Indymedia doesn't meet often. Getting everyone scattered throughout the world, or even throughout a single continent, in the same place, at the same time, when you are trying to gather together a dispersed network of individuals and autonomous collectives, and with little to none in the way of money to make this happen, has proved difficult.

The usual lure is a major counter-summit or protest, when the movement converges, so does Indymedia, but amid the tear gas and the frantic recabling of the temporary radio studio, relaxed long-term discussions of vision and structure usually fail to manifest themselves.

This weekend in Austin there's a space and a time to have some of these discussions: about a 125 people have made it to Texas as part of the Indyconference, which is proving to be a mixture of a somewhat straightforward conference on alternative media with a more freewheeling parallel track of unofficial IMC network meetings and workshops. Sadly, whether due to lack of funding or communication, most of the imc's and imcsista's here are from the U.S. But while not ideal, that's ok, there's a lot to be talked about and a lot of information to share just among the dozens of imc's in this country. Even finally be able to connect a real face to an irc nick or an email address you've been working alongside for years is satisfying and strangely vertiginous.