Just an idea

ncwob "'I hope the bourgoeisie will remember my carbuncles until their dying day' - K. Marx "
Posts: 534 Joined: 05-10-07 Location: North Carolina
Submitted by ncwob on 7 October, 2007 - 16:36.

It was brought up in a previous thread that Libcom Wobblies ought to make an effort to re-vitalize the IWW.org boards. I believe it was even suggested that we go over there en masse at a later point. Well, short of that, unless it is a thread that deals directly with Libcom I'm going to start posting my topics on IWW.org and Libcom. I think it's important that any new-comers to the site see that there it discussion and dialog within the union, so feel free to join me.

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Dundee_United "Paradise is Norway"
Posts: 1004 Joined: 10-04-06 Location: Glasgow
9 October, 2007 - 14:11

Libcom wobblies (www.libcom.org) forum here has greater traffic because there are less subsections. If there isn't the traffic to have a section devoted to the agricultural and fishing industry then there should not be a specific section on the forums of international site for this. That's why libcom wobblies (www.libcom.org) has greater usage, as it hasn't tried to break it up into departments and IUs.

There are also issues with the international website - namely it's very very American focussed. When I see websites asking me to write to my congressman about saving the internet I'm less inclined to take ownership of them, as they are clearly not for me, they're for Americans. Probably more than half of the union is no longer based in the USA. If the traffic is to be built up that American focus would need to be overhauled.

anarcho_and_peace "For Workers Power - long live anarcho-syndicalism!"
Posts: 40 Joined: 26-03-07 Location: Sydney, Australia
9 October, 2007 - 16:07

I haven't registered on the IWW site...seeing as though I'm from Australia, and we have a separate (shit) one.
But I'll have a look.

Dundee_United "Paradise is Norway"
Posts: 1004 Joined: 10-04-06 Location: Glasgow
9 October, 2007 - 16:23

http://www.savetheinternet.com/

All very worthy but affecting only...

It's not the first time it's been mentioned...

If it's the international website it's the international website and that is not suitable content to stick permanently in the top left hand corner of the front page. If it's the USA website it's the USA website and that's absolutely fine - in which case we should have an international website. Currently we have a half assed compromise, where if you're in the USA you have an international website, and if you're one of the 50% + wobblies not in the USA, your international website is an obviously USA-biased website.

Dundee_United "Paradise is Norway"
Posts: 1004 Joined: 10-04-06 Location: Glasgow
9 October, 2007 - 16:29

I know this comes across petty but that is exactly the kind of thing that makes a lot of us wince, and it has been raised on many occasions before, formally and informally.

As we continue to grow it's the sort of thing that is really gonna need to be sorted out. We are an international union, not a national one.

petey "They gonna eat your shoulders."
Posts: 2958 Joined: 13-10-05
9 October, 2007 - 16:31

and how might the IWW alert those of its members in the US about this, in a way that is inoffensive to others?

Dundee_United "Paradise is Norway"
Posts: 1004 Joined: 10-04-06 Location: Glasgow
9 October, 2007 - 16:38

In USA the internet is threatened... Get involved...

I dunno mate. Even so if the internet is under threat in the USA is it a top left hand corner issue for an international union? I'm not saying it's not - it sounds fucking dreadful, and I think the internet is as valuable to the cause of human freedom as the printing press was to fomenting the reformation.

What I mean is that it's an editorial decision in which there are lots of questions raised and in terms of IWW international representation how do we deal with that? At the moment that editorial decision making seems to have a heavy US bias, and that is ennervating.

petey "They gonna eat your shoulders."
Posts: 2958 Joined: 13-10-05
9 October, 2007 - 16:41

so, how then might the IWW alert those of its members in the US about this, in a way that is inoffensive to others?

Dundee_United "Paradise is Norway"
Posts: 1004 Joined: 10-04-06 Location: Glasgow
9 October, 2007 - 16:51

Have a USA section on the international website.

