[pp.int.general] Filing charges against the board of PPI regarding the next GA Location.

[Andrew Norton]

I've got to say, of all the emails and recriminations, I've seen,
Brendan's makes the most sense.

I think a big part of the issue comes down to the actions of the
Board, specifically, the co-Chairmen, since we have two of them.
Except we don't, because one quit, and very little notice was made of
this. The point in my last email was that we now have four board
members, we elected 7, and yet there's been NO push notice to the
list. The only way you'd know is if you went hunting for the
information yourself, and why would you do that unless you already
knew? Here, Samir, you really have no grounds to complain, since we
talked about this VERY issue almost a year ago, with Gregory, and we
BOTH criticised him heavily for his method of notifications, which
consisted of a small section of a wiki page on a larger topic, hiding
the issue in amongst the rest of things.

Here's the biggest problem, that I for one was unaware that
nominations for locations was open, OR closed. Because this list,
arguably the most public way to notify everyone, was never used. If I
don't know, I can't talk to people about it. I can't encourage people,
or offer help and advice with hosting.

What we don't know, we can't help fix. That's the biggest problem.

And unfortunately, Samir as (the one remaining) Co-chairman, it would
be your responsibility to make us aware, to keep us all informed. You
failed to do your job, so we couldn't do ours, and the result was the
location choice.

I'm not happy about it myself, but the situation is of your making
Samir, at least in part. Personally, if I'd been aware of the dates
and the submissions to-date (instead of them just being hidden away on
the wiki (the equivalent of hiding the notice in the bottom of a
locked filing cabinet in a disused bathroom with a sign on the door
saying 'beware of the leopard')

Had I known of how things were ahead of time, I would have perhaps put
together a proposal for a virtual meeting. Thus ensuring that instead
of some of us being treated as 2nd class representatives and
participants (and almost always the same group of us, considering the
geographic proximity of location) then we would all be the same.

Finally, I have real problems with anyone that's attacking people
personally. Especially on non-relevant issues such as who is seeing
who. It's the lowest form of muck-raking. Now, I didn't get the email
itself (for some reason it's screwy and so some emails I haven't got)
but really I'm disgusted. Such attacks are the sign of someone acting
out of desperation, and I have nothing but the utmost contempt for
anyone that stoops to those sorts of activities.

PPI needs to be about doing. Right now, a lot of it has been about
posturing, and self-promotion, or promoting European parties. It's
main job, of facilitating communications between parties has, quite
clearly failed. Above all else, the issue at the heart of this
'debate' was one where proper communication could have solved the
issues before they started. Instead, the person who brought this
complaint, is arguably guilty of doing the same thing that they
accused rthe last board of doing a year ago, and who promised to
rectify things if elected.

So much for that..... Instead the Bureaucratic Process has taken over,
instead of actual logs, we have minutes, instead of issues openly
discussed, they're buried in said minutes, uploaded without notice.
And so we end up at this point.

The question is, where do we go from here, and how. And how do we deal
with the multude of issues that have now been brought up?

Above all though, PPI has *GOT* to start functioning like a real body,
an international body, and not just a 'isn't Europe Great, and we love
bureaucracy too, gosh aren't we important' kinda group, which is the
general impression I have gotten over the past 2 years. It has to
start actually DOING SOMETHING. First though, it has to start
communicating, and doing so effectively. Updating a wiki-page is NOT
communicating, and never has been, It's record-keeping at best,
nothing more.

Finally, I'd like to point out one more thing.
I'm aware of at least two different members of the press on this list,
there may be more. The decision to air personal grievances and
personal attacks is not only stupid beyond belief, but showing a high
level of incompetency, and a disregard for the purposes of the list. I
don't think anyone here tolerates it. To attempt to claim the moral
high ground though, when you are a primary cause of what you're
railing against, publicly, that's absolutely inexcusable, and shows a
complete lack of accountability. Considering that a large part of our
stance in general is about accountability, then the wisdom of having
such a person in a leadership role of any kind is one we should all
think hard about.

Andrew
(who is not at home, which is why this email is NOT signed)