

Anarchy in the U.K.: Computer Networking workshops

Introduction

Three of these were held

1.  an introduction to computer networking
2.  a discussion with publishers about electronic publishing
3.  a discussion about BBSes and networking among those already#
using it.

The themes of the workshop were good, and they were to a large extent
successful; preparation was difficult, as the organisers were a collection
of net people who had not had the opportunity to meet previously.  In
fact, only one was resident in London, compounding the difficulty in
organisation.

Myself, Mitzi Waltz from Extreme Books in Portland, Oregon, Matt Fuller
from Fast Breeder BBS in London, Andrew Flood from the WSM in Dublin, Iain 
McKay from Glasgow, and Chris Hutton from Edinburgh were involved.  A
big thanks to all of them - particularly Mitzi - for their hard work.
Very little was organised by myself beforehand, despite my suggesting
the themes, and the hassles I had meant that I relied upon people stepping
in to take over, which they did.   Overall, it was very useful.

We arrranged to meet the day before at the levitation of parliament - too
vague an arrangement to work.  Next time, I would choose somewhere away
from the main events, and a specific time.  Setting up a mailing list
to coordinate workshops from afar beforehand - and starting some months
before - would help.

We could have compiled a list of organisers' phone numbers so that
we could communicate over the period of the festival.  The first two workshops 
occurred on the same day - too much of a rush to change over; I would choose 
separate days.

It was valuable to have plenty of time, particularly for the first 
workshop, which ran over about four hours.  Explaining technology
cannot be done in a hurry.

It is probably worth choosing a facilitator and someone to write up
the workshops beforehand.  I ended (semi-) facilitating each workshop
and Mitzi wrote them up.  I had a 2 year old child with me which
added to various organisational problems (including losing a whole
load of stuff the night before the first workshop); if I have to
bring a child, I'd prefer to take a back seat.  Different facilitators
would be a good idea for each workshop.  

We could have involved the non-Internet BBS community more centrally
(one of them should have run the third workshop), as I get the
feeling they feel slightly marginalised.  Also, note the problems
with Spanish speakers discussed in <reference>.   It would be worthwhile to 
run workshops in both languages, and arrange as good an interpretation
as possible.  At least, separate workshops could have been held in
English and Spanish, with both reporting back.  (We have Spunk Press material 
in other languages and I omitted to bring it!).

The hall was not perfect.  There were several exhibitions which
filled the walls; people wandered in - at one point playing music.
We held the last two workshops in a pub nearby.  As they involved
smaller numbers of people, this wasn't bad.  This depends on the
pub, though.

Reporting on workshops would be easier if online access was
available - particularly for something lasting a week or more.
There's usually some kind of college nearby, and this could have been 
arranged.

Introduction to Computer Networking workshop

This attracted about 50 or 60 people. It was very informal owing to
my total lack of preparation.  Luckily the eight or so of us with
net access were able to collaborate.  After a short introduction
the workshop just followed the questions of the audience.  We
concentrated on the positive uses of networking and practical advice
rather than technical details.  More information for people wanting
to get connected would be useful.  There were useful comments from
others about the problems with the extent of information on the net
- how do you know what is interesting once you are connected?

We all described our different perspectives, a useful spread from
Spunk Press (electronic publishing on the net), Extreme Books
(anarchist BBS, catalogues and internet access), Fast Breeder
(local BBS), WSM (use of the net by anarchist group).  We then
split into smaller groups - *very* useful and maybe worth doing
earlier, and actually planning the different themes.

Demonstration was tricky; we only had a portable Macintosh.  It
was possible with small groups.  A neat offline  demo of WWW set up
by Jack Jansen was aborted as I lost the disks the night before.
People seemed more interested in discussing the technology.  A
rather impressive write up of the workshop appeared in one of the
daily bulletins by someone there 

Publishers workshop

The discussion with publishers took place in the Dolphin
Pub on Tuesday afternoon. A K Press from Edinburgh, and 
their London office, Working Press, DS4, Extreme Books,
Workers Soldiarity (WSM), Scottish Anarchist and Spunk Press were present.  
The discussion was very useful, if rather brief owing to
organisational hiccups.

