Due to time issues, i'll put my comments inbetween the lines.<br><div class="gmail_quote"><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
This may sound like a silly question, but who put in offers to host the<br>
next conference?<br></blockquote><div><br>Even during the last ones, offerings where made.<br>( Brazil, and the <b>Czech</b> republic did afaik. )<br><br>In order not to risk aggitated PP's it would have been proper conduct, if the board had contacted all pp's one bye one, and have held a proper *conversation* with all of them.<br>
<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<br>
It seems that, once again, we're in a situation where the PPI Board<br>
asked for ideas and help, few people other than those with close ties to<br>
the Board responded (going off the wiki page here;<br>
<a href="http://int.piratenpartei.de/Conference-offers" target="_blank">http://int.piratenpartei.de/Conference-offers</a> ) and so we have a result<br>
far from the ideal. However, given what happened last year, I think that<br>
a well-organised and planned conference in a non-ideal location might be<br>
better than a rushed one somewhere more diplomatic (not that the PPBe<br>
people didn't do a great job - more that we didn't know who was there as<br>
a delegate until after the conference had started).<br>
<br></blockquote><div><br>PPBE did a great job. I take full responsability for all the #fail during the last conference.<br>As co-president, i redirected key responsabilities to people, and failed to do quality control on their work.<br>
I do have a reason, for my bad behaviour: I had to prepare for the NL elections, where i was running for parliament, as the #1 candidate.<br><br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
Looking at the map of current Parties (there's one here<br>
<a href="https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/File:Map_of_Pirate_Parties_International_Members.svg" target="_blank">https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/File:Map_of_Pirate_Parties_International_Members.svg</a><br>
) it does seem that Europe has the greatest density of PPs, with no<br>
other continent having more than 4 - that would make it a logical<br>
choice. However, we (nearly) all have access to this wonderful thing<br>
called the Internet, which allows us to communicate near-instantly all<br>
around the world, and could be put to great use and lessen the need for<br>
a central location. However, an Internet-based conference would need to<br>
be a lot more carefully planned (and I would be happy to offer<br>
suggestions to any organisers based on my experiences of the last<br>
conference).<br>
<br></blockquote><div><br>I agree, but we need concensus among parties here.<br>The board can't just say F**** the agreements made during the last conference, and risk diplomatic relations to be damaged.<br>Also: the map that you are linking is severely outdated.<br>
<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
Anyways, it is now January, and the conference really should be held by<br>
June. So, allowing a month to let people book tickets and sort things<br>
out, it should be fully planned by the end of April. I don't know how<br>
many countries are 'represented' by people here, but perhaps it would be<br>
useful if people (particularly those disappointed with the current<br>
venues) could give your national Party leadership a strong poke and see<br>
if they would be interested in hosting a conference and try to get other<br>
options (I know at least one is already in the works). Of course, this<br>
really should have been done back whenever the call for venues went out...<br></blockquote><div><br>PPI is a service provider, and all parties already have way to much work at hand. PPI should be a catalyst, take workload of the national parties, not add workload.<br>
Just sending out some "calls", and waiting for some magic to happen is not really proactive behaviour.<br><br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<br>
Still, I think some people are expecting too much from PPI. There's been<br>
a lot of talk of the advantages of decentralisation recently - and at<br>
the moment, I think a decentralised Pirate movement is pretty useful.<br>
Few Parties currently have the resources to support a strong, central<br>
PPI, so if one is going to exist, it will likely be dominated by those,<br>
whereas all we really need from PPI at the moment is something to keep<br>
communication lines and discussions areas open (like this list, IRC<br>
etc.) - places where we can go to discuss international things and get<br>
larger scale stuff sorted out when needed. I get the feeling that when<br>
the PPI Board (or Coreteam before it) tries to get too involved in any<br>
one issue things get slowed down and end up more complex than they<br>
started (as with any bureaucracy, I guess) - the same seems to apply to<br>
individual Party stuff; not everything needs to go through the Party's<br>
leadership and be controlled by them.<br></blockquote><div><br>- All taskforces are down, and we need them !<br></div><div>- We need coordination for the EU elections.<br>- We can safe resources on a joint scientific bureau<br>
- NGO's want a single contact point, not a chat with all 50+ parties ( PPI can relay 98% of the same data, and relay the other 2% )<br>- We can get subsidies<br><br>Personally, if no party objects, i'd like to see one PPI conference location per continent.<br>
And all sites having beamers with the other sites onscreen.<br><br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<br>
Hmm, this turned into slightly more of an essay than I was planning but<br>
never mind - just a few thoughts on the matters. Finally, I hope<br>
everyone had a good new year.<br>
<br>
-Will<br>
[Former PPI Coreteam member]<br>
<br></blockquote></div>