I'm part of a local organization in the imperial core. I like the people there and they are all very well read and have a good understanding of theory, much more than myself.
The methods used to organize seem a bit dated and I'm not quite sure why. To give an example, people are expected to contact one another to let them know about whether events are happening or not. I think this is great, when I first joined this helped make it feel more personable. It felt like there was already a development of camaraderie since there was a name and a face behind every message that I knew. This doesn't always work though, since some members don't always remember and don't remind others and there isn't a definitive list of members. It's more so word of mouth and the different people who are in someone's recent text messages.
Something like this could definitely be more well organized right? When I brought up working on some kind of spreadsheet, mailing list, or calendar they told me that they relied on sort of a network effect (they used a different terminology) where some people will let others know and then those people will let others know, etc. I struggle to see how the two methods are incompatible or mutually exclusive. If the concern is about leaking information, there are authentication methods which could be used to silo off information.
The only sort of conclusion I can come to is that there is a (rightful) distrust of technology. What I don't get is why all of it is thrown out the window. It could even be done in analog, at least some bookkeeping would be nice. Some of it might have to do with party discipline, or lack thereof. I really think it might have to do with being set in one's ways and being very willful about the need to adapt in the modern era.
Would anyone have any other ideas for how to organize in a different way? Just for brainstorming, I don't think a perfect method would be made here, it's nice to entertain some ideas though.
I guess they really just don't want there to be a definitive set of members or something? Are people still all together at events? I don't know anything about organizing or whatever but that seems like a weird "threat model" if it's just trying to be less visible to the government.
Of course keeping a database or some kind of central computer record is work and requires maintenance and people to be responsible for it, so it's understandable if they want to avoid that. Even a digital process that seems simple at first can become a headache and lots of hours of work. And it's a good thing if they're averse to using something like Google Drive.
If they're really set on doing things in a distributed "peer-to-peer" way, there probably isn't a ton of software that works well like that given the nature of the internet (and there aren't a whole lot of direct in person communication apps). I have no idea about other organizational methods.
I guess the obvious thing is for someone to be in charge of distributing a list of members or messaging everyone. Maybe just more frequent communication in general. Maybe you put people on a rotation in terms of who's responsible for doing a type of task, and others can remind them of their job. That way people don't have to feel like they have to always be tuned in, they can just be prepared for their own turn being the responsible one.
There's literally no advantage or reason I can think of for them to do this other than it seems cool because it's like, underground and word of mouth or some shit. SMS is one of the least secure forms of internet communication, I would rather use Facebook than SMS for security/privacy
Tell them to just throw everybody in a Signal/WhatsApp/Messenger group chat or a Slack channel. Ask them directly to reveal what the purpose of this form of communication is and let them know why it's not a good idea
Internet/data privacy and security within the imperial core doesn't really exist unless you actually know what you're doing with Tails, VPNs, and general real life security practices anyways
Yeah people are still at events, but some people end up being left out because they weren't invited.
