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Ahoy all<br>
<br>
As someone who followed the first day loosely and the 2nd day more
closely (hello to all the good people who I chatted to on IRC) via the
interwebs I have a few comments I wanted to share. This is more like a
brainstorming than anything else, and not only directed at the new
board, but to everybody here on the list.<br>
<br>
- The first point I'd like to make is to thank everybody who put work
into this, be it by travellling far, preparing the content or the
location of the meeting or anything else (special thanks to Wolfgang
again for the stream!) I hope that in the end we'll be able to call
this a success, and we shouldn't forget those who made this possible.<br>
<br>
- My second point goes to the rift that was apparent last night and
today. I don't want to address the the problems that arise, but just
express my hope that we'll find a way soon to make everybody feel
comfortable as part of PPI again. From my understanding we all want the
same, just the means are seen differently.<br>
<br>
- As a third point (this one is the most important one and also the one
that will be the longest), I think we should try to reach and
individual pirates more and encourage them to take a closer look across
the national boarders. If we really want to address the issues that
await us bonds of the pirates in leading positions won't do, there has
to be a willingness of everybody to work together.<br>
In order to achieve this we not only need the pirates to make
contacts to other countries, we also need to make them understand that
political priorities, realities and possibilities are different in even
neighboring countries. The latter can be increased by asking for and
accepting help from neighboring regions, be it just presenting flyers
from those regions as well at public events and presentation or even
getting manpower where it is needed. If there is an event in for
example Maastricht it is also economical to get pirates from Aachen to
help instead of pirates from Amsterdam.<br>
<br>
However, we already have tools in place to facilitate this, like
pirates without borders (founded in the short run to give the
cooperation around Lake Constance between Austrian, German and Swiss
pirates a more official forum if I understood it correctly, but in the
long run to be extended to wherever it is practical), mypirates, a
social community for pirates, or the pirate camp to be organized by the
Swiss parties. But, as could be seen this weekend, we need to
communicate these options much better and aggressively (just think of
the statutes work on mypirates or the mere existence of the
international wiki, both who were not clear to people who attended (!)
the conference).<br>
Special thought should be given to a translation team (does it
exist now or doesn't it?), and / or a less organized pool of people who
are willing to provide translations (such as those for the NRW election
spot). We should also try to collect all dates of upcoming events such
as elections and conferences on the national level and below that may
be of significance for any pirate party and publish them in a
centralized calendar. Also, creating a pool of CC-licensed campaign
posters, flyers as well as a pool of (guerilla) marketing ides
(possibly translated in a few main languages already) for any parties'
political campaign free to use for everyone, which could save a lot of
us quite some time.<br>
<br>
Maybe it would make sense for PPI to ask the respective parties (esp
the big ones (Sweden and Germany for now) since they (will) have many
different levels of communication) to forward an email that has this
kind of informations to all their members 4 times a year or so. Another
idea would be to try to intergate pirates without borders (or a similar
institution) with PPI (without stretching PPI's capacities too much),
while at the same time stressing the informal and inofficial nature of
the former and the official, hierarchical, but also non-threatening to
national sovereignty nature of the latter.<br>
<br>
Well, thanks for reading my thoughts. I'd love to get more input on
this. It's not only up to the new board to make a difference, but to
all of us. I for one am ready to get this ship to high sees and make
sure it doesn't sink there!<br>
<br>
Arrr! and cheers<br>
<br>
Justus <i>Squig</i> Römeth<br>
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