[pp.int.general] Pirate Parties International Conference Kazan 2013

[Andrew Norton]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 4/1/2013 6:32 PM, Jyri Hämäläinen wrote:
> Gentlemen, you seem to be forgetting that arranging remote participation
> is extremely difficult and expensive. Running a global organisation is
> also extremely difficult and expensive. Big demands can be taken
> seriously only if there are hefty funds to draw from.

Absolute crap.
The 9 months I ran it (the 9 months in the run up to the EU elections in
09) the costs were... ZERO. Of cuorse, that's mainly because I spent my
time working with each and every party I could and helping them every
way I could.

Perhaps I should have gone on speaking tours.

Difficult, I give you. Which is why I'm amazed that after the ballsup of
10-11, one of the causes of that crapfest was brought back. You get RID
of the incompetents, not give them another chance.

> 
> The problem with PPI is not in where and what it does nor what it does
> not do, but in that people assign pretty wild expectations to it. The
> best way to "fix" PPI is to assign low expectations, low priority, low
> authority and low funding to it, and to instead use the PPI as an
> excellent pathway for getting networked with pirates you might get to
> meet someday somewhere.

Actually, the problem is that the people behind it, don't want to do
what they're SUPPOSED to do. They'd much rather do what they WANT to do,
which is the 'sexy' things like interviews, and speak at conferences.
They don't want to do the HARD things like actually SET UP conferences
(funny thing - that conference bid they approved, fell through a week
later, and they've 'approved' a different event than was bid. Gotta love
it. The argument was 'people have already bought tickets', yet the dates
indicate it came up before it was even publicly announced.)

We KNOW what it's supposed to do. We have realistic expectations for it,
but all we have are some talking heads and no workers. We also like
transparency and honesty, and have zero here.

This is why a lot of people have no confidence in the Board. We'd try
and remove them as per the statutes, except that requires... a court.
Guess what's been empty since September, and for which an extraordinary
GA was required before March 6th? Guess who failed to hold one.

It's like they're afraid it'd pass or something....

> 
> Kazan looks like a decent conference location btw. Every location is far
> away from practically everyone. We will just have to deal with it.

When the only flights there go from one or two cities (Moscow and
Prague?) then it's a LONG way away. When you do an event away from a
major interntional transport hub (and Kazan could barely be considered
'regional' let alone international) it becomes a long way indeed.
Funnily enough, this is the second such conference away from a major
hub. The last being 2 years ago. Remind me again who was in charge of
selecting that 'bid'?

Why do we complain about PPI so much? Because right now it has become
everything we stand against.

Andrew

- -- 
Andrew Norton
http://ktetch.co.uk
Tel: +1(352)6-KTETCH [+1-352-658-3824]
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with undefined - http://www.enigmail.net/

iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJRWhFjAAoJECjjuYTW3X5HqFAIAPRVdBYl44iM2EykCSqMzWYA
MA0flxBl06vwQ6agFx5NsGSG7vCjAwWj2fqg1fB37eRd/RINJgPLE04lXPhKHGjD
6p3/8yZ98tRTvS0iUYWrxEsYcuDgoNNabTVjMggQweYQ6bivkRgpIBMMRTz/CG+e
cvnOW8yaTPdiLqqQVsGM9znBYqw0p5+obpX3CSg9jUpPnyRGjoXs4qwKZPZynuOy
PtdoVLnniAxUuscf5kNwRY05C4wlrTYIdsOwRXSU6mG1QBt4BG051LwPaNh887Pa
XdR7qTW3fHDhHe+fcA1JIpCY8TYSxLRSOtpj5mgWWp59qIX7Nzh4lq114cm5Xl0=
=BapL
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----