Stefan from Working Press made the point that, for those
without net contacts, there was no feedback from Spunk Press.
The idea of local user groups was discussed.  We decided that
a regular newsletter from Spunk Press would increase communication.
Statistics on accesses to a publishers section in Spunk Press
would give feedback on usage (currently WWW accesses can be monitored
at 140 a day for the Spunk Press home page).

One obstacle facing publishers is simply lack of time to get disks
converted.  Help might be needed here.

WWW and graphics were discussed.  This - and sound, for DS4, who
carry records - had great interest.  As usual, no one has the time
to get into HTML and the technology.  We should assist publishers
once we have a handle on it.

The usefulness of cross referencing within the archive was pointed
out.  A way of encouraging those submitting to provide this kind
of information - a questionaire perhaps - would be useful. 

We discussed the impact of free electronic access on book and
magazine sales.  Mitzi and I made the point that most people
don't like either reading from a screen or a pile of A4 printouts.
Though Hakim Bey's TAZ is in the archive, I will go and buy it
to read it properly.  WWW is more pleasant to read online or
print out, but larger items are unlikely to be read online.
In any case, it  is at least worth publishers putting their
catalogues into the archive, and excerpts from publications to
stimulate interest. This cropped up just before the workshop
during a discussion between myself and people from Freedom,
who were concerned about loss of revenue.  Everyone else felt
this was a negative attitude - A K Press pointed out that this
could be used as a justification for closing libraries.  Well,
Freedom are the conservative end of the anarchist movement here..

We agreed that meeting up at the annual anarchist bookfair in
September would maintain contacts, and that Spunk Press would
try and arrange this.

BBS and networking workshop

This was attended by people from ECN (London and Berlin), BBSes in
Barcelona, the WSM, Extreme Books, Spunk Press (others?).

Some of the discussion was about Spunk Press.  We made our commitment
clear to take material in any language, and explained that all groups
were autonomous in that we had no editorial policy; all information
is accepted - though ephemeral information is not so appropriate.
Disk space is not an issue, as we can find as much as is needed on
machines on the internet; the Spunk Press archive is distributed to
BBSes, and on PC disks, and the recipients can choose how much of the
archive to keep.  We are committed [ I think? subject to discussion ]
to accepting as wide a range of anarchist material as possible (someone
asked if we would take Class War - of course).

Chris from ECN London was interested in technical help in getting connected;
currently they have to wait for ECN Berlin to come over to London!  We 
agreed the need for a resource to help with practical advice; also the
wider distribution of anarchist contacts for people to acccess when
they need advice (before and once connected to the net).  A modified
form of the Spunk Press contact list would help people sift out useful
contacts and information.   This needs some kind of non-net contact
by phone or letter, and available from some address - perhaps published
by A K Press?

The point was made by ECN Berlin that the distribution of information in
this way does not connect to activism; indeed that the use of the internet
to coordinate activities, e.g. around the Chiapas rising, isn't much use
when local movements are too weak to act on the information.  We distinguished
Spunk Press as an educational organisation with a necessarily narrow focus.

ECN Berlin made the most interesting point that Internet mailing lists and
newsgroups are of little use when they do not involve people who are
already working together.  The setting up of mailing lists around specific
issues (thanks Andrew from WSM) and in geographically localised areas
 - e.g. for the Scottish Anarchist Federation, or over the U.K. - would
address this.  Essentially, I think we have become too attached to the
Internet as a global entity; while useful for information retrieval,
communication is better achieved over smaller distances, or over
single issues.  This requires more people to set up and maintain mailing lists.
We can learn from the BBS world, who are necessarily slanted towards
local contacts.  Addition of BBSes to the anarchist net contact list
(or maintenance of a separate list) would help redress this (I personally
am going to dial in to more BBSes without internet contact to shed some
of my Internetcentrism).

Manuelo from Barcelona described the anarchist networking in Spain; two internet
nodes in Madrid and Barcelona and some BBSes.  ECN Berlin described
their network. 

Ian Heavens, Spunk Press Scotland
