Standing Agreements
Meeting standing agreements by date
General meeting 9.6.04
Censure of CAT
We demand Andy give us the names of the "people" who told him to change the site root password in 2003. We were told it was only one person. Lying on fundamental security matters by our members should be exposed. We believe Andy has a duty under CAT's charter to disclose the emails he has at hand and acted on as if they were official requests from BIMC. We want CAT to justify its actions in reference to its chartered requirements of "only using the power of the system administration account to look at or disturb people's private files and activities where absolutely necessary" and "communicating lots to let people know what is happening with the system". As users of CAT's services we depended on their chartered commitments. We acknowledge that Andy says they are private emails, so we only demand the portions of those emails (and the senders name) that Andy thought authorized him to act. We condemn CAT for failing to do so, so far, and will consequently be warning other groups that CAT hosts about Andy's abuse of power (to take sides for friends we have been told). We will not proceed with this warning if we get the information requested within 2 weeks. We see outing CAT as a community care duty required of any model organization. We thank Andy for not abusing his role again, despite a recent private request.
Censure of Oceania
- We believe Oceania they took sides by intervening at the request of a couple of disgruntled BIMC members. Oceania ignored the existing ongoing BIMC process that they were informed about before the conference. There was no notice of the conference decision making meeting which resulted in a group expulsion [delisting] clause. Groups shouldn't do that to an individual let alone another group. We will be pursuing a clear intervention protocol for conflict resolution with a communication process for other Oceania IMCs on the global process and global communications lists.
- Oceania doesn't have any authority over us because we never got a formal proposal to cede administrative power to them. A "hope" to create "regional" "decision making structures" without the word proposal in the subject is woefully inadequate. Oceania should ensure its member groups get foundation empowerment proposals clearly titled and sent to each member group's main decision making list. We believe Oceania should bear the responsibility for failing to verifying the mandates it is acting within. Oceania didn't even notice we hadn't joined.
- We think Oceania should pay for most of the BIMC mediators cost out of their funds they budgeted for this purpose. Oceania insisted on the mediation at KimK?'s intervention request but KimK? quickly reneged on all the resulting agreements. Consequently Oceania wasted the mediators time. BIMC would have taken longer and found a cheaper mediator. We suggest BIMC pays $50 and Oceania should pay $150.
- The Oceania list "personally attack and insult other members of the list that they be barred" policy, lacks neutral moderators and clearly applied standards.
- No-one who was at the conference BIMC meeting will be regarded as neutral in their dealings with BIMC unless they apologise and suggest reparations, or if they public ally stood aside during the meeting. Consequently we require an attendance list from that meeting, (from memory is acceptable) to meet Oceania's indymedia transparency requirements.
Editorial Meeting 8/11/03
post all editorial minutes and proposals passed on the ed list to the open general list. [note decisions can't be made on the ed list or at ed meetings for the whole IMC. 3 weeks notice is required to change that at a 1/4ly meeting - I am resubmitting those soon]
if we decide somebody’s behavior is intolerable to the group the ed collective can refuse to work with them.
Conflict management Protocol
In conflict, directly or as an ally, I will
- treat other members with respect.
- Find support for them if they feel threatened.
- minimize rifts by reinforcing common ground and not taking sides
- Seek help with conflict management before escalation makes it unbearable.
- attempt constructive criticism
- not exaggerate, generalize or characterize, instead speak from experience, giving intentions the benefit of the doubt.
- not impugn motivation or intended emotional affect. Not state anything in dispute as factual unless claiming lies. [Facts are indisputable information.] Instead say “I assume…” and "I feel… when.." not "You make me feel.."
- answer all questions about my role in a controversy [reconciliation] especially when I break agreements.
- express any regrets/apologies to offended parties or in public. Explaining what I regretted doing and why, suggesting useful reparations.
In conflict, directly or as an ally [all agreeing to stop, at any stage], together we will
- minimize rifts by reinforcing common ground and not taking sides
- encourage early conflict resolution and later mediation, providing handouts and locating mediators.
- delegate investigation of accusations of abuse ASAP [comparing these to agreements] in order to present a detailed background of the claims and counter claims. The investigator helps the disputants develop an agreed statement for the group and bases for minority reports.
- parties agree on a conciliator [or the group appoints one if necessary] who makes judgments and suggestions to reconcile the group and the disputants.
- investigator and conciliator reports may be submitted by any party to a regular meeting, which can demand actions.
- a special resolution with a ¾ vote of those present can expel a member.
- The collective should aim to have the investigation and conciliation reports tabled with resulting decisions [voted on if necessary] within 3 months, unless all disputants agree to defer. All information gathered by the investigation and conciliation is private unless it is considered proof beyond reasonable doubt by the investigator or conciliator of unethical behaviour, and warrants release. (ammended 7.9.04)
- people not co-operating with the investigation shall not further repeat any of the accusations or counter accusations upon possible penalty of their membership being reviewed [expulsion procedure].
