Melbourne Indymedia Decision-making Policies and Processes

Identity
Tagline
Mission Statement

Decision-making Structure and Accountability
General Collective
Decision Making
Editorial Collective
Features
Admin Collective
Event Collective

Identity

Tagline
Melbourne Indymedia is a website produced by grassroots media makers offering non-corporate coverage of struggles, actions and celebrations. Everyone is a witness. Everyone is a journalist.

Mission Statement
The Melbourne Indymedia collective is committed to using media production to further the self-determination of people and communities by giving a platform to struggles and social movements working for social, environmental and economic justice.

We are dedicated to generating alternatives to the capitalist media and to identifying and creating positive models for a sustainable and equitable society.

Decision-making Structure and Accountability

General Collective
Melbourne Indymedia General Collective is composed of members of the following sub-collectives:

• technical
• editorial
• admin

These groups are self-managing collectives, accountable to the general collective. Decisions made by a sub-collective that significantly affect the general collective must be notified to the general collective.

Decision Making

How are decisions made?
The Melbourne Indymedia collective and all sub-collectives make decisions using modified consensus. A facilitator will be chosen at the commencement of a meeting. After discussion of a proposal the facilitator will check for consensus. If consensus cannot be reached the first time, further discussion occurs. The facilitator then checks for consensus again. If there is still no consensus, the facilitator will call for a vote on the proposal. A 75% vote will pass the proposal.

Who can participate in decision making at a face-to-face meeting?
People who have attended 2 out of the 4 most recent face-to-face meetings are eligible to participate in decision making at a face-to-face meeting. New people are welcome to attend meetings and participate in discussion and demonstrate their commitment to working with the collective.

Online Decision Making
Online decision making is undertaken by posting a proposal that needs a decision to the collective e-mail list. Proposals must be marked with "proposal" in the subject line of the e-mail. If there are no objections or further comments by other collective members to the proposal in 48 hours (or other nominated timeframe), the proposal is considered to be adopted via consensus.

If there is discussion on the proposal, it needs to undertaken in a timeframe of 48 hours. A re-worded proposal is then put up for decision again and if no one objects to the modified proposal within 24 hours then the proposal is considered to be adopted via consensus.

If consensus can not be reached at this point, the person proposing it can choose to have the issue discussed at a face-to-face meeting or put it to an online vote. Only people who have participated in the online discussion can vote. A 75% vote in line with our general collective meeting guidelines deems it passed.

All online decisions are noted at the next general face-to-face collective meeting.

This process does not apply to newswire and editorial feature decision making, which is dealt with separately in this document. Nor does it apply to changes to decision-making processes or evicting people from the collective, which must be done at a face-to-face meeting.

Editorial Collective
The editorial collective is made up of anyone from the general collective who wishes to be part of the collective. Editorial collective members are accountable to and instantly recallable by the general collective. Editorial collective members make decisions by modified consensus. Editorial decisions are transparent and may be challenged by the collective or an article poster. These decisions must be made available to the general collective.

Roles

• Hiding posts that contravene newswire protocols.
• Uploading and editing features.
• Collating features along with the general collective.
• Fact checking.

Editorial Responsibilities

• Editors should not abuse their role to create their own pseudo-column.
• Editors may only edit technical problems with an article, unless they have the permission of the author.
• Editors may only edit dubious facts in an article with the consensus of the whole editorial collective.

Features Members of the editorial collective can decide to institute a feature piece (which is a summary of materials posted to the website or just a single article, along with other additional relevant information). A feature should be no more than 300 words and should contextualise the events it describes. It takes its lead from the Melbourne newswire.

Features

Who can be a feature editor?
A feature editor must be:

• Part of the editorial collective.
• Willing to research the background of the feature that they are responsible for.
• Committed to updating the feature regularly with postings from newswire and other relevant content (or must actively seek a replacement should they be unable to continue).
• Willing to accept the input of the wider collective

How is a new feature decided?

1. A member of the collective posts or a number of interested people in collaboration, writes a feature and posts it to the list in both plain text and HTML with links to reference articles.
2. If no one voices any disagreement to the feature idea within 24 hours, the feature is uploaded.
3. If there are serious objections, the feature is re-worked.
4. In extraordinary circumstances, where timeliness is of the essence, a feature writer may gain the approval of two other editorial collective members and a copy-editor and immediately post a feature.

Timeframe and Number of Features
We aim for around 1-3 features a week. The idea is that the front page of the site changes on a fairly regular basis without overwhelming anyone with work.

Admin Collective
The admin collective is responsible for moderating the newswire as per the editorial policy. Members of the general collective may receive the admin password through the consensus of the general collective once people feel they embody the spirit of the collective and are deemed reliable to undertake the given task.

Event Collective
During large events, when the collective may expand, a different decision-making structure is needed.

Delegates who reflect the feelings of each collective will be selected from and by the text, photo, video, audio, technical collectives themselves, to form an temporary editorial collective.

General decisions are to be made by the event collective using modified consensus.

Editorial decisions are delegated to the editoral collective for the duration of the event. Editorial collective members are instantly recallable by the collective they represent.

comments? mim@antimedia.net

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