Meeting Minutes 10.01.10

Northern Indy Media. Minutes – 10.01.10
Present – JD, JF, M, JW, SRL & PTG.

Welcoming banter ensues.
Introductions.

Outstanding action points from last minutes.
JF & MR to write wording of ‘moderation discussions’

PTG to fix typos in minutes and add them to list.

JD has tweaked feeds and helped Manc IMC- haven’t folded but are willing to join Northern IMC if their autonomous group does have to stop.

No responses from Sheffield and Manc IMC after M invited to meeting today.

General agreement that it would be good to meet Manc IMC face to face.

Action point- send an iformal letter to Manc IMC saying that we would really like to come and have a N.IMC meeting over there. – JD actioned.

Need to sort aggregating N.IMC content into UK IMC so that people don’t have to do it twice.

M explains some of the issues around copyright.
A variety of ways that copyright material can be licensed- default is ‘all rights reserved’. Creative Commons allows you to put a license on something with conditions and different licenses. The most commonly used one ‘Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike V2 UK’ is what N.IMC already uses. Options- we make all material on N. IMC automatically agree to this license. We give people a drop down list of different licenses. M prefers the former- simpler and core to the non-commercial and sharing ethos of N.IMC.
JF thinks that we should definitely avoid ‘all rights reserved’ but that allowing people to use other licenses now and again might be useful.
JD thinks some small print in editorial guidelines that people can add to certain things might solve the problem.

SUMMARY – everything should be Creative Commons ANCSA V2 UK (phew!) but that people can still specify different licenses for certain things.

(M remembers this a bit differently: that we agreed for the zines, default would be by-nc-sa, with an option to change to by-sa, but only if we are the first publisher, otherwise we just inherit whatever license statement is on the zine; for everything else, default would be by-sa, with an option to change to by-nc-sa. But I could be wrong. Anyone else have a memory of this?)

button on publish page that agrees to the editorial guidelines. – JD actioned.
Add to editorial guidelines. – M actioned.

Recent Stories- NUJ will try and push through possible membership of NUJ for N.IMC contributors. Press cards would be useful.

Bank Account – Either in collaboration with 1in12 Library Collective? Or a new Tech Collective?

New 1in12 Jukebox can play TV feeds of IMC stuff. Woop.

JD suggests making Hacktion Lab regular thing, with more forward planning.
Did lots of work on distributive databases with made a huge difference at COP15. Fixed a lot of bugs on Hyperactive. Summer one will be more about beginners and workshops. Winter will be more techy and focused. Plan in advance!

Problem with Marvin – JD to fix. Move him to be part of server rather than the website.

Gandhi has been dropped by Firefox – JD to write to Mozilla to ask about future accreditation.

Correspondence received.
M has successfully corresponded with a number of people. (couldn’t think of a better way to word that…)

Either JF2 or JD to talk to Australian Woman.

IMC -UK Network Meeting.

Only people who have said they can attend are not really involved with collectives.
People in London feel like it might not happen.

Letter went out saying we might not have room for everyone- so that collectives should send a few people each. A number of people who ‘deliberately do not attend collectives’ like N.IMC want to attend, worries that they just want to kick up a fuss at a national level.
JD says that people with problems at local levels should resolve those first and then attend national meetings with collectives. JD thinks that we shouldn’t go unless it is a meeting of collectives.
JF – two possible meetings could come out of this – network meeting would benefit from us being represented. OR an indymedia meeting that just requires individual attendance, rather than N.IMC making a decision.
M – Confusion over what IMC UK network is – conflated into various things. People pretend it is a collective, or a collective of collectives, or a loose network of people doing Indymedia stuff. The latter is the only one that makes sense. Not active in the same way it used to be.
But JF thinks a face to face meeting would be useful, to compare what different things have been going on across the country. Only Northern, Bristol, London and Nottingham are run as collectives.
JD – Tension between devolved Indymedia and individuals who end up feeling part of a not-very-existent UK indymedia ‘collective’.
PTG – people should be encouraged to collectivize locally (posters in shops etc…), like Northern, rather than individuals carrying on thinking that the collectivism is happening at a national level.
M – if we have positive idea of what this meeting should be, we should voice them.
JD- we should make it clear what we want to get out of the meeting. Propose that we send a letter to Bristol.
JD – would like a consensus clarity about what UK IMC Network is.
M – would like to see everyone saying what collective they are a member of and affirming that their collective sticks by the principles of unity.
JF – would like to know whether meetings of a UK Network make decisions or are moral exercises, both are useful but obviously different. Some kind of non-binding aim or strategy for UK IMC Network.
PTG – reports from collectives included on a main website- use the central site to see what people are doing in collectives as well as aggregated news.
Should we go if these ideas are taken into consideration?
JF – if it was reps from collectives then we should go.
ACTION – draft a letter on crabgrass to send to Bristol.

Zines -
General agreement that the Zines uploading stuff is really good.
It is good to start moving into general media, rather than just news.

M – Flossmanuals have been working on ‘booki’ a similar thing for books.
Could eventually be able to print on demand through footprint.
Consensus to put zines online. ‘For love not money’.
Revise editorial content for zines. – JD – suggests all zines will be considered Creative Commons Non-Derivative unless people decide to use a different license.

Discussion about having customizable group pages.

MAYDAY 2010 –
Participants or observers?
JD would like a tent.
BDF Council- badly applied cock ring going septic.
End up at infirmary fields – better for pitching a tent.
M – long game – Peter Mandleson announced that Mayday 2012 has been canceled for the Queen’s jubilee. Mass civil disobedience – prepare for that. The Queen has been canceled.

PTG suggests getting someone with a roving mic at the YAG meal, then record a video of speakers to go on the site.

Review of recent coverage-
Need to keep a watch on ‘think pieces’ rather than useful and more concise Yorkshire based news items.
Move EF! Event announcement into calendar – email EF! And tell them what we have done.
JF – should ask them to do it.
Agreement.

JD – Easier access to help button?

JF – come up with a couple of dates to suggest to Manchester as a possibility of a meeting date.
Get in touch with people in York about whether they would host a meeting. JW.

31st Jan / 21st Feb – Two meetings. Manchester and York? – Publish article about it. SRL to do.
7th March – 12pm – 4 pm – 6 Month review.