Board Member Report of Nuno Cardoso
I’m doomed to start this report the same way I started last year’s, “I wasn’t planning to be a board member...”, but when the SAP for the “permanent online e-Democracy system allowing for decision making of General Assembly” passed, I had too.
In my own words from the candidature: “So the SAP-27 didn't pass, and the board model didn't change, but on the other way SAP-24 did pass and now needs care taking and since I care deeply about it I have to reconsider my decision to not run for scapegoat in the board's current model, actually, I can't even consider not to run now”
I ran for the prime purpose of assuring that the PPI board would, during this term, setup such a system, and that it would fulfill all the statutory requirements of the PPI, thus allowing us to move faster, smoother and without stressful bureaucratic GA’s that in their current model did more to tear us apart than to bring us together.
Since this was my single goal, I took the evolution of support since Prague, where I came from least voted on a first round and then just barely elected on the second to having the most votes in Kazan, as a validation sign and indication that it was also the desire of most of our members, thus giving me an increased responsibility towards accomplishing it.
And so once again I was set on the goal to promote e-democracy and it’s tools thinking that, like in a Field of Dreams[1], if I built them it would come, after all, as I said in my first candidature[2], the “PPI should be using them also, to set the example and show the advantages of such systems to all its current and future members, instead of adopting the rigid models of plain old parties that bind democracy to specific election/voting dates separated by long periods of detachment where few decide for all.
Real democracy means constant democracy, not cyclic democracy, and if we are to change the world we should start by setting the example ourselves.”
A quick review of minutes shows that, in a board with 8 less meetings than the previous one, I attended 16 meetings and missed 3, 2 stuck working at my day job and 1 for lack of funds.
I tried to fulfill my main promise as soon as possible, but still had to explore all options I knew in order to validate the final choice, and so after much testing I came down to a couple of options and laid those out in an analysis document[3] complete with conclusions and implementation detail proposals.
Like in the previous term, getting people on board a project is a struggle, and an inglorious[4] [5] one for that matter. Up until the time I’m writing this report, only 18 ordinary members out of 42 had replied to the request for an official contact email for the system, less than half, but then again that’s exactly the number of members that voted when I was elected, so it shouldn’t be a surprise although it’s still disappointing.
Also like in my previous term, I tried to help out wherever I could, but this year my day job took a bigger toll and I couldn’t help out as much as I liked.
I only wish I had been able to set up the system sooner so I could had more time to get everyone on board before this General Assembly meeting.
For reference, here are my short reports from all meetings (“pirated” from the minutes[6]):
2013-04-30 | “I've been testing out docker (http://www.docker.io) in order to make self contained packages of platforms that can be run effortlessly by PP's and in the process have been trying out Loomio (https://www.loomio.org) as well as a test case.” |
2013-05-14 | “I've been trying out possible solutions for the eDemocracy system. The best fit is Liquid Feedback, another good solution would be Loomio.” |
2013-05-28 | “I worked a bit on exploring systems for the online e-Democracy system and ended up setting an instance of Loomio to try it out. Along with Liquid Feedback, Loomio seems to be the best alternative so far from all the systems I tried. Both are suited for the general task, but have some differences that may be important depending on how we will use them.” |
2013-06-11 | “I've been networking to promote a law proposal from one portuguese party about DRM. They asked us to participate on the discussion on how to make it more viable to pass, and we were glad to participate because it improves the current law in a drastic way. It will be discussed in parliament this Friday, so we've been busy creating awareness and "lobbying" the members of parliament.” |
2013-06-25 | Missed it on account of my day job. |
2013-07-23 | “Updated the http://wiki.pp-international.net/Mailing_Lists wiki page and unfortunately didn't have time for anything else due to a 30 day kickstarter campaign at my day job that had us work around the clock (with around a day to go until it ends we just met our required goal today, yay!) I'll have more time again after this marathon.” |
2013-08-06 | “I was overwhelmed with my day job because everyone was finnishing up stuff before August vacations so I didn't have much time for anything. I have more time again from now on.” |
2013-08-20 | Arrived a bit late, after the personal reports, ended up not writing it down and I have no idea now :P |
2013-09-02 | Missed the “informal meeting during PPEU conference in Luxembourg” (no budget for traveling) |
