[pp.int.general] court of arbitration

[Brendan Molloy]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the concept of remote voting or
remote delegates. The implementation was a failure, and we can build upon
that. Considering you're a representative of a group that promotes
innovation, it sickens me you'd be so quick to quell creativity and
transparency.

I will forward the letter that is undersigned by the parties of Canada, New
Zealand and Portugal of the issues we faced as remote delegates, and the
simple things that can be implemented to improve the situation immeasurably.

--

*To the new board of Pirate Parties International, along with the outgoing
board, 2011 General Assembly Organizers and Chairpersons,*

Along with the sentiments of the Australian, New Zealand and
Portugal delegations that you may have received, we feel it is of the utmost
importance to express our displeasure at the operation of the final block of
voting at the conference in Friedrichshafen on Sunday. We feel that critical
mistakes were made in the logistics of the agenda, disallowing remote
delegates from having an equal voice in what was otherwise a pleasant and
enlightening experience.

The main criticism we have is that Jerry, selected as the liaison
between the remote delegates and the rest of the conference, was hesitant to
interject at our request, most notably at the conclusion of the third block
of voting, where even though multiple pleas were made by various parties to
halt the conclusion for a comment we were hoping to make on behalf of the
remote delegation. The end result was the hasty conduct of business without
the opportunity to make points of order like any other member, and the
conclusion of business before we could even speak, despite promises that the
chairman would be halted to allow us to speak. We must emphasize, however,
that this is not the fault of Jerry per se, but rather the lack of
proceedure that caused this difficult position for both us and for him. The
need to outline clear rules is detailed in our suggestions below.

A secondary criticism is of the selected chairman for the day. Throughout
the course of the meeting, there were repeated requests to repeat or slow
down things being said to him, and a high level of reluctance to cede the
floor to opposing motions or requests for clarification, which we believe
goes against the spirit of the general assembly.

Together, this created a situation of confusion and frustration with remote
delegates. At certain points of the voting block, our inability to express
opposition to the goings-on of the General Assembly caused us to discuss the
possibility of leaving the meeting early. The pace of the meeting from
within the Messehalle meant that the Chair felt it was in fact the best
method to force us to communicate in hastily written emails, while
continuing on with business. This cannot happen in further conferences. As
many conferences in the years to come will take place outside of Europe,
those European parties unable to send delegates may be similarly affected,
and it behooves us to collectively resolve these issues prior to the next
Assembly.

Our recommendations for improving the situation include:

   -

   That at a minimum, mandatory pauses be given during the discussions,
   reserved specifically for remote voters to speak. The pauses may be skipped
   if the remote delegates do not have something to say, but are required at
   any point that is normally open to additions or debate.


   -

   An instance of Mumble could be used to allow instantaneous 2-way
   communication between the physical delegates and the remote delegates, from
   situations as simple as group discussion or complex situations such as "open
   space workgroups" of discussion, where respective rooms may be made for each
   group. This application is open source, so will cost PPI nothing to
   implement, and can be easily moderated by muting a person should they be
   interrupting the proceedings or generally speaking out of line.


   -

   More visual aids and cues need to be given during the course of
   events. It would be reccomended for the chair or another designated person
   to state the name and the party of the person taking the floor so that
   remote and physical delegates alike may be sure of who is addressing them
   and essentially, what is going on. Further visual aids could be given
   through the use of the screen, or overlay software with the stream, with a
   caption of the current point of order, name of the person speaking, or just
   general information to enhance the experience for delegates.


   -

   A proper mechanism for proposing motions, and voting in motions needs to
   be implemented. Using plaintext emails has its limitations and makes it
   difficult to participate. At a minimum, a real-time medium such as IRC is
   vital, while VoIP software would be preferred.


   -

   Better documentation of the results of voting blocks. It was very
   difficult to find information of which motions for statute amendments passed
   and which failed, and we only found them by searching for "#ppi motions" on
   Twitter. We also request that the following information be published in the
   official channel for remote delegates, so that remote participants may have
   confidence in the vote counting process:


   -

   In the case of Statute and Rule of Procedure amendment proposals, the
   number of votes for, against and abstaining, and;


   -

   in the case of STV elections, the order of eliminations and the margins
   involved.

 As the Pirate Party of Canada conducts all of its business online,
primarily via IRC, we would be happy to further advise future event planners
as to specifics of our online discussion system and how elements could be
successfully adapted to suit a mixed meeting involving both remote and
physical delegates.

  Yours sincerely,

 Mike Bleskie, Mikkel Paulson

Pirate Party of Canada

Brendan Molloy
 Pirate Party Australia

Noel Zeng, Tommy Fergusson
 Pirate Party of New Zealand

Nuno Cardoso
 Pirate Party of Portugal


2011/3/23 Maxime Rouquet <maxime.rouquet at partipirate.org>

> On 03/23/2011 12:01 PM, Brendan Molloy wrote:
> > All I could think while reading this is that you've proven the
> > illegitimacy of the court of arbitration as you Maxime,  one of the
> > court's 'elected' members, is unwilling to listen to, or dare I say,
> > arbitrate, the issues facing some members of PPI. It's disgusting.
>
> I am giving you my opinion as myself, the Court of Arbitration has not
> been asked to judge such a thing, and I am not its spokesperson or
> anything.
>
> My opinion is that most of you criticize the system of remote voting.
> The CoA affair is just the most visible part of a larger problem. I
> personally think it must be fixed by allowing only local delegate voting.
>
> However, it is not up to me but to the General Assembly to decide of
> such thing. I simply wanted to warn you as soon as possible that I would
> like to write such an amendment for next time, to prevent you from
> saying you were not aware of it if it was to be voted.
>



-- 
Regards,
Brendan Molloy
Pirate Party Australia

M: +61 434 069 776
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