How can things develop for Indymedia Ireland?

by Anonymous Wed Sep 24, 2003 18:49

Dunk,

Don't have time to go into it now, but I endorse many of your ideas & enthusiasm.

Indymedia needs to become more widely known. I think it is an interesting site for anyone to log onto on a regular basis, to see whats happening around Ireland & the world.

Indymedia offers a great medium to reveal things that are happening & ideology's that are not exposed on the mainstream media and indeed who have an interest in ensuring they are not exposed too much.

The site needs to be publicised as much as possible.

Would be interesting if Indymedia Ireland would publish viewing information on the site, i.e.

number of hits per day,
number of "different" ip addresses logging on etc. etc.

Regards.

by No6 Wed Sep 24, 2003 18:56

Anonymous you post alot on the site telling people what to do. Why don't you get involved in Indymedia, and publicise it more, if you think it's such a great idea.

by ec Wed Sep 24, 2003 20:05

1000 - 2000 discrete users in a regular day
multiple (3or4?) of that if 'something is happening' like RTS aftermath, Nice campaign, Anti War campaign, shannon incidents etc etc. as far as I can remember these were the vague guesstimates at recent real world working meeting. I am not techie enuff to have a way of working it out. Maybe the tech crew would comment.

by Palmiro Togliatti Wed Sep 24, 2003 21:47

Workshops as suggested in the article are an excellent idea.

Perhaps one or two could be held at the Irish Social Forum in October?

by limerick1919 Thu Sep 25, 2003 02:24 limerick1919 at hotmail dot com

the link will give you the stats. There are a lot of well intentioned people involved in indymedia and a lot of hard work goes on behind the scenes regards editing etc, however the above comment about numbers always frustrates me.

This site has probably seen some of its finest days regards web traffic i.e rts debacle and war stuff. As poster says readership was in the high thousands. Many probably logged on for the first time and probably thought this was a great resource. When they hit the "support us" button though they got a page under construction. Now they can't even find the support us button as it has being removed.

This is a valid criticism, Every three months or so there is the mother and father of all emergencies as a few euros are searched for to avoid hosting being cut off. Finance is put on the agenda but nothing ever happens. Please don't tell me get involved. You are the people who want to be journalists/photographers/making a difference. Putting a paypal button up there is surely possible. Here is my gesture towards involvement - I pledge to give 5 euro a month if it is done. Ten more people like me and your financial worries are over and all those workshops dunk talks about can also be achieved.

Can some one do it this time?

BTW the sari story is great. Apparantly they had a similar tournament this year in Galway for the first time.

by not required Thu Sep 25, 2003 12:00

We, the users of Indymedia, who for various reasons cannot go to meetings and who only ocassionally have the opportunity to write a story, DEMAND an opportunity to contribute to Indymedia.ie financially.

We have money, we value indymedia, and we want it to prosper and grow, yet we are DENIED the opportunity to help make this happen.

We want to speak with our money and vote with our money and use our money to make Indymedia better, and yet WE HAVE NO OPPORTUNITY TO DO SO!!

A bank account, a Paypal button, or another of the many online payment systems could easily be set up, yet it isn't. Why not?

We want to contribute in the only way we can, yet we cannot. Why?

This is a gross injustice.

WE DEMAND A MEANS TO CONTRIBUTE NOW!!

by Markos Thu Sep 25, 2003 13:43

I agree that indymedia has huge democratising potintial for Ireland and it has already "drawn blood" on many occasions by turning stories around. Notably with the RTS incedent, which in my view was a media milestone in Ireland.

When indymedia is at it's best, it has fresh alternative reporting from the field, with photos to match. (Redaje should be commended here for his excellent work). Or else thought provoking commentary and articles with plenty of discussion.

At its worst you have this puerile faction fighting between groups which hijack discussions and lower the quality of the overall site. I think the various socialist groups in particular need to realise that they are shooting themselves in the foot by public cat calling. Conducting themselves professionally would help themselves and everyone else along with them. Im sure Michael McDowell and Seanin laugh up their sleeves when seeing these kinds of discussions.

I would like to see a more regional approach to indymedia -- set up proper subdomains like cork.indymedia.ie, clare.indymedia.ie etc. Redirecting to a search is clever, but not enough to encourage autonomy.

Find some way to stimulate more features and articles, rather than just commentary and announcements all the time.

Finally, have a section for announcements from politcal parties, so that it's clear who is organising what events. I've seen pretty blatant examples of misrepresentation and hijacking going on. That gives the whole site a bad name. Indeed, you could almost say the site is hijacked by political interests at times. Indymedia will not be "Indy" at all unless these interests are faced down and made play nice with other contributors.

that's my 2kb worth.

by Terry Thu Sep 25, 2003 13:55

Just a quick word on regions, the existing regions list goes some way towards this, and at the top of the banner on the front page, there are links to URLs that are basically filters for some of the major cities.

In the near future, Indymedia will be upgraded to allow users to enter events as the existing facility is not being used. This hopefully will be of some help and you will be able to comment and upload images as with existing stories.

