Bad times for indymedia London. I’m not sure when there were better times – probably when it was called indymedia uk – but for some time, most of the people who actually run it have been struggling to leave it in ‘good hands’ in order to move on and dedicate ourselves to other projects.
Precisely my involvement with the hacklab was about giving these potential new people a space where to work on indy, so that they would enjoy better conditions than we did. Now the space is there, but the people aren’t. Trainings have been offered for about a year, and no one has showed up, save to learn gimp and audacity. Personally, I don’t think I will be able to offer trainings weekly, as I have been doing… Well, I have put myself the deadline of end of September to sort this out. I need, and want, to travel a bit more before that.
It used to wind me up, the fact that there are so many people subscribed to lists where I work. In the hacklab list, there were about 80 last time I looked. In the imc London list, there are about 100. People who are subscribed to a list but never post are generally called lurkers. I am kind of used to it now; it is like acting in a stage for about 100 people – maybe more -, only it is for real. The saying is, ‘if you leave the project open, surely there are going to be 10 working and 1000 looking. Get used to it’.
