Darkness at Noon

I just made a similar post (well largely cut and pasted) over at Goonanism. Life is a little out of control at the moment.

Between the Melbourne Social Forum (which I’m an organiser of), the Australian Centre for Democracy and Justice and adjusting to full time work again, I’ve got about 1.3 seconds spare until April 22 when the MSF finishes.

So I suspect blogging will be even more sparse for the next month or so. Of course there’s nothing quite like a post like this to bring a person out of blogging hibernation.

So the only thing left to say (for now) is that last night’s forum was a great success, some really interesting discussion and a fantastic speaker (thanks Ellie!) An extra special thanks to Amee and all the people at the Stork who took great care of us, and also to ACDJ director (and all round good guy) Terry for organising such a fantastic event.

I’ll pop something up here when we get a recording of the evening up on our site and when the details of the next forum are available (which will hopefully be sooner rather than later).

Ladies and gentlemen, the fact that Australia’s citizenship laws have been made progressively more inclusive has provided a basis of trust, confidence and achievement. The fact that we accepted people with modest English as citizens has broken down barriers, not maintained them. The establishment of a new test that would exclude people who are committed to Australia and could pass the present test will create barriers, restrict opportunities, and impede participation. It would not be apparent immediately but it would happen, and it would diminish Australia.

The Australian Center for Justice and Democracy launches 2007 by presenting a series of three public forums to look at the issue of community media in greater depth.

Globally, media industries are conglomerating and rationalising operations for economic efficiency much to the detriment of the consumer and citizen, creating an oligopoly and reducing the number of voices herd. But the fight is not over. All over the world, community media is experiencing resurgence. Driven by Information and Communication Technologies that ease difficulty of use and cost are making it easier to make media leading to a boom in citizen-generated media. The question is “can it last?”

When: 6:30 for 7pm start Tuesday 20 March
Where: Stork Hotel [504 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne]
Cost: $5 (free for ACDJ members)
Contact: centre@democracyandjustice.org for more details

Speakers:

• Ellie Rennie is a Research Fellow in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (www.cci.edu.au). She is author of Community Media: A Global Introduction (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006). Ellie has also worked with the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia as a policy consultant in the area of digital television, assisting CTV stations to move beyond the ‘trial’ phase and into a permanent licensing framework. Her current research involves Australia’s emerging youth community radio sector and the social, educational and economic benefits of media participation. Ellie Rennie is involved in a number of community and academic associations, including the Community Communication section of the International Association of Media and Communication Research, Open Spectrum Australia, OURMedia/Nuestros Medios and the Wesley College Institute for Innovation in Education. She is based at Swinburne University of Technology’s Institute for Social Research in Melbourne.
• Moderated by Terry Johal, ACDJ director and lecturer in the communications faculty at RMIT.

This really does work on so many levels:

It has been attacked many times in its short life, most notably by a former aide to the late Robert Kennedy and the editor of Encyclopaedia Britannica. But now the online reference site Wikipedia has a new foe: evangelical Christians.

A website founded by US religious activists aims to counter what they claim is “liberal bias” on Wikipedia, the open encyclopedia that has become one of the most popular sites on the web. The founders of Conservapedia say their site offers a “much-needed alternative” to Wikipedia, which they say is “increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American”.

Although entries on Wikipedia are open for anyone to edit, conservative campaigners say they are unable to make changes because of inherent bias by its global team of volunteer editors. Instead they have chosen to build a clone that they hope will promote Christian values.

“I’ve tried editing Wikipedia, and found that the biased editors who dominate it censor or change facts to suit their views,” said Andy Schlafly, the founder of Conservapedia. “In one case my factual edits were removed within 60 seconds – so editing Wikipedia is no longer a viable approach.”

Among his criticisms listed on Conservapedia, Mr Schlafly explains how many Wikipedia articles often use British spelling instead of American English and says it “refuses” to give enough credit to Christianity for the Renaissance. “Facts against the theory of evolution are almost immediately censored,” he says.

So, british spelling is “liberal”. Who’d have thunk it?

The amazing thing is that they obviously have very little understanding of Wikipedia but have decided to start up their own wiki anyway.

As Mr Schlafly has given up on editing articles in wikipedia, maybe we should start editing conservapedia.

Go on, have a go yourself.

The Melbourne Social Forum is on again from April 20 to 21.

The Australian Centre for Democracy and Justice has endorsed it as we feel it is an exceptional event* and a superbe excercise in participatory democracy so why not come down. Of course we’ll be running a workshop on Lobbyocracy.

* Disclaimer: I’ve a fair amount of bias as I am on the organising committee

This article by John Warhurst is a very interesting piece on modern lobbying:

Airline Partners Australia and Qantas keep within the boundaries of acceptable behaviour. But it is plain to see how propriety can slip easily into impropriety if weak individuals make the decisions, given the enormity of the rewards at stake.

Certainly this Airline Partners Australia-Qantas buyout decision process has been a wonderful demonstration of the diversity of lobbying interests, the variety of lobbying styles and many of the elements of the modern lobbying industry.