Hi Ernesto,

I've answered what I can in-between. This lack of transparency is actually perhaps a result of the flat, ad hoc way we've worked in the past. It isn't really deliberate, anyway.

Personally I like the 'independent' proposal, as a document, because it seeks to address the pitfalls we faced in the group creatively and in a way which is fit for purpose.

My own opinion, having been involved in a lot of groups over the years, including some quite similar ones (e.g. Digital Medievalist) and some more formal and large ones (e.g. ADHO, CSDH-SCHN, Force11, TEI-C), is that we at GO::DH really underestimate just how much we've accomplished and just how much influence we've had.

I don't mean to be complacent and imply that there's no way of improving or dismiss the points raised by those who point to problems in what we have done or our failures.

But I also think that it is easy to expect too much from any organisation. GO::DH has really had a remarkable effect on the field of DH in the last five year, IMO. More than anything else that has happened in the field with the possible exception of the publication of the original Companion to DH.

The Australian DH conference was explicitly chosen by ADHO from the bids at the time, because it was the option available that best addressed issues raised by GO::DH members about the unfairness of always having to travel to the West and North to attend conferences (it wasn't a perfect choice, but it was a move out of what was available).
The decision to go to a three location conference model the next year was the next step in that movement--why were we excluding everybody else? Again directly attributed to the influence of GO::DH
The entire SIG infrastructure was created for GO::DH at our request and then extended to others.
Individual COs (I know of ACH and CSDH-SCHN best) have formally developed inclusion processes and protocols directly attributable to GO::DH
Several of our journals have run multi-lingual issues in response to our existence
Our whisper campaign has been adopted by other organisations
We've had meetings in various places in the Global South through the efforts of GO::DHers.
And so on.

I've been told several times by several people that GO::DH has been the most exciting thing to happen in DH in probably a decade. Even the reactionary burst that happened in 2016 was in some ways a tribute to GO::DH. It was part of the issue that arose; and the forces of reaction ended up backing down by-and-large.

I don't want to pretend that everything is over and we won or that all of these gestures were meaningful, successful, uncomplicated, or uncompromised. But I agree with those who say they've never seen anything like the impact GO::DH had on the field's understanding of itself. In 2012 (the year GO::DH was founded) there was only one article on Globalisation published between the Cologne Dialogues and Debates in the Digital Humanities (Domenico's great piece). One year later, you started getting people apologising in footnotes for not considering things from a global, multi-lingual perspective. Now it is unthinkable that you could publish something like Debates and not have significant contributions about diversity and global context of DH. I've genuinely never seen anything like it.

Again, I really don't want to be complacent or dismiss the opinions of those who (correctly I think), point out the trouble with current affairs, or urge that we could do better or more. But even with that, this community has been in my opinion simply astounding in its energy and what it has accomplished despite that. We're no where near the end, but GO::DHers really do deserve an immense credit for what has been accomplished---a group, as Roopsi pointed out, that was essentially all junior, beginning, people of colour, many working in insecure positions without access to the kind of funding more senior, Northern, researchers have.

As I have expressed in the past a more formal arrangement tends to exclude many of us for different reasons. When I attempted being active in ADHO ad hoc committees, lack of funding, travel times, time zone differences and technological challenges put me at a disadvantage. Not all of us can take more than a week off in one go to attend pre-comference meetings and conference events abroad (often in places as expensive as Lausanne).

Gimena and I were discussing this today. This is something that I think GO::DH would bring to ADHO through formal connection. DH 2018 has a lot of GO::DHers in its organising committee and I think we are already seeing the results. I think the organisation as a whole is ripe for the same kind of change. This kind of thing is hard to change as an individual. But I think it is exactly this sensitivity that GO::DH has insisted on from the beginning and could change if it were at the table.

It is not my place to say whether that is sufficient or true or even GO::DH's job. I am in an alright timezone, have good infrastructure, and at the moment am extremely well-funded. But I do believe that GO::DH is already changing how people understand what an organisation must do to be inclusive. I think it would be a massive force for good in this way, were it to be a CO. Concerns that that might be all it becomes are entirely legitimate. And it is also entirely legitimate to ask if this labour is not already asked too much of women, people of colour, people outside the North.

I have found myself mostly isolated in my criticism of the ADHO's deal with OUP for a paywalled journal that we through our universities have to then pay doubly -or is it triply?- so that we, our colleagues and students can access the work we produce. I would find it terribly depressing (if not antithetical) if GO::DH became a traditional 'CO' where only those with more relatively privileged conditions can have influence, and where members' fees would contribute to the ongoing paywalling and monopolisation of academic knowledge. This is why a 'minimal effort; big impact' would suit us better, in my opinion.

