Appendix II: Cleveland IMC Documents

Mission statement

"The Cleveland IMC is a not-for-profit, volunteer, & collectively-run organization working in solidarity with the international network of independent media centers to create a viable alternative to traditional media sources. The Cleveland IMC will provide public access to passionate, accurate, & honest information about important events & issues.

We seek to empower people of our diverse communities by providing an alternative source of information and a forum for active participation. We hope this resource will help people to make educated decisions that will affect their lives and communities in a positive way."

Editorial policy

What/How:

Any active Cleveland IMC (CIMC) collective member can nominate a feature story for publishing in the "center column" on the cleveland.indymedia.org website. Approval requires minority support-- an additional two (2) vocalizations of support ("seconds")-- at which time the Publishing Working Group will promote the story to the center column. The nomination and secondary support process will take place via the imc-cleveland@indymedia.org mailing list.

Location:

Both nominators and secondary supporters must be based in the "Northeast Ohio" region. If a nomination occurs outside of that area, it still may be considered for publication as a feature, but requires an additional vote of support from a local-based IMC collective member (thus, a nomination from someone in Washington D.C. would require three (3) additional "seconds" to be approved).

Blocking:

Stories may be blocked in the same fashion if a minority views a certain feature directly violates the mission of the CIMC

Format:

All nominations must be in the following email format:

*************

Subject: "Nomination: <Title of story>"

Message Body:

<Title of story>

<Story summary> (50 words or less)

<Story text> (will be linked to from the center column. If not already on the newswire, it will be published to the newswire once approved)

<Other story texts> x ? (As many relevant stories as necessary... preferably local)

*************

Relevant Terms:

* Active: involvement in meetings, email list discussions, or reporting on events. Must agree with the mission of CIMC.

* Block: a motion that stands against overwhelming group support, stopping a decision from moving forward on principled grounds. Rarely used, and usually in the case of a gross violation of a group’s mission statement or general operating ethic.

* Feature Story: a story that the CIMC collective believes to be of local importance to Northeast Ohio. Found in the "center column" of the cleveland.indymedia.org website.

* Minority support: a small percent of the CIMC collective that feels certain stories are (a) important to the Northeast Ohio region, (b) promote diversity in reporting, and (c) follow the mission statement of the CIMC.

* Publishing Working Group: a small number of CIMC collective members with access codes to update/modify features. Will do very little (if no) editing. 

Further, our tech people have been contact with other tech personnel (who are in fact helping to set-up an upgraded Cleveland IMC website to run active-sf, which will take the place of the present, out-of-date one, and will transfer over existing archives).

Figure 8. Formal Consensus Flowchart (from Butler and Rothstein, On Conflict and Consensus)