[pp.int.general] GA: Statutes & Motions

[Märt Põder]

Hi participants/lurkers at PPI GA!

I second to comments about SAP-2, SAP-6, MO-2, partly oppose to comments about SAP-1, SAP-3, SAP-10 and MO-3, but actually I wanted to say some bits about dilemma of SAP-10 versus SAP-11 plus MO-3.

Basically "PPI Overhaul" (SAP-10) and "Online Assembly" plus "Permanent online GA until the next regular GA" (SAP-11 plus MO-3) seem to envisage different solutions to the same diagnosis.

* "Overhaul" says let's take PPI down for good and build it up from scratch.
* "Permanent assembly" says let's break PPI to modules and improve it without too much downtime.

Without arguing about to correctness of diagnosis and prospect of realising either of the options, I'd say that both of these are not something GA will effectively prescribe to board. These options should be platforms that board candidates actively explain and campaign for.

I suppose you cannot really imagine chair of the board not supporting "Overhaul" still doing good stuff to make a good overhaul and the same about "Permanent assembly" opponents, if they will be on board. So ideally, we should vote for board members who position themselves somewhere in the realm of this diagnosis and possible solutions, try to discuss the options and make some kind of coalitions based on their positions.

But currently there is no visible campaign about it. I'm afraid that makes voting in GA mostly a lottery.

What would be a rational choice in this situation where we don't have nominations for board who take their tasks seriously enough and campaign for their platforms?

Well, it's tempting to support "Overhaul", since it may give PPI a fresh restart with new people. But we don't have large amounts of fresh and motivated people running for the board (or just lurking around, notice that http://pirateint.org/ from last year is down already for half a year), just some people with some ideas and hunches, no real opposition or worked out alternative. If two proposed courses are not strictly excluding each other, could there be a compromise among lines of *overhaulers* (SAP-10) and *assemblers* (SAP-11 + MO-3)?

Couldn't we assemble for overhaul or overhaul at an assembly? Isn't the most reasonable strategy for the GA to create freeway for both overhaulers and assemblers so they would be *forced* to loosely cooperate and support each others projects and see which of the courses gives more results. Just that we need to envisage some sort of resilient model for that, which includes safeguards, that ensure that we will be all pain in each others asses while we do our jobs, so we cannot stop doing it.

So instead of voting SAP-10 against SAP-11 + MO-3 we should vote for a preliminary package of safeguards for resilience to ensure:

* Robust cooperation between members of the board that cannot be stopped at any point without creating an immediate scandal.
* Unstoppable oversight of what board does by PPI members and obligation for members to properly fulfill their respective tasks.
* Continuous measurement of the progress and measurable goals for the end of the process.

But, yes, basically it's about serious candidates for the board, that is about persons or candidates with an actual platform, and not amendments at the GA. Last year Pirate Times had a series of articles about possible platforms [1], but still not enough candidates to fill the positions to make one of these a reality. What about this year then, how do we improve?

Cheers!

Märt Põder
PP-EE

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[1] http://piratetimes.net/category/piratevision/

On Fri, 22 Jul 2016 16:43:14 +0200 carlo von lynX <lynX at pirate.my.buttharp.org> wrote:

> http://wiki.pp-international.net/PPI_Conference_2016/Statutes_Amendments
> 
> SAP-1:	What about actually proposing a rotation system?
> 	Simply abolishing stuff does not make a better democracy.
> 
> SAP-2:	How dare you not explain why you are proposing Geneva.
> 
> SAP-3:	Justice only exists during the General Assembly? In the
> 	period in-between the board can do whatever they like?
> 	Bad idea! If you want a better justice system you need
> 	to propose a better justice system, not abolish a
> 	cornerstone of democracy. It's like asking to abolish
> 	democracy because the current version is corruptible.
> 
> SAP-6:	How dare you not explain what the purpose of such
> 	non-voting appointed members would be?
> 
> SAP-8:	Indeed a bunch of representatives should not have
> 	policy-making power. We need a proper participation tool.
> 
> SAP-9:	Wording problem: The word "either" can legally be interpreted
> 	as meaning that if a member misses one GA they can be suspended
> 	from participating in the following one:
> 		http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/95559/can-either-mean-both-any-and-both
> 
> SAP-10:	An even better case of "Democracy is corruptible! Let's abolish
> 	democracy altogether!" If anyone cares to fix PPint statutes, sit
> 	down and write decent amendment proposals on how to do so. Don't
> 	delegate Erdogan-like powers to the board and hope that democracy
> 	will magically arise from there.
> 
> http://wiki.pp-international.net/PPI_Conference_2016/Other_proposals
> 
> MO-1:	Last minute motions are a classic means of assembly manipulation.
> 	I would rather suggest a different scheme, but it is too late
> 	to submit it now.
> 
> MO-2:	Yes, the mailing lists are a mess, but abolishing them is not a
> 	solution. Next time suggest to elect a moderator who is obligated
> 	to moderate all messages preemptively (like nettime-l or IPEN),
> 	and allow participants to complain to the CoA.
> 
> MO-3:	Obligatory sell-out of participant data to cloudflare.com is
> 	inacceptable. I would rather elect somebody to be in charge of
> 	setting up a voting/debate platform fulfilling requirements
> 	such as transparency and more. I would also make the possibility
> 	of transforming the tool into a platform for actual pirates
> 	rather than just representatives (to stop diluting democracy) a
> 	requirement.
> 
> Most proposals suffer from lack of debate among pirates and thus
> of depth, competence and even transpaarency at times. We are 
> definitely using the wrong methods to face these assemblies!
> 
>