• 1 Understaffed global working groups, unmaintained shared resources, lack of process
• 1.1 Indymedia domain names
• 1.2 Nameservers
• 1.3 Indymedia (contact) database (contact.indymedia.org)
• 1.4 Mailing lists and @indymedia.org email addresses
• 1.5 Global mailing lists
• 1.6 Indymedia documentation project / wiki (docs.indymedia.org)
• 1.7 SoS request ticketing system (sos.indymedia.org)
• 1.8 Indymedia key server (keys.indymedia.org)
• 1.9 the global www.indymedia.org website
• 1.10 Local indymedia sites

Understaffed global working groups, unmaintained shared resources, lack of process¶

A bunch of Indymedia volunteers, some of whom were also involved in keeping shared indymedia services running, have announced their intention to quit the project in early 2012 (several others have already done so before, and not many new people have joined). It’s now neccessary to take stock and see

• which currently unmanaged resources or understaffed tech working groups there are
• which of those are still needed by whom
• how those who need them will continue to operate and finance them
• which other steps need to be taken to keep the Indymedia project or a subset of it running (process, cooperation and mutual exchange amongst activists and IMCs)

For now, this document will only cover the first of these topics. Please create separate wiki pages and link to these here regarding all the other topics, espcially about the topic of reviving or cleaning up the remainders of the global IMC process.

Indymedia domain names¶

The indymedia.org domain name is currently maintained for Indymedia by brazilian organisation ABDECOM. This group can be contacted at abdecom@riseup.net. They would like to pass this duty on to someone else.

The domain name is currently hosted with french domain name registrar Gandi. Financing is unclear (check imc-finance or contact ABDECOM) which can result in the domain name to expire and be taken over by domain name grabbers.

There are other domain names more or less loosely affiliated with shared Indymedia, such as indymedia.us, imc.li. ABDECOM does not manage these.

Nameservers¶

The Indymedia.org nameserver records were (and may still be) managed by the working group called DNS working group.

There are two authoritative nameservers for this domain name, one of them is hosted with Riseup, the other with fs-dl.net.

These may be shared resources. Financing is unclear (check with imc-finance, the members of this working group or contact the hosting providers).

The working group used to be available at dns-tech@lists.indymedia.org. Requests for changes were recorded and responded to at dns@sos.indymedia.org. There was some discussion about new people joining this working group in february 2012 on the imc-tech mailing list

Indymedia (contact) database (contact.indymedia.org)¶

(Please add any information you can provide on this topic.)

Mailing lists and @indymedia.org email addresses¶

Those were managed by the working group called Listwork. The Listwork working group has now mostly dissolved.

There is one server, sarai, which these services run on. It is hosted with Riseup. To date, most IMCs use this service (others host elsewhere). Financing is unclear (check imc-finance or contact hosting provider).

These mailing lists (web interface at http://lists.indymedia.org) are run using a patched version of the Python based GNU Mailman software on Debian GNU/Linux, using the Postfix mailserver. This mailserver also handles @indymedia.org aliases (mail forwarding only, no mailbox storage) which were setup for individual activists and working groups alike.

The working group used to be available at listwork@lists.indymedia.org for general discussion, mailman@lists.indymedia.org for group-internal discussion and listwork@sos.indymedia.org for requests for changes. There’s documentation on how Listwork used to work at docs.indymedia.org/Sysadmin/ListworkWor... and who was involved in it at docs.indymedia.org/Sysadmin/ListworkAccess

Global mailing lists¶

• imc-process
  • Purpose: global decision making
  • Members: every IMC which has passed the new-imc process
  • Moderators: gdm at indymedia dot org (annouced retirement), bartolomeo at indymedia.org, elisa at riseup.net

• imc-communication
  • Purpose: general Indymedia discussion
  • Members: individual Indymedia volunteers
  • Moderators: anna at mail.nadir dot org, remid at riseup dot net, apb at swissmail dot org, chiapas at aktivix dot org

• new-imc
  • Purpose: affiliation of new IMCs
  • Members: members of the New-IMC working group
  • Moderators: genex at indymedia dot org, boud at riseup dot net

• imc-finance
  • Purpose: global finances
  • Members: individual Indymedia volunteers
  • Moderators: ???

• imc-tech
  • Purpose: general Indymedia tech discussion
  • Members: individual Indymedia volunteers
  • Moderators: ???

• imc-drupal-dev
  • Purpose: Indymedia Drupal CMS discussion
  • Members: individual Indymedia volunteers
  • Moderators: gdm at indymedia dot org (annouced retirement), andrew at scoop dot co dot nz, harlequin at cat dot org dot au

Indymedia documentation project / wiki (docs.indymedia.org)¶

The Indymedia wiki / documentation project was managed by the working group called IMC Docs. This working group has now mostly dissolved.

There is one server, amanita.indymedia.org, which this service is running on, hosted with Tachanka. Hosting has been financially arranged a while ago but may need to be renewed at some point if it is to continue (check imc-finance or contact hosting provider).

The docs.indymedia.org wiki is run using the Perl based Foswiki software (probably an outdated version by now) on Debian GNU/Linux.

The working group used to be available at imc-docs@lists.indymedia.org for general discussion, imc-docs-tech@lists.indymedia.org for group-internal discussion and docs@sos.indymedia.org for requests for changes. There’s documentation on how IMC Docs used to work at docs.indymedia.org/Sysadmin/ImcDocs

SoS request ticketing system (sos.indymedia.org)¶

(Please add any information you can provide on this topic.)
The ticketing system which was used is OTRS (Perl). If people want to continue using it: it needs to be taken care off, both the software needs an update once in a while as cleanups of old accounts and tickets. The server itself needs to be maintained too. sos@lists.indymedia.org and/or sos@sos.indymedia.org were likely the way to contact the maintainers.

Indymedia key server (keys.indymedia.org)¶

(Please add any information you can provide on this topic.)

the global indymedia.org website¶

This is currently unmanaged. The contact tech list is: www-tech@lists.indymedia.org but there does not seem to be anyone/many people on that list who are actively participating in looking after the site. The tech who previously did a lot of the work left in the summer of 2011.

The global website is based upon the ‘mir’ CMS. Some documentation is available on docs.indymedia.org but the main website for mir is no longer available and the software itself has been unmaintained for a number of years now.

The global site itself is divided between a publish server and a static mirror (which is what most people see).

The publish site is hosted on traven.indymedia.org but this is (as of early March 2012) about to be decommissioned and turned off. All sites on it are being migrated to a server hosted by tachanka.org and will be archived, although there might be a grace period for the global indymedia site. It is worth noting that the publish server requires an https (i.e. secure) connection, and that the certificate was invalidated at the beginning of June 2011. This means that most people have not been able to access the publish site (or have ignored lots of big scary warnings when they do).

The mirror – which hosts the www.indmedia.org static html page that is visible to most users – is hosted at chavez.indymedia.org. There does not appear to be anyone maintaining the global mirror, although there are some people still with access to the server itself.

The other, major working group involved in the global website is www-features@lists.indymedia.org – this has been fairly defunct over the past year or so, although there was a recent revival in early 2012. The number of features published over the past year gives some indication of the current utility of the site:

• Jan 2011: 5
• Feb 2011: 1
• Mar 2011: 2
• Apr 2011: 1
• Jun 2011: 0
• Jul 2011: 0
• Aug 2011: 0
• Sep 2011: 0
• Oct 2011: 1
• Nov 2011: 0
• Dec 2011: 0
• Jan 2012: 0
• Feb 2012: 3

There is, of course, a historical utility which should be preserved.

Local indymedia sites¶

These are documented in imc local sites 2012