[theforum] back to basics

[Erika]

I wonder if maybe the essential tension is not between "professional"
and "amateur" so much as "professional" and "anarchist."

When we started we defined ourselves in opposition to the other.

NOT corporate.
NOT commercial.
NOT webmonkey.
NOT possessive.

We WERE rebels, guerillas

Non-Profit
Anarchist
Creative
Self-initiated
Community-based
Internet-freedom

We were/are based in open-source philosophy.
Our first big conflict happened over issues of leadership.  Leadership 
has been an ongoing struggle.

I think maybe a lot of people are craving more leadership, structure.
We've not had a lot of that.  I think maybe a lot of people want to be
more grown up. Me, if the web were rock n' roll, I'd be more than happy 
to be motörhead, rockin three awesome chords into the 21st century.

I like being the anarchist web group, and the EXPERIMENT of it all is
enough to hold my interest most of the time, even when the PRODUCTIVITY 
seems frustratingly limited at times.  Leadership happens in a ground-up 
manner.

And in fact, that in itself sets us apart from just about everyone else
out there.  How to define a personality for ourselves as a group within
this context is growing ever more challenging, however, as is 
self-governing in this context.

Add to this, we are international.  We've always been, and steered 
towards nurturing, the international aspect of our org.   I would say, 
the web is now moving FULL SPEED AHEAD in terms of true 
internationalisation, and we should be riding this wave, if not leading it.

This does and will open up all kinds of new worm-cans for us, culturally 
linguistically, and politically.  I say: bring it on.

This also means, more than ever, our site must be accessible and 
user-friendly.

Erika

*just made decided to attend a web internationalisation lunch meeting 
this Wednesday I had been on the fence about attending*