My understanding is that "GO::DH is free" is a bedrock principle: if you had to pay for a subscription to SDH to join GO::DH, I think any deal would be off.

I'm sorry you've felt so isolated in your criticism of the OUP arrangement. It is actually regularly criticised in my experience at other COs and in the ADHO Steering Committee (when I was on it). One result of that is that there's now a no-journal option. But I think also that the experience of GO::DHers (many of whom live in countries that of choice or necessity are far ahead in OA) also have something very important to offer here as well. Again, we need to be sensitive the question about whether it is appropriate to demand or expect that labour from people already suffering from the disadvantage.

Now, re what I still find unclear...

Would it be possible for Alex and Roopika, and Harold and Dan, to share with the rest of us this 'geneaology'? What I find missing in the 'independent' proposal is the background, the explicit _why_ of the proposed change.

I think Roopsi basically covered it. In Krakow I happened to be talking to Ray Siemens and Harold Short at one point and said that I thought that GO::DH might be interesting as a CO. They and some people sitting beside us (Neil Fraistat was another; Stefan Sinclair, I think; Susan Brown, Melissa Terras, Karina van Dalen-Oskam, and Barbara Bordalejo also were around at one point or another). There wasn't much more at the time than people saying they thought it was a great idea--the only criticism was somebody said that they worried it might be so popular that it would wipe out the membership from the other COs. Then later Roopsi, Barbara (I think), and I sat with Harold and really briefly discussed what was involved in becoming a CO. After that we played email tag a little, but never really started any discussions, because we never received authorisation to.

I went on at length about the impact GO::DH has had above because that is what people were saying to us about why they thought it was a great idea. In my experience people are simply immensely impressed by what it has accomplished and its promise.

I consider that external interest and praise to be incidental, however. It suggests that we might find it easy to arrange something if we asked. But others' opinions of us--particularly those of us in the North who are privileged--is really not an external validation a group like GO::DH needs to be sure of itself. It's useful if it is useful and not important if it isn't.

What I find missing or unclear in Harold's and Dan's is what the practical and financial implications would be, _who_ would receive money and how much and what for, and if GO::DH members would have to pay ADHO fees _and_ GO::DH fees.

This really is an issue--though everybody has been clear from the beginning that payment cannot be associated with membership in GO::DH. Harold is a genius at thinking up creative approaches to organisational design (ADHO is actually a remarkable way of spreading the wealth in a discipline). And if he's thought of something, I'm sure it very possible and creative.

I can see how this is hard to do, however. ADHO works by essentially pooling the membership fees of all the COs. In exchange the COs collect membership fees by asking their members to subscribe to SDH (or choose the no-journal option). ADHO also guarantees some financial stability to the COs: a minimum payment, regardless of numbers, for example. OA journal support, and so on (this is the old arrangement; there is a new one coming that I don't know too much about).

A no-fee GO::DH does present a problem in this scenario. Both for any money it receives (where does its share come from?) and for the possibility it offers for free membership to people who currently pay to belong to other national organisations (e.g. the Canadians, Japanese, and so on). What happens to ADHO finances if people leave the other COs they pay to join to join us for free?

I'm not sure what Harold has in mind about that. I do think that people like me should have at least the opportunity to belong to GO::DH and contribute to the funding of it and ADHO. But I also believe firmly that no membership fees is a bedrock principle of GO::DH. Maybe there is some way of adding a voluntary or Northern or employed-person charge to support GO::DH's position in ADHO that would not be a membership fee or connected with membership in GO::DH, then I'd personally support that. But I'm just guessing. No membership fees to join GO::DH is fundamental to me.

Answers to these questions might help the rest of us understand the background as well as the potential future consequences. For example, if there is no consensus, who gets to _be_ GO::DH?

GO::DH is its membership. If there's no consensus, I'd say the status quo prevails. I certainly can't see ADHO or others wanting to wade into a divided community--our strength thus far has been our ability to project our common interests and lack of consensus would suggest to me that it isn't a clearly good idea to join. We are a community. You can't change a community if there's no consensus.

[Excuse typos and relative brevity. Touchtyped from my phone on my way to work]

All the best,

Ernesto

On 17 Oct 2017 03:08, "Alex Gil" <colibri.alex@gmail.com> wrote:

Thank you, Barbara. I wish nothing more than that.

