To recap on Allison's suggestion about themes:

Months 1-3: Broad theoretical concepts: private vs public/ the commons
Months 4-9: Specific domains such as culture/ media etc
Month 10: A conclusion: A wrap up of what we have learned over the last year - what is going on in India and how does this relate to other local contexts.

I would like to suggest that this month we look at the specific domain of MEDIA AND PIRACY or MEDIA AND COPYRIGHT, looking at your specific jurisdiction and how the media portray this topic (either piracy or copyright) and the issues surrounding this topic. As the media is most people's window in to the world, the media's ability to frame an issue is of tantamount importance.

The second article should also be around media and the media's interpretation of an issue, but the issue can be broader - either around something that is of particular interest to you or our current work, or even something that is being discussed/ debated in the media in your country at present that you would like to critique or comment on.

Please feel free to bring your discussions to this forum! :)

Hi Kerryn,
Does this mean we're skipping November altogether?
About the theme, I have already written about Piracy and I wonder if this theme will not end up overlapping that article. Can I suggest an alternative like Open Access to Law or Right to Information?
Prashant

Hi everyone, I have uploaded the audio from our discussion today to http://www.jacobson.co.za/files/gclc_29_11.mp3

HI Prashant
We are not skipping out november as such, as there will be two deadlines. First article will be due by 7 December and second article due by 20 December. Reason for this is that icommons is closing from 14 december and we will be producing one last Lab report before we go on holiday. Then the article for the 20 December will be uploaded directly by yourselves to icommons.org and we will encourage you all to edit one another's articles. These articles will then be included in the January Lab Report.

In terms of topics: yes, you have written wonderfully on piracy so I understand if you would like to extend this to Open Access to Law or Right to Information. But in these topics I would like you to give a critique on the media's viewpoint, or the manner in which (if any) the present/ frame these topics.

Allison's article will be on a famous case of plagiarism that hit news in India and the US, so I think your two articles will work well together. You will need to decide between the two of you which article will be due by 7th and which by 20 december.

Thanks for the Mp3 Paul! Great idea!
Kerryn, thanks for clarifying. I'll discuss it with Alli. Will a piece sampling the manner in which piracy has been covered in different newspapers ("32305 pirated cds confiscated".. and such) with analysis suffice?

yebo. that is zulu for yes. exactly!!

Hi! I'm new to iCommons as well as the Local Context, global Commons node. I submitted an article and now it is in a "voting mode." I heard somewhere that it needs to get 10 votes to become "public." How do people know this article is actually out there? Are the people of this node made aware of it? Also, does the 10 votes number depend on the number of members of a node? Do I need to write articles with "popularity" in mind for a broad public? I don't totally understand this... Furthermore, the voting period is limited but today Monday, for instance, the iCommons site was inaccessible for most of the day... Maybe someone can provide some information or at least point to a place where these kind of issues are explained? Thanks.
P.S.: I'm reposting this here also because I also have no clue where to post these type of questions, in the "Scraps" section or this forum.

Hi Francis
I can't see your article in the voting queue. Can you tell me where you uploaded it to, or what you uploaded it as? Also, did you upload any media (images etc) with your article?
Daniela can explain more about the voting process, but the 10 votes number doesn't depend on the number of people in the node.
The members of this node should always check the voting and editing queue to vote for one another's articles, but Daniela who is the web manager will send out an email alerting people to new articles and encouraging them to go and vote for them.
You need to write your article bearing in mind that there are a lot of different cultures reading your work. Popularity is really dependent on the reader as the community includes people from a lot of different disciplines, including culture producers, researchers, academics, educationalists, and legal folk. You will see that we encourage different writing styles on this node, although we ask people to stay away from too deeply academic as this makes is inaccessbile to some.
It's totally fine to put your queries here - I would assume that other 'local contextualisers' can also give you some of their insights. I will also ask Danni to talk directly to you via email.
Cheers, Kerryn

Thanks. It must already have gone into the "slush pile" ;-) It is called "Archaeologists Coming Out Of the Cold" and can be found at http://www.icommons.org/articles/archaeologists-coming-out-of-the-cold. And yes, it has media with it: an image. It got 1 vote. I did not see an email encouraging people from our node to check it out...

Hey guys, just to let you all know, for this first deadline of ours, I'll be handing an article on "media and copyright", as I've been already working on this theme lately and this can make things easier regarding our close deadline.

I intend to talk about the link between iCommons and Overmundo websites -- this one being actually a media vehicle, very popular and respected in Brazilian culture environment, and, indeed, alternative to those vehicles based on restrictive copyright rules.

Fine?

