Notes from meeting on 2 February 2011

1. Welcome and introduction to Oxford IMC

People were welcomed, and introduced.

2. Set agenda

The agenda was set.

3. Review of action points from last meeting

• C make a video tutorial - Done
• M self promo feature - Waiting
• M new CMS proposal - Superseded by CMS meeting
• M will forward Yossarian's response to hyperactive questions - Done
• J will get in touch with Save TCP and help them to get stuff together - Superseded
• All have a think about Email2newswire - Waiting
• All prepare pitches for competing CMSes for 19 Jan CMS meeting - Done

4. New features

• Monthly round up - enough variety to write one.
• Vodafone - prob a story that's gone.
• Chris Cole - G will follow up with possible interview.

There was a conversation on feature guidelines.

5. Personal attack comments & posts

Agreed to add this to the Ox IMC editorial guidelines: "Personal attack: Articles and/or comments that contain abusive language against other activists or site users. Please make your point without resorting to personal abuse."

6. Activist Networking Day

Such a day will happen, probably on 27 March in East Ox community centre. Ox IMC peeps might want to do a workshop? Left open.

Will Ox IMC publicly support the event? Yes!

7. Live features

• Prototype shown. Process for covering a live event was agreed:
• Post suggestion to editorial list with 24 hour objection limit (as per norm)
• Assuming no objections, do the feature on the ox4 server. A feature will be created on Mir with a 'click here' for live coverage.
• For secret squirrel events that cannot be put on the editorial list before the happen, the newswire (not feature) will be used to create a link to the live page. Once event goes live, a message will be put on the editorial list.

M & G agreed to work on making live features happen.

8. What CMS?

Feedback from the CMS meeting in Jan was that Hyperactive & Drupal were favoured for more investigation. Mir is still there as the 'do nothing' option. Most people supported Drupal, and that's where we will put our energy for the moment, but with a view that we are not 100% committed to it. Noted that if we move away from Mir we will need to consider issues such as server requirements and costs.

Agreed that:

• J will ask for an oxford tech email list
• A tech working group will convene to take CMS (and other tech issues) forward.

Both of these were an attempt to avoid the possibility of tech issues overwhelming the standard IMC meeting.

9. The "Gateway 303" Schnews article and Oxford IMC

G agreed to draft an article and put it around the list. Article to make sense to techs and non-techs. Article will only be about IP logging, not 303.

10. Web x.y

Delayed until next meeting

11. Events

Delayed until next meeting

12. Editorial Meetings / Local Groups Strategy Meetings

Suggestion that there be a separate meeting for people only / mainly interested in creating content (i.e. maybe less 'political' and non-tech) to encourage more people to get involved in Ox IMC. Agreed if somebody wants to take it forward.

We could perhaps organise an open discussion with local groups on co-ordinated content and reporting, not just Indymedia Oxford-led? Suggested this might fit into the Activist Networking Day. M to draft a short paragraph about the idea.

13. IMC Fork / Mayday new application

Ox IMC agreed to endorse the new Mayday collective's application to be an independent IMC.

14. Sheffield new IMC application

Ox IMC agreed to endorse the Sheffield collective's application to be an independent IMC.

15. Next Meeting

Thursday 3 March (NB: Not Wednesday)

16. Those that went to the pub afterwards agreed that:

• Drupal is a framework, not a CMS
• Windows is rubbish.

-- PenGuin - 11 Feb 2011