[Lowdown] May 2009

Mallory Knodel mallory at mayfirst.org
Wed May 6 14:52:04 EDT 2009


LOWDOWN MAY 2009

The past month brought yet another opportunity to support First 
Amendment Rights online and the first organizing meeting for the US 
Social Forum 2010. Next month brings our first membership "inreach" meeting.

MEMBER NEWS

Shell Guilty, a MF/PL member that works to expose Shell's destructive 
effect on Nigeria recently launched a campaign against the New Orleans 
Jazz and Heritage Festival because The Jazz Fest's primary sponsor is 
Shell. The protest site is: http://shelljazzfest.com/. MF/PL received a 
"DMCA Take-down Notice" against this website, accompanied by a sharp 
threat from the upstream provider involved, BandCom, to either remove 
the site or they would remove it for us. MF/PL's Leadership Committee 
responded swiftly and strongly, supporting their First  Amendment 
rights. Shell Guilty was also being supported by Electronic Frontier 
Foundation with whom we collaborated. Shell Guilty *did* make a couple 
of well-advised changes to the site (without weakening its message or 
content) and the other side backed off. The site is still on line.

May First/People Link was central to the success of the  2007 United
States Social Forum in Atlanta, Georgia by providing the organizing
strategy for technology solutions. The next USSF will be held in
Detroit, Michigan in June 2010. MF/PL has already begun organizing for 
the event. We held a collaborative democracy workshop in Detroit 
(attended by local organizations and some Social Forum national leaders) 
which framed a tech policy for the USSF and was later approved by the 
National Planning Committee. We also have been asked by NPC to launch 
the tech work group and we've done so (its first meeting was held last 
week). You can learn more about this project at http://ict.ussf2010.org.

Please support fellow members: Grassroots Media Conference. They are
hosting one of the most important NYC activist conferences of the year.
The conference theme is Hope To Action and it's taking place on
Saturday, May 30. For more information: http://nycgrassrootsmedia.org/.

QUICK NEWS AND NOTICES

Left Forum, held April 17 - 19 at Pace University in New York City, was
a huge success for both of MF/PL's scheduled events. Makani Temba,
Alfredo Lopez, and Jamie McClelland presented and discussed "The
Internet: Humanity's Revolutionary Initiative". Following the panel
discussion loaded with theory, Mallory, Jamie, and Alfredo presented
concepts of revolutionary collaboration with the ever-popular 
"Collaborative Democracy Workshop" in which participants combined their
perspectives on hemispheric, economic rights.

May First/People Link is dedicated to growing awareness within our
membership. We feel that our loyalty to you, our members, requires that
we support member's technology needs to strengthen their organizational
missions as well as foster growth of our members' technology policies
that will strengthen their overall political strategy. One way we've
envisioned our role is to bring sectors of members together. Our first
meeting of this kind surrounds the theme of Internet Distribution of
Video. The meeting is Thursday May 8, at 6:30 pm. Please contact
hye.jung at fex.org is you are interested in coming. If you are unable to
make it, look for our related session at the upcoming Grassroots Media
Conference.

We're offering an opportunity to learn more about Drupal by modifying
and updating your existing Drupal site. This Friday, May 8 10:00 am -
6:00 pm, we are supporting interested members at the Brecht Forum by
holding the space for a productive barn-raising co-working day. We plan
to have small group and individual discussions with large group
tutorials as needed. Bring your laptop! If you're unable to attend, yet
still interested, email Mallory (mallory at mayfirst.org).

WELCOME! NEW MF/PL MEMBERS

Mary Pratt
4th Street Food Coop
Seana Wood
Colectivo Flatlander
New York City Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Domestic Violence Taskforce
IBEW Local 488
IBEW Local 490
Shell Guilty Campaign
Vote Rev Billy
Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign

FYI: IF YOU'RE A MF/PL MEMBER, DO YOU KNOW...

... what is the fastest way to have your tech support question answered?
One of our major ways that we support you as our member is to answer
technology support questions, troubleshooting, and helping you learn
more about accessing and controlling your site. Of course, we also feel
that it's important to teach concepts and explain political contexts as
well as answer technical questions. In any case, if your question is
technical, conceptual, or political, you'll want to start by going to
https://support.mayfirst.org.

1. Maybe there was an incident that impacted many members' sites and
emails, so before posting a ticket please check our Service Advisories
<http://mayfirst.org/support/advisories> at
http://mayfirst.org/support/advisories.

2. Also, you can do a search to see if anyone else has had the same
question or to see if we're working on a related improvement.

3. And finally, your question might be answered on our Frequently Asked
Questions <https://support.mayfirst.org/wiki/faq> page. You can find
answers to most of your email and DNS related questions at
https://support.mayfirst.org/wiki/faq. Not only will you find answers,
but often you'll also find in-depth, holistic explanations as well as
our political philosophy as it relating to some topics, such as our take
on privacy (https://support.mayfirst.org/wiki/privacy_on_standard_servers).

Lowdown is published by May First/People Link





More information about the Lowdown mailing list