[pp.int.general] Communication problem, real or perceived?

[Andrew Norton]

easier to do it point by point, so watch for the lack of quote marks!

On Fri, 22 Jun 2007 13:02:26 +0200, Jan Huwald <jh at sotun.de> wrote:
> If you are in a hurry, read at least 2.1 and spread the word about!
> 
> 1. monthly chat
> 
> 1.1 During my (still ongoing) time in the board of the German pirate party
> I 
> learned to hate latenight  (open) discussions in IRC. Textchat is
> efficient 
> for voting, pasting text and ascii art. It behaves badly if it comes to 
> expressing long, complex statements in your foreign language.

I've run a half-dozen or so groups and organisations over the last 10 years, most of which covered at least the UK and part of the Us. You'd be surprised how much that can still be considered a foreign language. Even after living in the US for 5 years, people stil have dificulty sometimes with understanding what I say, sometimes because of the terms, othertimes because of my accent. I also like to point out, I did say IRC or any other method. That could be a voice chat, could be IRC, could be anything. I said IRC first, because of the basic fact we already have the infrastructure in place, and many of us already use it.

> 
> 1.2 As we are a global movement the time shift will erase every possible
> time 
> for a regular (!) meeting. Therefore I prefer email and urge you to simply
> 
> use it more intensiveley (and think about 2., 4.)

email can be good, but it can be hard to follow various threads, its more lagged than IRC, and yet it's still textual discussion. As far as a meeting time goes, I think all but the US party and the Chilian party are within a time zone or two of each other, and in that respect we're actually a bit luckier than if it were the other way around, since evening for most of you, will only be afternoon, or late morning for us. I work from home (in so far as I'm allowed to) and so can make pretty much any time.


> 
> 2. task forces
> 
> 2.1 One the Vienna international conference we agreed on starting several
> task 
> forces (or international working groups). I think now it is the time to
> get 
> them running. I will promote them to the German pirates during our next 
> newsletter (approx betwean today and sunday). I will promote the int. wiki
> 
> page http://wiki.pp-international.net/Task_Forces as a concentration point
> 
> for all volunteers. I ask you to do so in your party, too!
> 

Looking over it again, as I had today, I do notice that it's not so much 'international' as 'european' in nature. Whilst Brussels09 is in no way a bad thing, it is not, and should not be the be-all-and-end-all of international communications. These working groups are fine for those within the EU, but I was thinking more of a generallised global group - some sort of international relations committee perhaps - which is not a short 2-3 year group, but looks to exist potentially for as long as there are eligable member parties.

> 2.2 Task forces should issue monthly reports on their progress
> 
> 2.3 Task forces may reduce the neccesarity of getting all int. pirates 
> together by splitting up problems.
> 
> 3. Re: press releases from the int. pirates: about a board of the int.
> pirates 
> we should continue to discuss. A part of this discussion will take place 
> within the Legal Team (one of the working groups), especially about
> election 
> details and how to form a legal body (or if, at all)

Again, this is not so much about election to europe, thats a smaller grouping than I'm thinking about, again because the countries to whom the European Parliament is relevent is smaller than the whole of us. Looking at the list on the sidebar at pp-international.net, I see 11 of the 27 countries are non-EU, 12 of 28 if you add in Chili. We need something for the whole, and which will also help develop even more countries. Of course, I also have no clue how many of those countries are activve, or were just people with an interest a year or so ago, and nothing came of it.

> 
> 4. I agree that all parties should paste their press releases and
> important 
> movements wihtin their country to this mailinglist. For the later I
> suggest 
> regular digest. Hopefully I can motivate somebody to do this for Germany
> .. 
> Christoph Leng, how it is about you?

Digests are great, just as long as the really major things don't get stuck in one, and then thats it - things like official party registration, elections with pp-candidates, or major events - international publicity might not be as good as local publicity, but it all helps.


All the best,

Andrew Norton
PP US International Liaison

> 
> Regards,
> Jan Huwald
> Political Secretary, German Pirate Party
> 
> Am Freitag, 22. Juni 2007 06:00:54 schrieb Andrew Norton:
>> I've been looking around, reading around, and it seems to be there is
> some
>> sort of gap in communication. It seems we're all working separately, or
> at
>> least not as cohesively as we should, or could. I've spoken to many of
> you
>> recently (or at least some of you on IRC, and most of those who've
> replied
>> with the 'Jabber of the pirates') and often I get the same question -
> “hows
>> it going in your country” and its one I also have to ask.
>>
>> We're not communicating well between each other, or again, thats my
>> perception. It would be nice, for instance, to know when national groups
>> put out a press release about something (you are putting out press
> releases
>> and stuff, right?)
>>
>> The other thing is there is no real 'private' communication between us
> all.
>> This mailing list is open to anyone that wants to be on it. Whilst that
>> might be great in some aspects, its not so good in others, especially if
>> there's any sort of discussion over anything that might cause
> controversy.
>>
>> What I would like to propose is that we just start talking more, and
>> talking smarter. 1)Some sort of monthly meeting, on IRC, or any other
>> method, between different party members, so we can all keep each other
>> informed about how things are going. 2)Some sort of secured area, just
> for
>> party members, so we can discuss things in private, even if it's just a
>> moderator-approved-join list. 3)That we each announce press releases to
> a
>> list, be it this one, or another one, so we al are kept abreast of each
>> party's breaking news, and can either make support statements or
> whatever
>> may be needed. Maybe even the 'international Pirate Party' issues the
> said
>> releases, in the name of each national party. Dunno how feasible that
> is,
>> but its worth thinking about. I'm more than willing to help out with
> time,
>> and effort. Right now, due to the main composition of the US party
>> supporters, many of our people are otherwise occupied. In addition, the
>> regulations for registering a party here are difficult, and seem
> designed
>> to make forming a party near impossible reason, despite being 'in
>> existence' for almost a year, we'll probably be one of the last party's
> to
>> officially become a political party.
>>
>> Andrew Norton
>> PPUS International Liaison
>>
>> ____________________________________________________
>> Pirate Parties International - General Talk
>> pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
>> http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general
> 
> 
> 
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