To be honest the way we do web presence in the wobs needs an overhaul anyway. There's a lot of duplication of effort that should really be handled by better syndication and subsidiarity from local to national to international, so that local website content is what generates regional and national and then international web content - ie information only gets entered once.

At the moment we rely too much on individual members knowing that things exist and then going to the efforts to send their information, news, updates or whatever to those sites, lists or other media. In practive that means editors of the IW or the international website or whatever getting duff information or running themselves ragged trying to chase people up for copy.

revol68 ""Identity is a dream pathetic in its absurdity. You dream of being yourself when you've nothing better to do""
Posts: 17788 Joined: 23-02-04 Location: Belfast
9 October, 2007 - 16:59

why are the IWW encouraging people to get in touch with congress?

What a joke.

Dundee_United "Paradise is Norway"
Posts: 1004 Joined: 10-04-06 Location: Glasgow
9 October, 2007 - 17:01
Quote:
why are the IWW encouraging people to get in touch with congress?

What a joke.

Oh you just fuck right off. That was not an invitation for another one of your childish tirades. Take it to libcommunity.

revol68 ""Identity is a dream pathetic in its absurdity. You dream of being yourself when you've nothing better to do""
Posts: 17788 Joined: 23-02-04 Location: Belfast
9 October, 2007 - 17:05

no i honestly thought the issue was a union based on direct action telling people to contact congress, it was only later i realised your problem was that it was US centric.

I think it says alot when you're more worried about that than the fact the IWW is telling folk to contact Congress.

revol68 ""Identity is a dream pathetic in its absurdity. You dream of being yourself when you've nothing better to do""
Posts: 17788 Joined: 23-02-04 Location: Belfast
9 October, 2007 - 17:06

and i don't think it's a childish tirade at all.

anyway Dundee how's your pan to scrap the preamble going? Anycloser to 10,000 members in Scotland yet (or was it higher?).

Dundee_United "Paradise is Norway"
Posts: 1004 Joined: 10-04-06 Location: Glasgow
9 October, 2007 - 17:13

Well I can't imagine congress giving too much of a fuck if people contact them either but that's not to say that I find 'direct action to save the internet' any great deal more compelling.

revol68 ""Identity is a dream pathetic in its absurdity. You dream of being yourself when you've nothing better to do""
Posts: 17788 Joined: 23-02-04 Location: Belfast
9 October, 2007 - 17:16
Dundee_United wrote:
Well I can't imagine congress giving too much of a fuck if people contact them either but that's not to say that I find 'direct action to save the internet' any great deal more compelling.

well me neither but i'd certainly want to know why the fuck youse are telling people to contact congress about it?

OliverTwister "Tied directly to Bekken and the Philly camp"
Posts: 2215 Joined: 10-10-05 Location: San Francisco, USA
9 October, 2007 - 17:33

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.nosrep eno yb nur yllacisab si etisbew ehT .)eno doog a ton OMI) noisiced lairotide na s'ti

OliverTwister "Tied directly to Bekken and the Philly camp"
Posts: 2215 Joined: 10-10-05 Location: San Francisco, USA
9 October, 2007 - 17:44

woah, for some reason that all came out backwards..
So i'll summarize:
D_U its ridiculous to claim with such certitude that over half the union is no longer in the US. Moreover its really annoying to keep seeing british wobs using 'size' as a political argument; it isn't.

As I understand it, the branch that technically controls the website is the SF Bay Area branch, simply because the international has never bothered to claim jurisdiction. According to the last numbers i heard for BIROC, our one Branch is the exact same size. That doesn't justify anything we do.

Revol's right. Even if the entire org. were in the US, that link should not be there.

EdmontonWobbly "Sombre, jaded class warrior."
Posts: 1313 Joined: 25-03-06 Location: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
9 October, 2007 - 18:10

Yeah I'm inclined to agree with OT and revol on that thing's presence.

