A possible compromise: Amended version
Nottingham Indymedia are sad to see the UK network, a network that we were a part of for over 5 years, dissolve into warring factions. We urge those factions to stand back from the conflict and consider ways that we can move on and concentrate on positive projects. We think that a swift resolution of the conflict is necessary to put an end to the public airing of dirty laundry that has been going on. We recognise that this will mean both a) ensuring that the Mayday collective do not feel marginalised within the global network and b) that the Mayday collective give up ownership of the indymedia.org.uk domain.
So far there have been two proposals for a way forward that start to address these issues. Mish made a proposal on imc-uk-process 1 and Ben made a proposal on imc-communication 2. We would like to synthesise these into a proposal that we think contains the best of both. We hope that it will be considered seriously by both the Mayday collective and the collectives involved with the BetheMedia site. We would like these collectives to respond as soon as they have had time to discuss it.
mayday.indymedia.org
As the Mayday collective have clearly stated that they don’t want to change domain twice, we second Ben’s proposal that they are allowed to move directly to the mayday.indymedia.org domain on a temporary basis. This should remain under DNS control of the global DNS working group (if technically possible) for a period of six months (ending 1st November). This period should be sufficient for the Mayday collective to either successfully work through the new-imc process (and keep the domain), or for the global network to get a clear picture why it is necessary to block this process.
As agreed in the Bradford meeting, we expect all other UK Indymedia collectives to avoid interfering with Mayday’s new-imc application.
Completing the fork
In return, Mayday should complete their half of the fork by rebranding their site so that it is called Mayday rather than UK Indymedia.
To prevent further fighting over the indymedia.org.uk domain, its ownership should be turned over to the global DNS working group, and any members of Mayday, BetheMedia, or anyone else who has been part of Indymedia UK, should step down from the DNS working group, so that all changes to indymedia.org.uk are mediated.
The splash page, linking to both Mayday and BetheMedia sites, should be returned to indymedia.org.uk.
indymedia.org.uk subdomains
oxford.indymedia.org.uk, sheffield.indymedia.org.uk, etc. will be allowed to carry on on their current URLs so that regional IMCs are unaffected.
We are open to further amendments to these proposals made with the aim of resolving the conflict.
Nottingham Indymedia
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