[pp.int.general] Statements by PPI representatives

[Patrick Mächler]

Dear Pirates,

In this note we would like to address a rather delicate issue in the
name of the PPI coreteam.
It concerns statements made by the ad interim PPI representatives. The
basic message of this mail is: A PPI representative shall make public
no statements based solely on suspicion and not based on provable
facts, as this might give the impression that this is the stance of
the whole PPI. A similar sentence might also get into a proposal for
the PPI statutes.

I have to make a wider story arc and tell my own perceptions here:
=========
PROLOGUE
=========
It started in last autumn when the PPI coreteam was still young and
certain circumstances had led to a fork in the United States Pirate
Party (pirate-party.us , USPP), where a new group emerged from
(piratepoliticalparty.com , PPUS).
The chairman of the latter one got in touch with Samir Allioui and
asked for mediation. Samir informed the Coreteam about that. What
followed were discussions as to whether or not Samir, or another
Coreteam member, should take that position. Eventually the final
decision was that we should ask a non-Coreteam member who had been
active in the international pirate community for a long time, instead
of interfering ourself. Together we decided to ask Max Lalouschek
(Pirate Party Austria) and he gladly accepted to volunteer.
=========
THE CLASH
=========
Depending on the conflict, mediation is a delicate issue; so in the
end we agreed with Max not to communicate with anyone involved about
the actual process. The weeks passed on and we did not hear anything.
In a discussion with me and Samir we concluded that it would make
sense if I'd phone Max anyway. Max started to explain to me that it
was way a more complicated than what we thought before. In summary
what I understood was that he had been in contact with both parties,
that the lead of the USPP refused a mediation, that some pirates (even
within the USPP) were opposed to the current USPP chairman and that
the PPUS chairman isn't that active and a lot of the work in PPUS is
done currently by 'Michael', which Max had contact with.
I reported that back to Samir in a short chat who obviously got in
touch with the chairman of PPUS.
Shortly afterwards the coreteam recieved a mail, signed by named PPUS
chairman, who stated that Max got never in contact with him, even
though he has been waiting months for it. He was really furious, even
more, because he was informed that Max said he had stepped back as
PPUS chairman. I quickly tried to ease the situation with a reply, as
I realized that something has been lost in translation here
(especially in that chat between Samir and me, where I still have the
logs to), which also CCed to Max as well.
The next day the coreteam recieved Max' mail. He stated that he tried
to get in contact with the PPUS chairman right after he recieved my
mail and apologize for not getting in touch with him, because nobody
told him to do so. However said PPUS chairman replied to him that he
would refuse to trust Max anymore. In his mail to the coreteam Max
also complained that he got hardly any detailed information about the
conflict that has been present in the coreteam before, such as the
expectations of the PPUS chairman.
=======
FLAMING
=======
The story could end here; but actually those broken pieces of glass
just created another problem. While I attributed the failed mediation
to misunderstandings and refrained to blame anyone particular (similar
to 'Hanlon's razor', even though I knew my chat with Samir could have
been more explicit, avoiding certain misunderstandings), Samir started
to be convinced that Max intentionally sabotaged the mediation, even
though he never presented any evidence to support the view that Max
(or anyone else) intentionally sabotaged the process. As he repeatedly
expressed this view in public in not a nice way, a lot of those who
knew Max became upset on Samir's behaviour as if it might seem that it
was the opinion of PPI itself. I'll limit it to the coreteam meeting
of November 11th to quote some of these statements now:
--
21:12:28 <&Valio> #3 USA Mediation !
21:12:40 <@coretx> Max fucked up.
21:12:40 <&Valio> this will be delicate
21:12:46 <@coretx> I want to know why.
21:12:48 <@coretx> !!!
21:12:54 <@coretx> He's on my "blacklist" now.
21:13:20 <@nicco> was it all his fault?
21:13:21 <@coretx> There will be a impeachment in the US
21:13:24 <@coretx> Yes.
[...]
21:18:46 <@coretx> Also, we need to find out Max his motive for
fucking up the US mediation process.
21:18:54 <@coretx> This must have been intentional.
21:18:59 <@coretx> Considering that he is not a idiot.
--
=========
EPILOGUE
=========
In the Coreteam meeting of January 18th 2010 Ralph Hinterleitner aka
pertain made proposals to the coreteam which resulted in the following
decisions
--
* It was proposed that Coreteam members to respond to all requests to
shed light on the original mediation. Proposal Passed (Yes: 3 | No: 0
| Abstain: 1).
* The discussion led to the issues of how Coreteam members act when
"in public". It was proposed that Corteam members ensure (to the best
of their ability) that any future statements made by them when they
could appear to be speaking on behalf of PPI or the Coreteam be
factually accurate and civil. Proposal Passed (Yes: 4 |No: 0 |Abstain:
0).
* It was proposed that a statement be made within 2 weeks in the name
of the Coreteam that any and all implications made by Coretx with
respect to Max can neither be proven right or wrong and so are
unsuitable. Proposal Passed (Yes: 3| No: 0| Abstain: 1).
--
I hope I helped to shed some light on the problems that arised. I
could furthermore publish some more names and chat logs & mails, but
that might be a breach to privacy, without the consent of the
respective communication partners.
If you paid attention you'll see that said statement is now already 2
weeks overdue. I'd like to apologize for this delay and even more for
those clumsy chat lines, which harmed personal relationships and maybe
the pirate movement overall.
...and I hope I told that story as neutral as possible (speaking about
Swiss stereotypes ^_~).

With pirately greetings in the name of the coreteam
Patrick