatted to one or two people about this, largely because I know that it a controversial proposal: There is often a problem of trust with such projects as BIMC (and internet media more generally). There is also the ever-present question of Can an open platform be regarded as journalism (i.e. when it is lacking journalistic processes)? Well, I was wondering whether it'd be an idea to
-
- Add a paragraph to the 'Publish a News Story' page (below editorial policy) encouraging people to make references and use links so that their stories are more credible. I wonder whether at the same time we could make it easier to add in-text links
- (this is the controversial bit) somehow create a category of news story in which evidence has been verified by the collective. This way we can get more involved in content (a bit like the UK features list), by helping people verify claims made with proper sourcing. I don't mean we should give them priority or anything else, just a mark on the article saying that the story has been verified? I know that it might seem against the spirit of Indy, but I am sure we can find a way to do it without contravening the letter or spirit of Indy.
February 2008 (BIMC Meeting 18/02/08)
Update from UK IMC meeting
- In comparision to other problems facing other IMCs; we're doing ok!
- Very cool tech stuff for video/audio sharing and streaming. (insert link)
- Another meeting in 2 months in London.
- Bristol with not be an 'other IMC' and will be on the list properly.
- UK IMC is also looking to syndicate our news on thier site.
- Talk of doing blogs and agregating them. Discussed at the meeting. Issue that if we agregate blogs are we giving tacit approval to? Idea to use BIMC as a portal to use for content. What about a script-bot to add the information? Need to look at what is possible and what we have the resources to do!
Legal Page
Passed with amendment: Suggested that we email a copy of the original text to the list before editing the article.
LEGAL PROPOSAL
Suggesting that we hide any article of concern, discuss it, if we
judge so then we edit out any sentences that may have incitement
and then post the following text;
"Note: This article has had a portion removed as some may consider
the edited parts as a form of incitement – please see our legal
page."
Which links to a new legal page that says;
"Note: A few articles may have had a portion removed as some may
consider the edited parts as a form of incitement. This is always
indicated as such on the article. BIMC is committed to media
democracy; this means that you may read the words of people who
claim to do things you don't agree with. BIMC is committed to
maintaining the Bristol Indymedia site as an outlet for open news
in the South West.
It is also of note that Bristol Indymedia only knows the
information that a user chooses to provide with a post. We do not
keep any IP data on users. This fact was confirmed at a meeting
24th September 2007 where representatives of British Transport
police accepted that following the investigation and, contrary to
information given to the police at the time by an informant, the
position of Bristol Indymedia was correct in that we did not have
the IP data the police were seeking."
We also then edit the guidelines to add that we reserve the right
to edit what may be considered incitement out of an article, into
the guidelines.
New Site bugs & issues
Can we get a new username and password for editing settings?
New volunteer Offer to sort finances out
Offer to do the finances, passed. Report finances back to group and on wiki. Role is to keep the records and track the money and to an extent champion the fiances and fundraising of the site.
bimc offline
we already do & distribute flyers for film nights. Can this be expanded to a newsletter?
May look at the DTP of a proper template?
A double-sided A4 newsletter that proposes events and re-prints a couple of good stories quarterly.
Is this the right direction to do in when other news is going on-line? If we can't keep this going and it stops it may create a bad impression; so if we do it, it needs to be done properly & thought through.
Firm-up
a proposal of what is needed, how long it will take, resources needed etc & WHY we are doing it!
Joining meeting number
Suggested to keep it the way it is. OK to get people involved before, but don't get admin rights or on email list until 3 meetings; but use discression of sensitive things.
Proposed Banning Procedure:
Passed with amendment: Add racism etc. into reasons to ban.
BANNING USERNAMES
Moderating abusive comments takes a considerable amount of time and energy from the project. If a username breaches the discrimination and/or respect guideline 5 times in 1 month they are temporarily banned. This generally covers comments which are abusive, and not comments which are hidden for being off-topic. However, repeatedly posting off-topic material after warnings have been issued to stay on-topic, may also result in a ban on the discretion of the collective. An Indymedia volunteer will try to email/post a comment warning the user prior to a ban. Banned users may contact the collective to appeal this or use our grievance procedure if they feel unfairly treated.
BANNING PROCEDURE
-
- A temporary ban is initiated. The individual is contacted where possible informing them of this. The ban is lifted at the next meeting if the individual displays a willingness to abide by guidelines.
