[bestbits] [governance] IMPORTANT : Merging IGC with Best Bits

Thu Jan 10 06:41:42 EST 2019

Hi people

My participation here (both ways) have gone down.. but since I have been
around from Day 0 of each of these, I can share some thoughts.

   1. IGC, the parent list underwent tough building processes. The
   "democratic" legacy of IGC is important  when/if merging.
   2. One of the reasons BB came to be was that IGC, at a certain point got
   too "talky, trashy and winding", in my opinion. Nothing was getting done
   and insults were freely served.
   3. BB also came from a certain convening of Civil society actors during
   an IGF. It therefore became the "Action-oriented" network of CS  people
   around IGF.
   4. Over the years, though.. IGC has calmed down and BB has tired out.

Beyond fusion/merger/marriage of both lists, is the greater question of how
the non-government and non-industry actors engage in the internet/digital
development landscape. A whole lot  has changed, challenges have changed,
and working methods may need to change if new objectives are to  be
achieved.

Just as a reminder, this is NOT the first time that a merger idea has
come.

I have attached two screenshots.

Happy New Year.

Nnenna

On Thu, Jan 10, 2019 at 10:46 AM Michael J. Oghia <mike.oghia at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> Sheetal makes a great point. I also just searched for the charter, hoping
> to find a full-length version of it on a blog somewhere. No luck. Does
> anyone have a PDF or. .doc version somewhere?
>
> Best,
> -Michael
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 10, 2019 at 11:01 AM Sheetal Kumar <sheetal at gp-digital.org>
> wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> I would agree with those further who have noted that we should have a
>> discussion informed by certain information about the history of both
>> groups: why were they constituted, what are their respective
>> mandates/constitutions/charters etc? As a very first step, this information
>> should be clear and accessible. We should be able to compare the
>> mandates/guiding principles/charters. I can't access the IGC Charter via
>> the link I'm afraid, or at least I can't find it when I visit archive.org.
>> Would there be another way to share it? @Ian Peter - you also mentioned an
>> IGC constitution, was this different from the charter? There is a lot more
>> publicly available information about Bestbits available (see
>> https://bestbits.net/wiki/main/procedures/) than there is about IGC
>> (indeed almost none, unless it is in the archive where I unfortunately
>> haven't been able to find the information myself).
>>
>> For those who were part of the first Steering Committee of Bestbits -
>> could you share more information about how it was constituted and why?
>>
>> Best
>> Sheetal.
>>
>> On Wed, 9 Jan 2019 at 16:36, Jeremy Malcolm <jeremy at malcolm.id.au> wrote:
>>
>>> On 1/8/19 10:16 PM, ian.peter at ianpeter.com wrote:
>>>
>>> Actually while this seemed to me the obvious way forward at first - BB
>>> emerged out of IGC, so why not get back together again - on reflection
>>> there are a few issues.
>>>
>>> Firstly I note that the IGC website is down so I cant check things - but
>>> from memory IGC had a constitution which we adopted early on which proved
>>> very difficult to change, and which may not be altogether suitable for what
>>> is needed now. I think this should be looked at before everyone is locked
>>> into something that is unsuitable. Can someone get the website up and
>>> running?
>>>
>>>
>>> I can't volunteer for that because whenever I volunteer to run a website
>>> for a limited time I end up doing so in perpetuity, and I feel bad about
>>> stopping. However, I can donate a paid virtual server for SOMEONE ELSE to
>>> administer on their own. This is the one that Best Bits is using now. It's
>>> paid up for about 5 years.
>>>
>>> Also, as one of the original co-founders of Best Bits I do support the
>>> merger, and your (Ian's) suggestion still seems to be the best one on the
>>> table. There are previous Steering Committee members of Best Bits who
>>> aren't as happy about it, but I don't think that a good alternative has
>>> been put forward yet.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Jeremy Malcolm PhD LLB (Hons) B Com
>>> Internet lawyer, ICT policy advocate, geek
>>> echo "9EEAi^^;6C6]>J^=^>6"|tr '\!-~' 'P-~\!-O'|wget -q -i - -O -
>>>
>>> ____________________________________________________________
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>>
>> *Sheetal Kumar*
>> Programme Lead | GLOBAL PARTNERS DIGITAL
>> Second Home, 68-80 Hanbury Street, London, E1 5JL
>> T: +44 (0)20 3 818 3258| M: +44 (0)7739569514  |
>> PGP ID: E592EFBBEAB1CF31  | PGP Fingerprint: F5D5 114D 173B E9E2 0603
>> DD7F E592 EFBB EAB1 CF31|
>>
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>
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