[pp.int.general] Statements by PPI representatives

[Joonas Mäkinen]

Thank you very much, Patrick.

This is the sort of transparency I am glad to see.

2010/2/15, Patrick Mächler <patrick.maechler at pp-international.net>:
> 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
> ____________________________________________________
> Pirate Parties International - General Talk
> pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
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>


-- 
Joonas "JoonasD6" Mäkinen
Varapuheenjohtaja, viceordförande
Piraattinuoret – Piratungdom

Department of Mathematics and Statistics
Faculty of Science
University of Helsinki

gsm +358 40 700 5190