Sometimes I think there's a tendency for those of us outside the USA to see bad intentions where there aren't any. I don't think anyone is trying to hoard power or anything, things over time develop a certain way and we need constructive solutions, like what Newyawka was getting at. Any ideas on how we can spread the decision making out beyond the ol USA?

petey "They gonna eat your shoulders."
Posts: 2958 Joined: 13-10-05
9 October, 2007 - 18:22
D_U wrote:
Have a USA section on the international website.

ok, but then you'd have to have sections for every country. this seems a way of getting info to americans without taking up too much of anyone else's time.

EW wrote:
we need constructive solutions, like what Newyawka was getting at

everyone should listen to me. smile

OT wrote:
woah, for some reason that all came out backwards..

come on, out with it...

EdmontonWobbly "Sombre, jaded class warrior."
Posts: 1313 Joined: 25-03-06 Location: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
9 October, 2007 - 18:32

Heh, I just thought it was esperanto and he was trying to make some kind of a point about internationalism...

fnbrill ""Flatterers are the worst kind of enemies." - Tacitus"
Posts: 778 Joined: 13-01-07
9 October, 2007 - 18:32

A simple solution on the iww.org site would be to have tags on posts so they can be identified by country, issue, industry, etc. RSS feeds could be generated and headline scrolls as well from the tags.

petey "They gonna eat your shoulders."
Posts: 2958 Joined: 13-10-05
9 October, 2007 - 18:39
EdmontonWobbly wrote:
Heh, I just thought it was esperanto

yeah i tried that at first but it was still mush.
not that esperanto is not mush in any form.

R.R. Berkman "...if I wanted educated discussion, I'd go to slashdot."
Posts: 96 Joined: 27-03-07
9 October, 2007 - 21:57

Last time I was in Vancouver I ran into the Esperanto club and was like "whoa, you people didn't kick the bucket in the '70s?"

pghwob "Not an apologist for SEIU"
Posts: 685 Joined: 09-12-06 Location: CITIZEN OF INDUSTRY
10 October, 2007 - 00:26

Ok, are there any Wobs here who think that link to ask Congress to help should be there? It's like asking the fox to guard the henhouse!

gurley
Posts: 168 Joined: 04-01-07 Location: Bay Area
10 October, 2007 - 03:06

Has anyone just asked Steve to just take off the save the internet thing? People have been complaining about it for like a year. I can ask him tomorrow at work if other (actual) members haven't brought it up with him yet.

x357997 "go ahead, make my day...punk"
Posts: 1853 Joined: 04-12-06 Location: Yay Area
10 October, 2007 - 05:16
gurley wrote:
Has anyone just asked Steve to just take off the save the internet thing? People have been complaining about it for like a year. I can ask him tomorrow at work if other (actual) members haven't brought it up with him yet.

bring it up with him but i think other members have asked him in the past from what i understand.

booeyschewy
Posts: 435 Joined: 18-10-06 Location: USA, Miami
11 October, 2007 - 01:29

seriously, because last time people said something about internationalism, we changed the way branches were listed, and now the US is last (alphabetical). which is good.

never underestimate the power of one person just happening to put something somewhere. not all acts are acts of an organization as a whole...

pghwob "Not an apologist for SEIU"
Posts: 685 Joined: 09-12-06 Location: CITIZEN OF INDUSTRY
11 October, 2007 - 03:16

individualist.

petey "They gonna eat your shoulders."
Posts: 2958 Joined: 13-10-05
11 October, 2007 - 14:28
booeyschewy wrote:
the US is last. which is good.

why do you hate america?

ftony "crews are for boats"
Posts: 3705 Joined: 26-05-04 Location: East London
11 October, 2007 - 15:24

cos all americans are rubbish tongue

Joseph K. "the thinking man's idiot"
Posts: 8524 Joined: 14-03-06 Location: Brighton
11 October, 2007 - 15:29

i hate them because they're free, and i have a beard*

* n.b. this statement is 100% counter-factual

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