Minutes of meeting in Tabor, Czech Republic

Carfree Indymedia Site Minutes of meeting 25 May 2006

Proposal: Make use of the IndyMedia website.

Rationale:

• World Car Free - website with info
• Carbusters - selected news every three months
• Indymedia - provides frequently updated news

Advantages:

• Can act as a news portal for worldcarfree
• Will allow us to obtain more activists (indymedia is very popular

with activists - not be underestimated)

• Plenty of examples of how it works.
• Existing technology that we can leverage
• People are empowered to upload news articles themselves / open & free
• Provides a stream of info for future carbusters issues
• Helps streamline efficiency of Carbusters work, get relevant articles
• Multilingual support

Process:

• We have to apply to become an indymedia site
• Write to collective
• List of questions to be answered
• need to define an editorial policy
• Need to define editorial collective
• Need a computer programmer to design actual website

Topics:

• Walking
• Cycling
• Public Space
• Public Transport
• Carfree Development
• Transitions (eg Car sharing)
• Events / other
• Announcements

Questions:

• Do we have to pay to host ourselves?
• Overlap of content with World Car Free website ??
  there is not really any news currently
• Who are the editors?
• What kind of news?
  could be anything, even local (at least the self-posted material on the right column)
  main articles should maybe be more useful in the international sense.
• Concerned about the gap / gulf between the indymedia portal and the wcn website, Indymedia is supposed to be independent?
• How are editors decided?
• Can we discuss articles?
  yes this is possible by using comments

Concerns:

• Topics may be hidden at bottom of lists
• Is Indy media happy with theme specific portals?? Is there a reason?
  this may be a new development for indymedia
• Extremism on indymedia
  this is moderated by the editors , policy have to defined

To Do:

People who are interested:

justin - vernichte.dein.auto@gmail.com
Steve - svonpohl@centrum.cz
Randy - rghent@gmx.net
george - gnstiff@HOTMAIL.COM
patrick - patrick@odd-sock.net
susa - susannairaci@gmail.com\\