[pp.int.general] PPI Conference

[Justus Ršoemeth]

Ahoy all

As someone who followed the first day loosely and the 2nd day more 
closely (hello to all the good people who I chatted to on IRC) via the 
interwebs I have a few comments I wanted to share. This is more like a 
brainstorming than anything else, and not only directed at the new 
board, but to everybody here on the list.

- The first point I'd like to make is to thank everybody who put work 
into this, be it by travellling far, preparing the content or the 
location of the meeting or anything else (special thanks to Wolfgang 
again for the stream!) I hope that in the end we'll be able to call this 
a success, and we shouldn't forget those who made this possible.

- My second point goes to the rift that was apparent last night and 
today. I don't want to address the the problems that arise, but just 
express my hope that we'll find a way soon to make everybody feel 
comfortable as part of PPI again. From my understanding we all want the 
same, just the means are seen differently.

- As a third point (this one is the most important one and also the one 
that will be the longest), I think we should try to reach and individual 
pirates more and encourage them to take a closer look across the 
national boarders. If we really want to address the issues that await us 
bonds of the pirates in leading positions won't do, there has to be a 
willingness of everybody to work together.
     In order to achieve this we not only need the pirates to make 
contacts to other countries, we also need to make them understand that 
political priorities, realities and possibilities are different in even 
neighboring countries. The latter can be increased by asking for and 
accepting help from neighboring regions, be it just presenting flyers 
from those regions as well at public events and presentation or even 
getting manpower where it is needed. If there is an event in for example 
Maastricht it is also economical to get pirates from Aachen to help 
instead of pirates from Amsterdam.

However, we already have tools in place to facilitate this, like pirates 
without borders (founded in the short run to give the cooperation around 
Lake Constance between Austrian, German and Swiss pirates a more 
official forum if I understood it correctly, but in the long run to be 
extended to wherever it is practical), mypirates, a social community for 
pirates, or the pirate camp to be organized by the Swiss parties. But, 
as could be seen this weekend, we need to communicate these options much 
better and aggressively (just think of the statutes work on mypirates or 
the mere existence of the international wiki, both who were not clear to 
people who attended (!) the conference).
     Special thought should be given to a translation team (does it 
exist now or doesn't it?), and / or a less organized pool of people who 
are willing to provide translations (such as those for the NRW election 
spot). We should also try to collect all dates of upcoming events such 
as elections and conferences on the national level and below that may be 
of significance for any pirate party and publish them in a centralized 
calendar. Also, creating a pool of CC-licensed campaign posters, flyers 
as well as a pool of (guerilla) marketing ides (possibly translated in a 
few main languages already) for any parties' political campaign free to 
use for everyone, which could save a lot of us quite some time.

Maybe it would make sense for PPI to ask the respective parties (esp the 
big ones (Sweden and Germany for now) since they (will) have many 
different levels of communication) to forward an email that has this 
kind of informations to all their members 4 times a year or so. Another 
idea would be to try to intergate pirates without borders (or a similar 
institution) with PPI (without stretching PPI's capacities too much), 
while at the same time stressing the informal and inofficial nature of 
the former and the official, hierarchical, but also non-threatening to 
national sovereignty nature of the latter.

Well, thanks for reading my thoughts. I'd love to get more input on 
this. It's not only up to the new board to make a difference, but to all 
of us. I for one am ready to get this ship to high sees and make sure it 
doesn't sink there!

Arrr! and cheers

Justus /Squig/ Römeth
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