[pp.int.general] Is PPI dead, or was it ever really born?

[Andrew Norton]

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I say this with a heavy heart, but after 5 months, I think it's time we
faced facts and called the PPI a still-born baby, bury it and move on.

The whole statutes thing was where it first went off the rocks, using a
messy forum system to try and write statutes, it'd never work out well,
and it didn't. Then when they were finally done, they were done AT the
conference, so those that couldn't attend were unable to see them,
instead we had a pdf document that didn't match what was talked over.
Who was responsible for this?

There was an email that went out April the 17th, from Will Tovey,
(http://lists.pirateweb.net/pipermail/pp.international.general/2010-April/006591.html)
"Here is the document that we will be using for the discussion of the
statutes. Please note, that it is not the Statutes, and is not legal or
binding in any way yet. Parts of it could (and will) be changed by the
worldwide Assembly of the representatives of the Pirate Parties later on
today.

P.S: Jurgen, can you please forward this document to all registered
attendees
at the conference? Thank you!"

The day before, and we've only just got the DRAFT of them. The next day,
Steffen Ortmann posted this
(http://lists.pirateweb.net/pipermail/pp.international.general/2010-April/006608.html)
"The final (but still unsigned) version of the PPI statutes
are now available on th wiki.

http://int.piratenpartei.de/Main_Page"

The conference itself was also a mess. Part of that was due to the
volcano, but the rest was just, let's be blunt, piss-poor planning.
There was a camera that often was not pointed at the 'meeting', and the
sound wasn't very good. Participants via the net (for those not in the
EU who had a) expensive journeys and b) no chance of subsidy by the EU)
was often ignored.

The statutes were signed, but while a big deal was made and automatic
acceptance by those who attended and signed there and then, others,
including the US Pirate Party, are not so 'lucky'. We wanted to put the
statutes to our members (and we said as much,
publiclyhttp://lists.pirateweb.net/pipermail/pp.international.general/2010-April/006593.html),
to make sure they approved of it, and since,
due to an inability to get them out before the conference so we could do
that, we put them to the membership the Tuesday AFTER the conference. It
was approved and our notification of that was sent to the new PPI board
within a few days. We still have not heard anything back. Let me make
things perfectly clear. We (the US Party) had every intention of joining
at the conference (we had remote delegates present), the only reason we
couldn't is because the paperwork/documents that were supposed to be
done BEFORE the conference (2 weeks before, by the original time-line)
wasn't completed until DURING the conference. It's a bit hard to have
members approval to join, when we don't have it until an hour before. Of
course, we clearly weren't expected to join, because the signature page
doesn't even list the US, *DESPITE US PARTY MEMBERS BEING AT THE CONFERENCE*

Of course, it gets better. Exactly what has the PPI been doing the last
few months? I've not heard anything, I've not seen any open
announcements of meetings, instead they're tucked away on the wiki
(http://wiki.pp-international.net/PPI_Board). The meetings themselves
are a bit of a joke. Attendance by the board is usually low, and nothing
is ever actually discussed.

We also recently got a call from their new 'PPI International
coordinator'. Nice person, its a hard job (been there done that) and yet
the information this poor person has been given by the board is
outdated, or flat-out wrong. Silke was told there were 3 Pirate Parties
in the US. There is only one. One, the 'American pirate party' was a
reddit flash in the pan that never actually did anything, and died after
2 months of activity; the other was actually the subject of a number of
PPI meetings late last year and earlier this year, and was dealt with.
It seems reading it's own records is beyond the current board.

I've also heard from others that there are whole lists of people in
task-forces, that have been waiting for 'something to do', yet have been
ignored by the board.

Boards are another thing that need mentioning, as the PPI forum is
completely buried in spam. Despite 7 board members, and not actually
doing anything (as evidenced by their own meeting minutes) they can't
even keep a forum free of spam.

It's a classic case of all around incompetence. Pirate Party
International is anything but. Even as Pirate Party Europe it fails
miserably. All it is, is 'Pirate Party of the week'

Let's just acknowledge what I'm sure we all probably know by now. PPI is
dead. Those that were entrusted to run it, have either been completely
inexperienced to deal with it, generally incompetent, or lazy. I would
say let's sack them all, and get some new people in to run it, but I
can't, because my party's membership still  hasn't been processed after
5 months (see above). And frankly, I'm not sure who'd be mug enough to
take on the task. After all, if they've screwed up the basics like
'membership' and 'running a forum', how badly F***ed up are things like
the legal documents that have to be submitted. Would anyone want to take
the legal liability of taking over this clusterf**k - I certainly wouldn't.

Jerry, Gregory, as 'co-chairmen' the balance of it falls upon the two of
you, you're supposed to lead by example, and your leadership is clearly
lacking. Joachim, as the chief administrator, you should have noticed
this yourself. That you've not said anything mans you either didn't see
it, or didn't want to make it public. Either way is bad. And Jakub,
Bohomil, and Aleksandar, as board members, your job is to keep the board
focused and working. As it hasn't, then you've not been fulfilling your
role.

At present, PPI is a lame duck, a do-nothing organization that is
supposed to do something. A organization of parties that could be
replaced, at present, by one part-time blogger.

Back in April, there was a thread of messages here "The conference -
what went wrong, and why we NEED to do better!"
(http://lists.pirateweb.net/pipermail/pp.international.general/2010-April/thread.html)
and NOTHING has been taken from that.

Since there's no provision is the statutes for any form of board member
removal (fancy that...) I make the following proposal to the board members.

Shape up, or Ship out!

I'll give you until October 18th. That's the 6 month anniversary of the
much lauded 'founding'. Get everything into gear, do what you're
SUPPOSED to be doing, or resign.

This will anger some people, but frankly, the actions (or complete lack
thereof) have angered me, and only the extremely naive would accept that
hiding from the truth is acceptable - and if you are that naive,
politics isn't for you.

Enough is enough.

Andrew Norton
US PP Legal Officer

- -- 
Andrew Norton
http://ktetch.blogspot.com
Tel: +1(352)6-KTETCH / +1[352-658-3824]
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