IMC Oceania Network Conference proposed process for resolving the Brisbane dispute

The text below was sent to the CAT collective (Sydney). The email is in the 'catkore' CAT collective email archive: Catkore Brisbane Indymedia Crisis - IMC Oceania Network proposal - for Cat@lyst discussion - dated Sun Jul 18 20:59:13 2004.

The process was concensed upon by Sun Jul 25 - see: catkore and imc-oceania lists for the final email.

It was then posted to various oceania and global lists, as per the schedule outlined on BrisCrisisProcess. It has also been posted to http://translations.indymedia.org with a request for translations into French and Spanish, and any other languages people can do.

• Espanol

Oceania Network Process for Brisbane resolution - original text

The IMC-Oceania Network has been made aware of the situation in the
Brisbane Indymedia collective through a number of different paths: emails
which have been sent to the imc-oceania list from individuals who have
been involved; the Cat@lyst collective, of Sydney, who presently host the
Brisbane Indymedia site; and also from a verbal report from a former
member of the Brisbane collective to the IMC Oceania conference which
occurred in Melbourne this weekend.

In particular, Cat@lyst has asked the Oceania Network for guidance as they
have been unable to clearly identify a functioning collective in Brisbane
with whom to work.

Oceania does not wish to take sides in the internal dispute, but
recognises the need for an open, functional, democratic collective for the
Brisbane site.

As a consequence, the IMC-Oceania Network Conference has come up with the
following suggestions to help resolve the conflict. We have, in the
preparation of this document, taken into consideration the IMC Membership
Criteria and the Principles of Unity, as documented on the wiki pages.

Suggestions:

Time frame: 6 weeks

TARGET: there shall be a publically documented open meeting held by the
Brisbane collective. Each of the main factions involved should agree on
the minutes of that meeting and should advise the IMC-Oceania list. The
minutes should identify members of the collective and who should have
responsibility for editorial and tech passwords.

SITE MANAGEMENT: during the time up to which that meeting is held, the
Oceania network will provide site administration for Brisbane in order to
maintain a functioning website for the wider community.
We suggest that Cat@lyst provide IMC-Oceania with the passwords required
to do this.

A feature will be put up on the site explaining that the site is being
temporarily administered by IMC-Oceania network 'care-takers' pending
resolution of the current difficulties within Brisbane Indymedia
collective. A contact email will be provided for proposed new features.

MEDIATION: should the IMC Brisbane collective be interested in pursuing
independent, skilled mediation, the IMC-Oceania network would be willing
to provide resources in order to facilitate this.



WHAT IF... at the end of six weeks, there is no functional collective?

The IMC-Oceania network would recommend to the Global Indymedia network that

- the Brisbane Indymedia site will be frozen, with the open publishing
feature disabled.

- Brisbane Indymedia will be removed from the international indymedia
"cities list."

- The website will be temporarily archived under an indymedia.org.au
domain name.

- a feature will be placed at the top of the site to explain what has
happened and why

- the Oceania network offers to support the Brisbane activist community in
convening a meeting to form a new, functional Indymedia collective.

- any new collective formed at this time would have to go through the
new-imc process.

- We view this as a positive process in which new people can learn about
the Indymedia network and learn from past experiences.



WHAT IF.... there is no new collective in sight?

- the IMC-Oceania network recommends that the Brisbane Indymedia site be
archived. A holding page should be put in place stating that the site is
closed and providing the web address of the archive.


IMC Oceania Network Conference concensus,
18 July 2004

-- AndyCat - 19 July 2004
-- GarconDuMonde - 21 Jul 2004
-- PaulWise - 23 Jul 2004
-- GarconDuMonde - 23 Jul 2004 - moved text to new page
-- GarconDuMonde - 26 Jul 2004 - removed topic lock as this proposal has now been widely disseminated in it's original format, hence should be protected from changes, now. this is also to enable people to post translations (links to french and spanish started).
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