Overall I have to agree Indymedia needs to become more widely known. Hand in hand with that as suggested, is that workshops need to be organised for writing and PC skills, photography, image handling etc.

by å - indymedia Thu Sep 25, 2003 14:25

My suggestion has always been enjoying the relationship between "our space" and that conceptual still thought to be "their space".
Many of us developed our approach to media and politics in the wake of the sustained appeals and information (propaganda to some) that gave the indiginous peoples of Mexico a voice.
Thereafter it was natural to continue the internet streaming of those previously marginalised or silenced voices through the internet; Seattle etc.,
Many of us occupied a little bit of both spaces.
"ours" and "theirs", in the last year many IMC collectives are pushing that point more by listing "other press articles" at readers suggestions. Many others took the plunge into "print media".
It has been a long time since we first realised the power of our "printing press" the power of "our nails" and the power of "hammering those theses upon their establishment door".

Our collectives have changed national state politics, that is inarguable and instances are now studied of that influence in many South american and European states.

Our collectives have also changed the role of graphic art and subversion of the symbols of power extending the political power of satire and humour in a way unprecedented since the pamhplet presses of the 18th century.

Our collectives have also raised awareness of communities accross borders, without borders, and by placing all, be they individual or party, leader or prisoner, wrong or right on the page together we have been more faithful to the hope common to humanity for our still very uncertain future.

Anyone can be part of this "evolving revolution" as long as you don't deny proven genocides, promote racism or write anything that will get the whole collective in legal trouble. You too can take part in the impression process.

It is a small world, our grip doesn't slip, it has no borders, it has many seas, there are a million tongues, and there billions of voices.

by shareholder Thu Sep 25, 2003 17:37

accountability.
transparency.
concensus.
fun.
evading standards.
fluid dis-organisation.
propaganda.
trolling.
hard worked editors (lovely kids in the main)
graphic copyleft.
subversion.
secrets.
nodes.
net.
web.
links.
"anonomynity".
bzzt.
spelling mistakes and ortographic errors.
space cadets.
journalists in training. (lovely kids in the main)
changing concepts of community.
democratisation of society by application of cyber anarchic theory.
containment of the Trotskyite destructive ignorant principle.
containment of centralised socialism.
containment of totalitarian regimes.
lifting the barriers on ecological repair.
defending the marginalised.
communicating with the "tippytoppys".
allowing those with TIME and political awareness the SPACE they need to change your LIFE.

¡It is your media!

now if you haven't found a role as reader, contributor, techlist, editor you may still:
fund the project.
so that more pages, more images may be shared.
only think in megabytes.

by Feda Thu Sep 25, 2003 19:10

It would be a good thing if Indymedia highlighted the issues that need to be publicised but gave a balanced unbiased view of events, with the views of all sides reported rather than that of the activists only.

by No 6 Thu Sep 25, 2003 19:16

How do you propose they do that Freda? Indymedia is created media by you, and if you want to present the other opinion why don't you do it.

by Terry Thu Sep 25, 2003 19:35

Feda

What's an unbiased view? Everyone here has some belief or another and so are bound to be biased. The national/mainstream media people are not a different species of human. They are biased too. What's more the institutes that own the media, very definitely are biased and have their own agendas.

And what are all sides? The sides aren't passive. Misunderstandings, different intpretations, different histories, exposure to different lives, and the propaganda and people you grew up with all go to shaping how you view or interpret an event.

I do take your point to a certain extent to the wish to have certain issues highlighted. In theory you could write your own opinion piece and put in your own wish list, which would quickly scroll off the newswire to oblivion. So I think you have a concept there for something like a 'meeting' point to get something off the ground. It's probably related to the idea of having some kind of 'reference' library for background material on various topics. I think the features are supposed to go some way towards this, but I don't think they achieve it.

In this regard, we need to probably do something about opening up the existing archive of newsstories. The calendar goes some way towards the beginning of this.

by searching Thu Sep 25, 2003 22:32

Spend 20 minutes perhaps using these filters and learning about the powerful tool which is Oscailt 4.

by Daithi - IMC IE Fri Sep 26, 2003 14:56

Re making financial contributions to help Indymedia, this is on the way - was discussed in our meeting on Saturday and once this is set up, it will be announced :)

by elfie Fri Sep 26, 2003 15:00

i need money.
and i spend all my time on IMC
so....
ergo q.e.d
etc.,.,.,

by Acid Fri Sep 26, 2003 23:05

we could get a few vids done? I'd have no problem shelling out a bit for some decent films made by the irish vid-heads.

by dunk - FUSPEY Fri Oct 10, 2003 17:07

there has been talk of stuff and nothing further on the outreach and development of indymedia.
i have got v little response from imc-ie team. So im putting this on and trying to get more aware of imc and using it

by dunk - fuspey Tue Oct 21, 2003 20:29

looks like a new screening node is being set up. sounds very exciting, more on it as it develops, anyone interested in getting involved contact me

city wander and indymedia screenings soon

dunk

by Rafael Ravenet - Individual Sun Dec 14, 2003 22:44 rafaelravenet at yahoo dot com 1413 3rd ave. Seattle, WA 98101 206.910.3047

Is big good? The granular nature of the web is revolutionizing the political process before our very eyes. Thus, we must ask ourselves to protect this very democratic feature of our new world and subsequent technology. The challenge will be forever presented before our
unified will toward social justice and advancement of all men. How shall we proceed?