In the spirit of democracy, I ask all current executive members to say they agree for this vote to take place on the membership. A simple majority is all we need. We do not need for the vote to take place in secret—nothing on the bylaws about that. The bylaws, on the other hand do encourage important issues to be polled by members:

"Individual members in good standing have the right to vote in GO::DH elections and such issues as the Executive shall decide to poll the membership on."

Just say aye if you agree.

If the executive approves the passing of the poll, we will stick to our schedule, and vote on December 15. This gives us time to deliberate and secure a proper referendum, with an electoral officer assuring the standards of the proceedings.

a.
On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 10:02 PM, B. Bordalejo <barbara.bordalejo@arts.kuleuven.be> wrote:
Dear Alex,

Thank you for putting my name forward. Of course, as always, I am willing to work with Dan and others in making this case. However, I would like to be assured that that the decision will not be only in the hands of the executive, but the whole of the GO::DH membership. After all, this is precisely what you have been proposing, right?

Best,

BB
On 16/10/2017 17:48, Alex Gil wrote:
Thank you all,

Real quick, so I don't interrupt your conversation too much. Dan, would you be amenable to making your argument into a Google Doc? Perhaps Glen and Barbara would like to add. Just so that we can keep organized.

That's all,

Please continue. This will be enormously helpful for the executive committee when it comes time to make a decision. As always feel free to write in the language you are comfortable in. We will figure it out.

a.

On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 7:17 PM, Amy Earhart <aearhart@tamu.edu> wrote:

Hello all,

It seems a large part of this discussion is not about ADHO, but rather about if we think our goals are best accomplished in an organizational structure. In some ways putting GO::DH into a large organization like ADHO is a poor fit. GO::DH started as a very grass roots organization that resisted hierarchies, committees, officers, etc. and rather used social media and loose collaborations to create some sort of a movement or to create small projects. To me we are much more like a social movement, a political movement, than we are a typical academic organization. I think we are at a moment where we need to figure out if such a beginning should be contained within an organization for positive benefits, reject such organizational structures as antithetical to our goals or to come up with some sort of a hybrid model. Thinking about the issue as less about ADHO and more in this structural way has helped me to consider what might be at stake and where we might go.

Best,

Amy

Amy E. Earhart

Associate Professor of English

Texas A&M University

From: globaloutlookdh-l <globaloutlookdh-l-bounces@uleth.ca> on behalf of Roopika Risam <rrisam@gmail.com>
Sent: October 16, 2017 4:16
To: globaloutlookdh-l, MailList
Subject: Re: [globaloutlookDH-l] Why we should leave ADHO, go minimal and return to the planet.

Ernesto,

I know I'm not Alex but the list belongs to the members, so I would argue that the conversation should happen however the members will it.

Roopika

--

Roopika Risam, PhD

Assistant Professor of English

Chair, Program Area for Content Education

Salem State University

http://roopikarisam.com

On Oct 16, 2017, at 5:47 AM, Ernesto Priego <efpriego@gmail.com> wrote:

Thank you for this, Alex.

We should have a collective deadline of December 1 for deliberations. In that time, we encourage general and executive members to debate on the list what you would like to see GO::DH become. All of your discussion, comments, will be taken into consideration as the executive votes on a final decision by December 15.

Should we have that conversation on this thread (i.e. in reply to your message as I am doing now) or would you prefer to have a different thread or even different threads?

Thank you!

Ernesto

Dr Ernesto Priego

@ernestopriego
https://epriego.wordpress.com/
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On 15 October 2017 at 20:50, Alex Gil <colibri.alex@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear all,

As promised, here is the document with the argument for why we should leave ADHO. The first round was written by Dr. Roopika Risam and me, but those in support can add their own rationales and arguments, or comment on ours. Instructions are in the Google Doc.

A second argument will be prepared by those who support the idea of becoming a Constituent Organization of ADHO. I think Dan O'Donnell (Canada), Barbara Bordalejo (Argentina) and Glen Worthey (USA) have signaled they would be interested in drafting such a document. Hopefully sooner, rather than later, so we can proceed with deliberations.

After the second argument is made, a third argument is possible if enough members feel there should be a middle path, or a "third way."

We should have a collective deadline of December 1 for deliberations. In that time, we encourage general and executive members to debate on the list what you would like to see GO::DH become. All of your discussion, comments, will be taken into consideration as the executive votes on a final decision by December 15.

We will announce the results of the process before the year ends, and hopefully move forward with renewed energy into the next stage of GO::DH. Next year, I will pass on the baton to a new chair who will carry out our collective will, but will help in the transition, whatever that is, as long as I'm chair.

All best,

Alex.

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