2013-09-17 | “Finishing analisis of permanent online e-democracy systems. Came down to two proposals and made a document about it that I will publish to the PP-Leaders later on today after the meeting. Gave the hat of our Anti-PRISM efforts coordinator to Zbigniew Łukasiak since he was the only one interested in devoting some time to the task.” |
2013-10-01 | I was there but the “Meeting was canceled, due to no quorum was reached.” |
2013-10-15 | “I've been very busy with PP-PT affairs, we finally beat state bureaucracy and registered the formal association, now we only need to publish statutes and whatnot in the official republic journal.” |
2013-10-29 | “I've been doing a lot of work inside PP-PT right now, as I said we registered but still have to publish our documents, which we want to do on the next 5th of November (wink wink), and since we are doing a site revamp at the same time for that deadline things have been hectic. Also I set up some accounts for testing out Loomio and Liquid Feedback for those of you who don't know the systems yet, they shipped today.” |
2013-11-12 | “Have been working a lot internaly on PP-PT, we got published last week but there is still work to do. On the other hand since we also have an online e-Democracy system in PP-PT, I've been working on that also for PPI.” |
2014-01-07 | Member reports where “Skipped due to Christmas holidays.” |
2014-01-21 | Missed it on account of my day job. |
2014-02-18 | “I've been very busy with my day job from the beginning of the year so I missed the last couple of meetings” (actually now that I enumerate them just 1 without quorum) “but in the meanwhile I still managed to finally find a nice place to host the e-Democracy system on a free plan at Openshift. I already successfully deployed a test site and am now migrating a production site, should be done this week still. I also met with Tapani Karvinen, a Finnish pirate candidate to te EU and we had a couple of interesting meetings exchanging information and experiences.” |
2014-03-18 | “Finished the online e-democracy system, created accounts for all members, already configured emails to 14 of ordinary and 1 observer member and created 4 initiatives to coincide with the GA out of the membership requests and statutes amendments received by the board within the statutory deadlines.” |
2014-04-01 | “I have been doing a little bit of internal PP Portugal stuff dealing with PPEU also. Didn't have much time to do things for PPI except updating the Liquid Feedback instance regarding the infor of our members that are proposing (PP Norway and PP Costa Rica).” |
I restate many of my previous term’s final thoughts[7] and mainly my opinion that PPI’s boat is headed towards an Iceberg and has a strong possibility of sinking if it’s direction doesn’t change more.
We are advocates of new political models, and yet we managed to put up a statutory model not much different than those of old political parties. In doing so we created the same divide that exists in old politics, the “us” vs “them” rift of traditional hierarchical structures.
In this last year we have seen the PPI organs suffer from yet another of it’s threats, lack of active participation. The board meetings had an average participation of around half it’s members, oscillating between 4 and 3, the minimum for a quorum, and it had around 8 less meetings. The CoA had no meeting at all that I’m aware of (who’s to blame them anyway when deciding on things can get you a threat of legal prosecution), and the majority of the members themselves show a staggering inertia and apathy towards PPI.
Either we fix this by making the PPI members, and not some elected scapegoats, responsible for PPI, spiking up their activism, or we will only succeed in the demise of a formal cooperation between international PP’s, and if PP’s can’t fix the mistakes of this one, then any formal alternatives will end up making the same mistakes over and over again.
I submit again a couple of proposals trying to bring more responsibility to the actual members, both through a jury of members within the CoA (SAP-1) and direct representatives in the board (SAP-2). This last one (SAP-2), while at a first glance it could look like we would end up with a board too big to actually do anything, does exactly the opposite, it provides a workforce that can fill in for the eventual and inevitable lack of time or interest at one moment or another of those responsible for this or that task within the board.
If the board model changes I will happily be a representative, if not I won’t run again (no need this time) but will still cooperate gladly with the new board and offer again my pieces of sincere advice from last year: “fulfill your promises; be diligent; be patient; ignore the trolls or `tie´ them with logic and their own words; be patient; ignore personal attacks, they reveal more about the attackers than about yourself; be patient; be kind when dealing with others; try to change the world; don’t despair if you can’t; did I say be patient already?; and last but not least, in the words of a wise man, have fun while trying to change the world!”
Finally I want to thank once again to all those that give up their personal time in a constructive way to further the pirate movement and ideals, officially or not, despite all adversities. You rock!!!
Pirate regards,
Nuno Cardoso
[1] http://youtu.be/5Ay5GqJwHF8
[3] https://docs.google.com/a/pp-international.net/document/d/13g50Isd6LctLAM7lZKsyNCHuZtuEROVkE699a9-x7XQ/pub