Open Letter to the Global Indymedia Network from SF Bay Area IMC

Introduction

It is with much sadness and urgency that we inform the greater 
indymedia community about the ongoing crisis within the San Francisco 
Bay Area IMC.

Previously, we had attempted to resolve internal conflicts among group 
members by engaging in formal mediation, which ultimately resulted in 
an official split of the group into two and a list of specific actions 
upon which each side agreed. This letter is being sent out only after 
these agreements have not been respected by the new SF IMC collective 
that has split from us.

As many of you know, the SF Bay Area IMC had been using both 
sf.indymedia.org and indybay.org since its inception. The SF Bay Area 
IMC website had been hosted on a linefeed.org server which was operated 
by the tech members of our collective.

Conflict

Our IMC has now split into two groups. When a few of the tech members 
began to have personal problems with other members of the collective, 
these tech members demanded a split of the collective. The resulting 
dynamics within the group continued to worsen. It created an 
environment that made it difficult to continue working together and 
also discouraged potential new people from joining the collective. 
While most members of the collective opposed any kind of split, the 
aforementioned tech members insisted that they would split anyway, 
because they wanted to and because they could.

The tech members who wanted the split also had convinced the rest of 
the group to agree to move the site to the linefeed.org server. They 
claimed that this was merely a technical issue which would enable the 
site to run faster.

The members of the splitting group also began making viscious and false 
accusations about other members of the collective. This even went as 
far as accusing some members of being security risks and/or police 
informants.

The splitting group began to take control of the linefeed.org server 
that the SF Bay Area IMC website had been hosted on by kicking off all 
other IMC members from access to it. At the same time, they also cut 
off access to other local activist websites (such as the Food Not Bombs 
News website, liberationradio.net and passionbomb.com) that were being 
hosted on their linefeed.org server. These other websites were 
affiliated, to greater or lesser degrees, with members of SF Bay Area 
IMC with whom the splitting group members were in conflict.

When it was clear that this internal conflict had reached a stalemate, 
a neutral professional mediator was hired to conduct a series of 
mediation meetings.

The continuation of the internal crisis was effectively preventing the 
group from doing their work and was discouraging new people from 
wanting to join the group. Most collective members were fed up with 
having to deal with this conflict. As a result, during the mediation 
process, the rest of the group reluctantly agreed to split the group 
and further conceded to the splitting group's demand to give up the 
sf.indymedia.org domain to them. Also part of the mediation agreement, 
the rest of the group was to keep indybay.org (which at the time still 
pointed to sf.indymedia.org) and also to create a new domain of 
sfbay.indymedia.org. This new domain was to be used along with 
indybay.org once indybay.org was handed over from the splitting group.

The mediation agreement was officially finalized on November 13th, 
2003. Since that time, members of the new sf.indymedia group have 
backtracked on their agreement in multiple ways. The indybay.org DNS 
was supposed to have been handed over by the Monday following the final 
mediation meeting, November 17th. But this did not occur until over a 
month later, in mid-December. And although this "handing over" has 
resulted in indybay.org now pointing to the correct site, they continue 
to refuse to hand over the indybay.org domain ownership, which they 
still control. Also, immediately after the mediation, they locked out 
the group that was now sfbay.indymedia.org (indybay.org) from access to 
sf.indymedia.org. In combination, these actions left the rest of the 
group without a website for over a month.

During this period, the new sf.indymedia group has been hiding posts of 
news stories to the sf.indymedia.org newswire (such as an announcement 
about a live streaming coverage of the recent mayoral election by Enemy 
Combatant Radio) made by members of the indybay.org group, effectively 
censoring the indybay.org group.

The new sf.indymedia group has also refused to place on their website a 
link with an explanation about the split, as both groups agreed to do 
as part of the mediation agreement. Nevertheless, the indybay.org group 
put up the explanation and link immediately after the site was up, 
after the DNS switch.

Also, members of the new sf.indymedia group have been engaging in 
tactics of doublespeak by accusing members of indybay.org of precisely 
the kinds of acts that they themselves have been responsible for, such 
as lying, manipulating, and threatening.

In sf.indymedia.org's recent application for status as a new imc that 
they submitted to the New IMC Working Group, they stated that their 

"supporting groups were too numerous to mention." While we didn't speak 
up then, since we had agreed in good faith during mediation not to stop 
their new IMC process, we now feel, in light of their actions, that 
they should be asked why they failed to list those groups and to show 
who really aligns with them. As far as we know, local activists and 
groups and members of other IMCs who are finding out about the split do 
not support them nor their actions.

