embryo of a letter for application of funds for Summercamp

This summer Indymedia plan for a five day meeting to discuss things that has come up when big events has been covered by Indymedia. Since there are a growing number of new Indymedia Centres both in the old East Bloc countries of Europe, but also in Africa and the Middle East there is a need for the sharing of experience and skills among the people involved. Since Indymedia is an international network there are problems of translation, differences in ways people work locally, and not the least problems concerning translations.

Workshops:

• dispatch system
• translation tool
• criteria for topic sites and other new projects
• outreach: how to help setting up new IMCs?
• How to facilitate a meeting? (face-to-face, IRC)
• Registering domains: is there a safe way to deal with the informal hierachy between the domain owner, the techies and the rest?
• Setting up a system for a more coherent exchange and translation of videos
• audio and video streaming
• audio and video software
• video editing, filming
• feature and article writing / creative-writing
• basic html
• facilitation/moderation of face-to-face and online meetings
• use of twiki and irc
• pgp/gpg
• learning imc-software technics and administration (i.e mir)

Discussion topics:

• the present and future of Indymedia as such
• why is network communication so slow in Indymedia?
• why do people think they need technical knowledge to join Indymedia
• gender issues: why does Indymedia draw so few women?
• spam filtering, censorship and open publishing

History:

(http://indymedia.org/en/static/about.shtml)

Indymedia.org is a network of independent grassroots journalists. It started as an attempt to get the alterglobalisation movement's ideas across the great divide of the "free" press. From the start in Seattle in 1999 it has grown and is there is now over a hundred Indymedia Centres across the globe. A big part of the work of the Indymedia network is setting up Indymedia Centres in the global south.

-- KjellVanerbo - 21 Mar 2004