- If the individual cannot be contacted directly, then a temporary ban is automatically lifted at the next meeting, if disruption abates in the intervening period.
- A permanent ban is implemented if further disruption occurs after lifting a temporary ban, or if the individual does not display a willingness to abide by guidelines after being informed of the temporary ban.
-
December 2007 (BIMC Meeting 17/12/07)
Explanation of events in November by David Rose. Agreed to leave the sitation with no action on either side. He may return to meeting as an observer, starting as if it was his first meeting.
- New site launch - mail the temporary site to supporters. Launch date agreed at 6 Feb at Cube film night
- Bytemark intervention - ask them to cc imc-bristol list as well as hushmail. Tech group to develop contingency plans for potential 'worst-case scenario'
- Banning guidelines - arrive the action taken and approve proposed guidelines for banning formally.
- Film nights 2008 programme. Starts on 14th Jan with Moazzam Begg talk
- New member is eligible to join the collective - new member ratified and welcomed
- Money - a report on the finances of the collective over 2008 - we are £245 down on previous year's balance, mainly due to increased film night costs
- IMC gathering Feb 2008: Restructuring the UK Regions/Is there a Future for Indymedia? - UKIMC to be contacted to get Bristol back into the UK listing, and out of 'Other' category. Two members expressed interest in Nottingham meeting 9-10 Feb
- SW Media Gathering? - ideas for this to be reflected upon on imc-bristol list.
October 07 (BIMC Meeting 15/10/07)
Promotion of film nights on YouTube
- Person expressing a contrary viewpoint not present at meeting -- no apologies sent
- The stated aim is to bring users from YouTube to BIMC, not the other way round;
- other anticapitalist groups etc already use it
- use of YouTube will continue
- look at a notification when users leave the site informing that BIMC not responsible for content - perhaps on front page features etc
- new site has ability to post video anyway [
note: this does not yet appear to have been implemented (same for PDFs, etc ]
- consider a Creative Commons video provider, eg Blip TV
Site Upgrade
- nearing completion. Film page requires work, as does uploads.
- Tom to post list of things to test onto imc-bristol-tech
- add a region: southwest general
- press release needs final checking [
where is it? Can a link be posted here? ]
- Sport discussed as a potential new topic. Some debate as to whether this detract from the original purpose of the site.
Diversity, Equality and Sustainability
- refer to JV's earlier discussions regarding the 'consumerist' viewpoint of many users. Need a strategy for being more inclusive in getting people involved. Pub 'atmosphere' problem. Need a more 'personal' approach and a clear guide for people to get involved.
- Next place a notice on the table stating who we are.
- When potential new IMCvols contact us, invite to the film nights rather than meetings.
- Move the contact form to the top of the contact form
- look at getting new t-shirts
Legal update
- The current legal situation was discussed and it was agreed that a new letter would be sent to the police regarding the events of June 2005.
Outreach email list
- this list will be used for outreach. Notifications of hidden articles will be redirected to a new list, imc-bristol-announce
August
- 'Creative' Newswire
- New site system update.
- Cube Outreach update.
June 07 (BIMC Meeting 19/6/07)
New Site
Next stage is a design meeting to implement the new logo and create the look. This will need to be with a PC and a date has been suggested of the 26th June. Need to confirm this by chatting to tech people. Need to look at the list of bug fixes/changes made to existing site to see what needs to be carried over.
Hiding Policy
Suggested to re-iterate what the existing policy is to clarify it: understanding at the meeting was that the policy is that when you hide you put notes in related to why the action has been taken and tick the box to CC a copy to the outreach list. We can delete, but only in the case of obvious spam with dodgy links etc.
Calendar
Looking at this it is clear it is the most posted to aspect of the site – the number of calendar posts out-strips the articles and its use has grown. It was suggested that we look to add new fields to the calendar posting section to guide people into providing more info, e.g. Stat time, location and son on. Also re-iterated that new site should have expanded calendar functionality.
Film Nights/Cube
As noted before, the cost of film nights has gone up to £60 from £30. We can still make a profit (which goes into running the site) but it is harder to do so now. We are looking to sell t-shirts (see below) and badges to help raise more money at events. So far the badges have been very popular. There is also now a facebook group for promoting indymedia events and other events from the calendar and more social-networking possibilities are being explored.
