Calling Potential Seanchaís, Papparazzis, Earwiggers, Voyeurs, Nerds & Daleks. Help Indymedia.ie!

national | arts and media | feature Tuesday August 02, 2005 13:36 by Indymedia Ireland Editorial Group - Indymedia Ireland

Become a part of the machine. We want your storytelling/photo/audio/video/tech/editing skills!

The site has gone from strength to strength over the past few months with a substantial increase in readership. We want to maintain this level of interest, but we also want you to contribute and get involved with the production & running of Indymedia Ireland.

Indymedia.ie tops 120,000 visitors in July

July was another record breaking month for Indymedia Ireland. On Tuesday July 26th, we surpassed the 3 million hits mark for site traffic in a month for the first time ever. Over the month we averaged 115,000 hits a day - an increase of a whopping 30,000 a day on our previous all time record which was last month (June 2005). Web traffic normally drops off substantially over the Summer, so this performance is a testament to the increasing quality of contributions to the newswire and our making inroads into broader audiences.

Although we don't normally retain IP addresses (to help enhance user privacy) statistical analysis of the samples that were retained in the past show that we will have received over 120,000 different readers in July alone (measured by unique IP addresses) . 1.1 million pages on the site and 3.55 million files were downloaded. In less technical terms, we are doing very, very well indeed. In more paranoid terms, we are transitioning from being a mosquito to being a serious pest in the house of Herr McDowell and chairman Bertie. Not bad for a bunch of volunteers organised as a collective with a budget that might as well not exist.

So, what does all this mean then? If you publish a story on the Indymedia Ireland newswire, it will be seen by many more people than you probably imagine. We must admit we are pleased with these readership figures, but we are constantly looking for ways to improve the site, and expand into other media beyond the internet. We always need more people to get involved in operating the Indymedia Ireland machine.

If you are a regular reader of the site, dont forget that you can make a contribution of your own, simply by going to the publishing page and following the instructions on the page. You can publish anything on the Indymedia Ireland newswire, so long as it adheres to the Editorial Guidelines. You can add in images, audio, and video along with your text.

In light of these figures, Indymedia Ireland is pleased to offer two short multimedia training courses/workshops to the public. The courses are free and will be provided by Indymedia Ireland volunteers.

The first workshop is An Introduction to Digital Audio. This covers how to take your audio from a source such as a dictaphone, Minidisc or Cassette recorder, and transfer it onto a computer, thus capturing it as a digital audio file. The file will then be edited down from the original recording. We will look at different methods of processing and saving the file for different purposes, such as burning to a CD-R, or compressing the file into a smaller format like MP3 or Ogg Vorbis, which is more appropriate for Indymedia/web publishing purposes. The workshop will finally look at ways and locations for publishing your audio, such as Indymedia Radio or radio4all, and also at giving your work a Creative Commons license, which will allow other people to adapt and modify your work for non-commercial purposes.

The second workshop is An Introduction to Digital Video. This covers how to take your video footage from a MiniDV video camera, and transfer it onto a computer, capturing it as a digital video file. The file will then be edited from the original footage, re-arranging scene sequences and editing out footage we do not need. We will look at different methods of processing and saving the file for different purposes, such as DVD authoring, or compressing the file into a smaller format like DivX, XviD or Ogg Theora, which is more appropriate for Indymedia/web publishing purposes. The workshop will finally look at ways and locations for publishing your video, such as FTP uploading to the Indymedia Video site or the Internet Archive, and also at giving your work a Creative Commons license, which will allow other people to adapt and modify your work for non-commercial purposes.

Both of these workshops will be given with free software, freeware or shareware that is available for download on the internet. A CD- ROM with all relevant software (plus additional tools) will be given out to all attending the workshop. Each workshop is roughly 90 minutes in duration.

If you are part of a local community group, school, college or workplace that you think would benefit from this multimedia training, then please contact Indymedia Ireland using the contact form. Please bear in mind that Indymedia Ireland is run solely by volunteers with existing work commitments, so please give as much advance notice as possible so we can do our best to accomodate your group.

Indymedia Ireland also has limited resources. We can bring a laptop and all other relevant equipment to the workshop for demonstration purposes, but for larger groups you will ideally need a projector that is capable of outputting input from a PC, and a screen so people attending can see what is going on. Your group may also get more out of the workshop if they can try to do the work themselves on their own computer. A good example might be your local community centre or library, which may have computers available for public access.

Indymedia Ireland is offering these workshops as part of an initiative to get more people involved in creating independent and alternative media. We would especially welcome interest from groups outside Dublin. The workshops are free, but if you can offer anything towards travel expenses or even a donation towards Indymedia (which Indymedia survives on!), it would be greatly appreciated. The readership of the site is constantly growing, but we also want to encourage a growth in the number of people producing independent media and contributing regularly to the site with their stories.

We are also always looking out for editors and techies. Editors help to hoover clean the newswire of comments that are in breach of the Editorial Guidelines, and they also decide which stories are promoted to "features" in the main middle section of the front page. Techies are needed to iron out glitches and improve the Oscailt code which the site runs on, as well as other maintenance and improving the site at a back end level. The best way to start getting involved in either of these groups is to join up to the email lists, they are both open to anyone to sign up to. You can find information about the editorial list here, and the technical list here.

We know at this stage that its becoming something of a cliché or mantra to say that you are the media, but we want our readership to become involved in as much production of their own stories where possible. We're certain there are many stories out there that need to be told here but pass us by. The more people are aware that it is possible to write and publish your own story, and have the skills to do so, that is when the site can grow and mature even further.

Please contact Indymedia if you have questions or queries about the workshops, or anything else you think may be of use or interest.