I haven't heard from Danni yet... Meanwhile I'm still trying to better understand this whole new iCommons landscape. So I did a search for the local-context-global-commons tag and found only 3 articles: 2 by Rebecca Kahn, iCommons reporter, and 1 by Paula Martini (Brazil). Surely, more were written? So they didn't get the 10-votes minimum then or maybe they weren't tagged properly? The latter may be the case for at least some of them I found as the 2 blog postings by Kerryn that also came up in my tag search results contained links to 10 published articles. Only 1 of those had come up in the tag search results. My article and Sarah Kansa's (http://www.icommons.org/articles/from-the-ground-up-shared-heritage-with-open-context), to name 2 others that I know about, were not to located this way though. And mine was definitely tagged correctly. So what gives? Also, not being a Buddhist, can someone explain what's this "karma" exactly about in people's profiles? :-)

Furthermore, what's the difference between the LCGC blog, forum and scraps?

tags
are important and as you will have seen if your article isn't tagged with our node name then it won't show up. this is a mistake that people make unwittingly, so the moral of the story is to always tag our node. I am behind in my blog update which usually links to all the stories though to make sure that those which slipped through the tag cracks are still found. These articles didn't show not because they weren't voted for, but because they weren't taggged properly. All our articles make it to the front page - yours will to if we can find it :)
Danni is travelling to Brazil right now so is not available which is why you haven't heard from her yet
karma
I've just spoken to JC our technical dude who said karma is 'what goes around comes around' :)
so basically the more actively involved in the website you are - interms of writing articles, voting, commenting, uploading resources, the more points you get. The less you do, the less points you earn. What do the points get you? Just good karma on the site. Check out Daniela's (Faris) profile - as she is always on the site, updating, commenting, uploading, her karma is way up there.
blog this is where i talk about themes and link to stories, and we update you on various things like style etc
forum is where we talk like this; informal discussions around themes, issues, stories
scraps is where i like to put short stuff like deadline alerts

... i meant above "tag our articles" with our node name :)

Thanks for clarifying some of that, Kerryn. I think because Francis and I both came into this a bit late, we have some catching up to do regarding how things work. For me, it's very helpful to receive an email with links to new pieces. Otherwise, I forget to look and miss them. I seem to have missed see everyone's articles for last month and even missed mine! As it turns out, mine went up on Friday before a 3-day holiday weekend here in the US, so the 48 hours for voting just slipped by unnoticed. Would it be possible to set up an automated email to people every time a new article is posted? Does this already exist and I just missed it? :)

Hi Prashant

I am a little behind on the forum and noticed your comment about the audio file now. Assuming no-one objects and future conference calls are conducted at least in part via Skype, I am happy to record future conversations and make them available in a similar manner.

Ok, just published my article on mainstream media and copyright to the editing queue. It probably is a little long so please feel free to suggest edits or comment.

Hi everyone.

Kerryn has answered all your questions spot on! Just a few extra comments from me:

- How do people know that there are articles in the voting queue? as kerryn said I write an email to the mailing list alerting people to the fact that there are new articles on the site. this is something that is done sporadically, depending on the number of articles in the voting and editing queue, so i can't say i do this weekly or biweekly - it depends on what's happening on the site. apart from that there are site regulars who are constantly checking the voting queue to see what is coming through (this can also be done through RSS, which I know people make use of). These people enjoy voting for the articles, and help us get the content to the front page. apart from that the iCommons staff are also active on the site.

- What happens to my content if it doesn’t garner enough votes to make it onto the website? (from the FAQ)
If your content doesn’t earn enough votes, it won’t be shown in the website sections listings. But if your content doesn't gather the approval of the community - don’t give up! You can always revisit your piece to improve it and resubmit it. Also be comforted that all your contributions to the site, even your comments, votes and edits, will also appear on your public profile page, and so will provide a space for people to read what you have written. Plus, by contributing to the site you earn karmas.

- A note about votes: votes and karmas are connected. the more you participate in the site, the more karmas you earn, and the more karmas you earn, the stronger your vote. that means that some people with high karmas can vote for your article, and the article will gain more than 2 or 3 votes in one shot. See the karma table in the FAQ, here.

- when an article moves between queues, is successfully published or not published at all you will receive an automated email notifying you of the 'status' of the article.

I don't know what happened to your article Francis, sometimes articles fall through the cracks, especially over weekends when we aren't online. But please don't give up, as we all get the hang of this it'll be easier to get articles through.

Also, please refer to the following blogs/resources to get to know icommons.org:
http://icommons.org/help
http://icommons.org/blogs/hints-and-tips-for-producing-content-for-icommonsorg
http://icommons.org/blogs/how-this-website-works
http://icommons.org/blogs/why-the-editing-queue-needs-your-eyes