List of violations of the mediation agreement by the new 
sf.indymedia.org group:

1. The sf.indymedia.org group has refused to put up a blurb and links 
about the split as agreed to during mediation.

2. The sf.indymedia.org group failed to switch the DNS for indybay.org 
until over a month after the mediation agreement.

3. Before the indybay.org DNS was eventually switched over, a member of 
sf.indymedia.org pointed indybay.org to a non-existent IP address, 
causing many people to stop using indybay.org.

3. Immediately after the mediation was over, a member of 
sf.indymedia.org withdrew half of the money from the imc checking 
account, and then refused to negotiate the price for stickers and 
t-shirts advertising the sf.indymedia.org web site address. According 
to the agreement, the groups would split the money in the bank account 
after sfbay was reimbursed for the mutually agreed upon price for the 
stickers and t-shirts, and sf.indymedia was reimbursed for pieces of 
equipment that sfbay wanted to purchase.

4. The sf.indymedia.org group has deleted the SF-IMC email list and the 
Enemy Combatant Radio (ECR) email list without warning, before anyone 
had the chance to back up three and a half years of work and contacts 
contained in the lists' archives.

5. The sf.indymedia.org group has gone against the agreement by 
redirecting aliases to their new email addresses.

List of actions by the new sf.indymedia.org group that violates the 
indymedia Principles of Unity

1. Members of the linefeed.org server (which now hosts 
sf.indymedia.org, other IMCs and activist websites) have sabotaged 
local activist websites hosted by them that were connected to 
indybay.org.

2. The sf.indymedia.org group has been repeatedly hiding and deleting 
legitimate posts to their newswire by local activists whom they see as 
being connected to indybay.org.

The end result of all of this is that techies with positions of power, 
and a personal vendetta within an IMC collective, have effectively 
hijacked complete control of the website from the rest of the 
collective.

We believe that the behaviors displayed by the members of the new 
sf.indymedia group/linefeed.org are offensive and unacceptable, and 
that they have abused their powers as tech people within the IMC 
network to manipulate and bully others to get their way.

Proposed Resolution

We, the undersigned, request the following from the global tech working 
group and other IMCs in the network:

1. The ownership of the indybay.org domain should be handed over to the 
current members of indybay.org immediately, and

2. sf.indymedia.org should immediately put up texts and links about the 
split on their website as they should have already done as part of the 
agreement.

If both of the above requests are not met immediately, then we ask that:

1. The new sf.indymedia.org's status as an IMC should be revoked, and

2. The current members of the new sf.indymedia.org should be denied 
access and control to the sf.indymedia.org domain, and

3. in the event that the new sf.indymedia.org group should lose control 
of their domain, that it be handed over to the current members of 
indybay.org instead of being destroyed, since it is an established 
community resource, and

4. the money that paid for the mediation should be refunded to the 
current members of indybay.org.

We also request that all IMC websites update their links to the San 
Francisco Bay Area as http://www.indybay.org.

We are hereby challenging the legitimacy of the new sf.indymedia.org 
group for violating its own Principles of Unity by their abusive and 
intimidating behaviors.

We want to stress that we believe this is an urgent, critical matter 
that is in the interest of the entire Indymedia network. What has 
happened here with the SF Bay Area IMC seems to be quite unprecedented 
within the history of the IMC Network, and we hope that we can depend 
on the support from all IMCers to help resolve this conflict and 
maintain accountability within the indymedia network.

In solidarity,

Sarah Olsen - San Francisco Bay Area IMC, SF Liberation Radio
Lisa Sousa - San Francisco Bay Area IMC, AK Press
Mark Burdett - San Francisco Bay Area IMC
Pauline - San Francisco Bay Area IMC
Sunny - Enemy Combatant Radio, San Francisco Bay Area IMC
Zachary Ogren - San Francisco Bay Area IMC
Wayne Wong - San Francisco Bay Area IMC
Peter Maiden - San Francisco Bay Area IMC
Karen Martin - San Francisco Bay Area IMC
Jino Choi - Revolutionary Anti-authoritarians of Color, SF Bay Area IMC
A. Mark Liiv - Whispered Media
Ali
Dan Mattson - San Francisco Bay Area IMC
Pod - Enemy Combatant Radio, Whispered Media
Kevin Keating
Matt Fitt - San Francisco Bay Area IMC
Jeff Taylor - Whispered Media
Lani Riccobuono - Enemy Combatant Radio, San Francisco Bay Area IMC
Lauren A. - San Francisco Bay Area IMC

The San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center collective can be 
contacted at sfbay at indymedia.org.