pirate network - collaborate with like-minded groups

http://www.piratar.is/policies/core-policy/?lang=en, this is a good policy from Island resd and coment this please?

http://www.pp-international.net/about India is a member of PPI could we update this please?

FYI: India is not a memer of PPI, last time I checked. However, PPI always monitor where Pirate Parties are active or where there are attempts to found one.

And also, PP-IS (Pirate Party Iceland), is as of today the single most successful Pirate Party in a parliament.
Czeck Republic and Germany are big on regional and local levels. Germany also have Julia Reda as a Pirate Member of EU-Parliament. European Pirate Party is in it's founding year and the first Council Meeting will be in Brussels 17-18 July. Everyone is welcome. Please see http://europeanpirateparty.eu

Pirate Greetings
Anders

What is "like-minded" groups? We seem to function like a Pirate version of secret seven type group. The excitement is in the meeting, the secret password and the lemonade, so to say. For a collaboration to make sense, there has to be a purpose. Do we have a purpose? It is unclear.

So far, what we do is react to current affairs/initiatives by others. That we can do by endorsing whatever our whim tells us to - no need for collaborations.

Otherwise, we need to get our act together first. Figure out what our core areas of interest are, how we could make a difference to them and begin a project or something ideally, but failing that, at least have a statement or stand based on information available and what we believe to be in the best interests of the world/country/state/district/locality. Once we have that, it becomes easier to introduce ourselves and our work to organizations doing relevant work and collaborate in ways that strengthen both.

Hope that makes sense.

Otherwise we will just create a larger group, say "hi" "I am blah, and you are?" "we will do good" "yeah, democracy" "win transparency", etc and stagnate as a larger group.

I agree with @vidyut and also realize that we're in a certain catch 22 here.

We need to make our constitution better, do more activities of our own, form a solid base to grow up on.

But for that to happen first we need to reach out to more people and get more people inside our circle.

I keep having this fancy dream of starting an organization/movement/party that stands for all the good things on earth, and then making it so popular that it ends up fixing the earth.

But how does that happen? I am not trained in movement genesis course. And I've little experience.

AAP seems to have risen because of India against corruption. Is there anything we can learn from them?

What can we do different from that progress party of Kerala which was posted here a few days back? Are we all doomed to end in the same fate?

Is there reason to be so hopeless? How did pirate parties in Europe succeed? When those parties were launched, was the cultural and social climate same as what we have now?

The question I have to ask would be, in our current situation, what is the best way to spend our time? We can't think of time as an infinite resource. Is it worth it to spend five hours on discussing a proposal about whether to put a small link to an article in a section of our website? Are such activities restricting what we can indeed do? Is there a way to do some thing that brings in more returns?

How to best bring in social change? How are revolutions created?

@akshay the key is in not losing hope, because the change is not going to come soon, we may not even see any major change in our lifetime. AAP did make it big in a short time, but I doubt they can scale it or sustain it now. Another thing that can help us keep calm is to realize Indian Pirates are not going to make the change alone. So if you think the time you are spending here can be spend elsewhere, feel free to explore those possibilities.

Revolutions happen after sustained efforts of many, there could be tipping points, but without long term sustained efforts, it cannot be sustained.

For me its about coming up with something we all agree and bringing more people to the fold, and its a continuous and slow process. it does need a lot of patience.

One way to do it, @Akshay would be to get volunteers to recruit members to Pirate Party. Remove the requirement of the constitution for now, and instead adopt the basic definition from Wikipedia - which is what anyone who has heard of Pirate party learns to expect. This rapidly brings us in alignment with the concept of Pirate Party instead of trying to redesign it from the ground up. It also removes a lot of confusion about who we are and what we aim to do, by definition.

We should start a thread where every member states their areas of interest with regard to governance or public life (including free speech, etc, but really, subject no bar - a country needs EVERYTHING relevant to have a coherent vision). When the thread gets some 3-5 people interested in one subject, they should be invited to collaborate privately on what they believe is the current state of the country/state/whatever and come up with a list of ideas they believe will improve matters. This should be debated in the community. Anything that gets agreed upon by larger community should be posted on record on the website.

New groups can be formed again (will likely have a lot of the original members) to come up with specific actionables and action plans. These can be discussed briefly in the larger community if needed, and the groups should be let loose to implement them how they deem appropriate with the blessings of the community and without further need to put every damn thing to the vote.

Highly suggest reading Richard Falkvinge's book detailing how Pirate Party grew from an idea - the key is that people were set free to take ownership and do whatever they thought was needed.

This absurd myth of voting on everything representing some dazzling ideal leads to paralysis because no one really knows whether they can do the idea they have in mind if 5 idle people doing absolutely nothing think it is a bad idea.

@vidyut like-minded groups is those who agree with our basic principles. The basic principles itself can evolve as we engage with more collectives.

It is difficult to invest yourself in a magnificent effort, if you aren't certain it will be allowed credibility. We urgently need a framework that appreciates all members and encourages them to own and shape the party instead of judging everything with upvotes and downvotes.

For example - reaching out to other groups. I imagine Praveen had something in mind when he spoke of collaboration. Us not knowing of it, don't see the idea as appropriate. Neither did Praveen make an effort to present the idea in a viable manner, nor is anyone else able to do anything with it, because in its current form, it doesn't work.

In contrast, if Praveen were to come up with a detailed proposal on what to collaborate on, with what kind of people, the scope, etc - I imagine it would be easy for people who find it useful to volunteer and run with it.

@praveenarimbrathod The basic principles are really, really not something I could present to anyone formally without embarrassment. Not because the intentions are bad, but because they have been put together so clumsily, inviting a collaboration based on that seems really .... amateurish and lacking any detailed vision.

Also, why would non members be required to adopt our principles? Would you adopt the principles of their organization as well? What all principles will the Pirate Party members end up accepting as a consequence?

If someone agrees with the principles, they should be members, not non-member collaborators.

There needs to be a clarity on what the principles signify and to whom.