When a dispute is with most of the group a mediation session may be needed with a group advocate. This gives equal time to both [not each] disputants to minimize repetition from aggravation. The group then queries and further mandates its advocate who returns to another CR session and so on.
Content Filtering
Added no personal adds [presumably to notifiable removals]
23/9/03 General meeting
any elist proposals need a seconder. If accepted, the proposal should be followed up with an announcement email. If objected, the proposal should be sent to a meeting. [presumably the 5 day objection period is after seconded]
Ed collective 10/5/03
Site redesign points
- Problem with the image being too small and poor quality.Need a better dugong. Have a link to an indymedia page explaining the dugong. Possibly change to cover different endangered species around Brisbane. A role the editors should research.
- the Print button is confusing, as is suggests a printing page and not Indymedia Print.
- Make Brisbane site width a 'percentage' like Melbourne so that it always fits the page, without the bottom scroll bar.
- Include a 'next story' and 'previous story' link at the bottom of each particular newswire story, so that do not have to go back to the newswire to get to the next story.
- We want to control the sub-domain name brisbane.indymedia.org.au. Currently Catalyst own the name. Want to set up own email addresses.
- Passwords have been changed, should make this automatic and emailed to editors.
16/2/03 General meeting
indymedia zine needs an Ed policy explaining how priorities are set and what the limits are. Probably just its Ed membership criteria would do.
Resourcer minutes 10/2/03
put the "feed the Cat link on our site".
Structure, Names and meetings
IMC-brisbane list to become the Brisbane Independent Media Alliance list [and used by the federation]. The list will be asked to define the Alliance. The question being "why do we support each other?".
Resourcer will use the Space list, Site will use the Ed list. Tech will use whichever list is relevant for the issue. Kill Your TV decided to leave the federation but stay in the Alliance.
Brisbane Independant Media Alliance
-never meets [shares imc-brisbane list]
informal membership - reps can report to Federation & Resourcer
- New Babylon Nights
- BLTF [own list]
- Open Access Media Inc [own list]
- Independant journos
- Creative Activism [own list]
- Kill Your TV [KYTV list]
- Brisbane Indymedia Federation
Brisbane Indymedia Federation
meets 1/4ly, [Imc-brisbane list]
- Indymedia site [ed list]
- Brisbane Indymedia Times [never started]
- Audio/radio/news? [never started]
- Active/events? [never started]
- Resourcer [space list]
[Kimci's note – the book library subgroups of Resourcer is meeting separately]
Resourcer
- meets fortnightly
- Independent Media Centre
- Fundraising
- Equipment library
- Library
20/1/03 General Meeting
All sub-groups are responsible to the Network to maintain transparency, work towards the shared goal and aims, and report back on work done on sub-group projects.
Brisbane Indymedia [federation] is primarily concerned with the Indymedia website. This includes editorial and technical issues, as well as promotional material, such as the production of t-shirts, stickers, zines and Waking Up the Nation.
Indymedia Resourcing group - to provide resources to support other activists in the Media Network and the general public to produce, distribute and access alternative forms of media.
Incorporation Management Committee [OAM Inc].. will be solely concerned with dealing with grant money.
20/3/02 General Meeting
decided on a 24hr turnaround on decisions to pull or not. [B4 full editorial policy- not currently used - presumably redundant]
13/3/02 General Meeting
Bank account signatories - Kim Cosmos, Linda Rose, Asger Strodl or Barry Saunders
illegal posts will be 'hidden', we will flag explicitly where these post can be accessed.
20/2/02 General Meeting
"we have a quorum (which we decided would be 4)"
Elist decisions [See 23/9/03 decision below]
Proposed Kimci 3/1/04, seconded Shaun 4/3/04, confirmed 9/3/04]
- We look at how to backup the site for safety during maintenance and to practice on during development.
- Adam & Kimci get a SSH maintenance password after site backup [not needed for development until change over time]
- We have a site redesign workshop to flesh out development possibilities and allocate the work
- We tell CAT not to change passwords without receiving minutes to that effect or a copy of the proposal, seconder and verification 5 days later.
- We ask CAT to change the lost tech list password and give it to Kimci.
- We subscribe non ed members to the list
- the ed collective be instructed to develop a policy on joining and expulsion from that self managed [not autonomous] subgroup
proposed Shaun 4/3/04, seconded Kimci 4/3/04, confirmed 9/3/04
If we really want to have a meeting we could do it online in a chat room, that's my proposal. Scrap the face to face ed-meetings. [note 4 member quorum]
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KimCi - 23 Jul 2004
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KimCi - 18 Aug 2004 Moved
KimK?'s objections to this site to a linked page
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KimCi - 07 Sep 2004 Added minutes link for minutes post 3.7.04
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