The IGF Community Site links together all the official and community online resources, and provides those that are missing from those hosted by the Secretariat: such as blog, wiki, chat, mailing lists, feeds and subscribable calendar.

The site was developed in response to the deficiencies of the IGF's own online presence, including the Secretariat's decision not to attempt to provide interactive tools for the original IGF meeting in 2006. That decision, communicated on the Secretariat's original Web forum brought me and then-journalist Kieren McCarthy together to fill the void.

Every year since then, the Secretariat has been requested to provide a link to igf-online.net (the successor to the original, igf2006.info) on the official IGF website, and to notify event organisers of the facilities that the site offers them. Every year it has ignored or refused that request, and even screened out messages about the site sent to open consultation meetings.

This year, I was again curtly informed that

we will not be able to insert your website link in any part of our website as your website whilst very useful, does not fall within any of the main categories related to Internet Governance Forum mandates.

This regardless of the fact that the IGF already links to the Remote Participation Working Group's website (more on them below), as well as to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr. So why do those proprietary sites make the cut while the IGF Community Site doesn't?

It all comes down to control. The fate of the Online Collaboration Dynamic Coalition (OCDC), which I founded as a governing committee for the IGF Community Site and its activities following the first meeting in Athens, is testament to this.

Although I haven't discussed it in detail before now, in February 2007 two important events for the OCDC coincided. First, Nominet offered to donate a hosted server for the successor to igf2006.info. Second, Chengatai Masango of the IGF Secretariat notified the then co-coordinator of the OCDC, Kieren McCarthy, that he did not want decisions made by the group (specifically the domain name for the new site) being recorded on the group's wiki without reference to MAG members who had an interest in the decision, but had chosen not (despite invitation) to participate in the group's mailing list. In a surprising breach of trust, McCarthy immediately responded by suspending access to the group's wiki without discussion with other members.

(Whilst shocking to me at the time, the Secretariat's willingness to censor open discussion at the IGF has since been demonstrated even more openly. Its head, Markus Kummer, who likewise actively stifled discussion of IGF improvements during his tenure, then took up a role with ISOC, the last major stakeholder to oppose the IGF's formation and perhaps the most reactionary about its possible improvement.)

Following his censorship of the wiki, McCarthy ceased working with the OCDC on its open mailing list, instead quietly forming a shadow group, including Chengatai and several MAG members, which met privately and without reporting back to the list. At least some of its members wrongly believed that by virtue of these private discussions they were actually part of the OCDC. (One of these breakaways was Emily Taylor of Nominet, who immediately began stonewalling on the server offering to the original group.)

Eight months later when the Rio IGF meeting rolled around, two more events coincided. First, I rapidly had to source my own hosting for the new server, as Nominet's donation had never eventuated. Second, on the day of the OCDC's dynamic coalition meeting in Rio, a MAG member from McCarthy's shadow group induced his colleague MAG members to unsubscribe from the OCDC's mailing list en masse by making false claims about a takeover of the group.

The resultant confusion opened a window for the formation of a new group (which, by reason of the downtime occasioned by Nominet's stonewalling, had believed the OCDC to be defunct), namely the Remote Participation Working Group. Not wanting to allow this new group the independence that the OCDC had shown, the Secretariat made it very clear that the Remote Participation Working Group would be kept on a very short leash. In return, the Secretariat has cooperated with the Remote Participation Working Group, whilst at every turn spurning the IGF Community Site.

The outcome is that although the IGF Community Site remains the only fully independent, non-profit and free software-based online resource for members of the IGF community, maintained continuously from 2007 until today through hundreds of hours of volunteer labour, the IGF Secretariat would rather you didn't know about it. I'd like your help in changing that. Please take a moment to:

• Email the Secretariat at igf@unog.ch, letting Chengatai and his colleagues know what you think about their attempts to stifle the online voice of the IGF community.
• Widely forward links to the IGF Community Site at igf-online.net through your social networks, blogs and media.
• Volunteer to help with the maintenance or hosting of the site.