T-shirts
Kebele screen printing process was very good. We have a screen done now. Suggested that we get t-shirts from charity shops to print onto, so recycling them and ensuring that we are not putting money into dodgy sweatshop products. Also suggested people could get imc t-shirts cheap by binging us an unwanted blank t-shirt that we can print to. The t-shirt wil have the words 'Question Everything' and 'www.bristol.indymedia.org' on the front and the new logo on the back.
New Member
We welcome a new member, I., to the group and he will be added to the emailing list. He has also volunteered to take over the email work Nick has been doing so well. A big thanks to Nick for his help and we wish him well in his travels!
PayPal
It has been proposed to add a PayPal component to the site so people can buy t-shirts, badges and pledge a subscription per-month or donate to us. IMC New York use paypal; what do tohers think? If we did this it was suggested that we add a disclaimer that we don't endorse paypal (or whoever we use) and they (but not us) may collect privacy data.
Farm Fair
Went really well. We made a profit of around £25 from badges, donations etc. About half the people we spoke to did not know of us, but were interested. About half did know and like the site. All the comments we had were positive to what BIMC is doing (but...see below...) Ideas for other events we could do welcome. St.Pauls, Redland and Easton events under consideration.
Comments
Coming out of the Farm Fair (as well as other outreach, such as the film nights) we have got lots of feedback on comments on the site. Some people liked the comments and enjoyed reading the debates. Some people disliked it and said it put them off reading and posting to the site. What is of concern is that some people have expressed the view they are put off posting news articles to the site because of the comments. While the respect guidelines have mitigated it to an extent, at the meeting the view was expressed that people still pushed at the edge of the guidelines. This also means an increased workload for us. It has been suggested that we put some time into reflecting on the comments and the system we use. Here are some ideas and views (from the meeting and from outreach);
- comments add little to the site regarding news and information
- the same few people dominate the comments
- comments are good a reason to come to the site
- comments allow people to add more information to an article
- comments have produced some good debates
- comments are a platform to people to consistently attack people/groups/views they don't like so repeating the same points over and over.
- it takes less effort to attack via a comment than writing a full article, so shifts the balance in the debate away from articles
- purpose of the site is news not debate and there are a number of good local bulletin boards available for people to debate on
- the diversity of comments is a reflection of the success of the site in attracting a wider audience
Proposed things that could be done;
- Keep things as they are
- Make comments optional, so when you post an article, you get the choice to allow comments or not.
- Use a 'threshold system' where comments are rated (see slashdot.org – this would be a fair amount of tech development!)
- increase the time delay on comments appearing
- Get rid of comments all together – if people want to respond to an article, they need to write their own counter-view as an article.
(There is some info from the alt media gathering in Brighton to add to this – they had been debating the same thing.) It is proposed to turn this (and your feedback) into an article to post on the site and see what is said.
April 07
Meeting Minutes need to be posted here!
Feb 07
Meeting Minutes, 19th Feb 2007
1.) FUTURE DIRECTIONS
The programme of work for 2007 was agreed as below.
- Fix the high priority bugs:
- Spam filter on contact form
- View latest comments link to pages showing comments
- Move to Oscailt version 3.0
- Transfer the modifications made on version 2.x to version 3.0, and
- Run site as mirror
2.) Oscailt 3
Project ongoing on mirror. To be transferred to a shared workspace for further development. Would like to keep in IMC Ireland style, but invite comments as to colours, fonts etc.
3.) Calendar
Discussed how to give calendar greater prominence. Propose up to 7 days worth of boxes containing events at top of Feature Wire.
4.) BIMC Guidelines
International newswire - still not seen as a priority issue. A similar facility will be available with the development of blogs.
Discussion about potential conflict between promoting "social, environmental and economic justice" and "covering issues not covered by the mainstream". Agreed that the former is a primary purpose of IMCs, with the latter subservient to this aim.
5.) IMC Vols
There is currently a pressing need to get more people actively trained in doing Front Pages, as one collective member who was doing a sizeable proportion of Front Pages, has currently withdrawn from doing so.
Consider there may be significant opportunity to get students of journalism involved in the project, as could be valuable for individual and for BIMC. Will approach key individuals to determine interest.
6.) Other issues
- Pre-2007 minutes split off as separate archives (completed)
- Account statements to be provided regularly to collective.
Meeting notes from:
to top
