Poll: Public policy discussion

[bitplane]

When you vote on this poll, please reply to the thread to note that you have voted. Thanks!

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Regarding the recent shitstorm in this forum, I'm starting a poll.
Apologies if I missed an option which has been discussed so far, feel free to tear me a new one if you think the options are biased/unrepresentative.


edit: Could someone sticky this please so it doesn't get buried? I'd like to see as many votes as possible!

mod edit : This is not an official party vote and as such won't be stickied IN THE NAME OF NEUTRALITY, if you wish to keep this from being buried just post a message after you've voted.

[topperfalkon]

I think all forum members at least need to be able to see the party discussion on matters so that we know what the party direction is and we can give prompt suggestions...

[Andy_R]

This is an difficult choice that the party leadership have already put a lot of time and thought into. I realise that everyone will have their own opinions, and there will be a lot of disagreement, but this particular decision has already been taken.

We are working hard at finding a good balance between the need to make membership of the party mean something, the need to gently encourage people who are currently forum but not party members to join up formally using the right balance of carrots and sticks, and the desire to have as public a debate as we can have, without turning the official party forum into something like 4chan.

This isn't going to be an easy balance to get right, and we are aware that we are unlikely to hit the nail on the head first time round, so please bear with us as we find out what works best.

We will definitely keep an eye on this poll, and take the results on board, but please don't expect us to instantly drop our current policy if the results of the poll don't fit with the needs of the party as we see them.

[bitplane]

Andy, from what I hear the majority of the party want discussion opened up.

The 4chan argument is a bit of a cop-out, 4chan has anonymous posting and no rules. That isn't what anyone is suggesting. You can demand that people act a certain way by implementing rules and a warning system. The fact that discussion is closed off is neither a carrot nor a stick for me, or for anyone else who believes in openness and transparency. It's a massive deterrent.

As I've said before, keep in mind that the party is there to serve the copyright reform movement, not the other way around. This site would make an ideal central hub for the movement, but if things are closed off it only serves to alienate and split the movement.

[jez9999]

@andy_r:
With respect, I don't agree that you have the authority to take this decision, especially if it's against the wishes of the members. You may have been elected party leader, but as we are a small party this job mainly involves representing us to the media and helping to shape political policy, and decisions on how our site should be organised can still be taken directly by our very small member base. I think it's unfair that one or two executive officers be able to impose against the wishes of 100s of members. As Eric was saying recently, the job of the executive is largely apolitical and to do with administration of the party, which is an important thing no doubt, but this decision (level of openness of discussion) should be considered a part of the party's constitution and as such, decided by the general membership.

[Gavin]

At this time I believe that having closing them off wasn't great as we don't have the policy baseline, there was a place that people could read and see some specific policy decision discussion and what our policies may look like. So even if it was read-only to non members, could have provided something short term..

I however believe there's a lot of value in having a private forum to discuss policy where everyone has the same goal, to improve the party policy and stay aligned to the main principles of the party,

My ideal situation would be that there was a private "Active policy" discussion, where the policy is being ammended / changed to by members, with serious efforts to structure and document the debate.

And then then a "reactive policy" discussion where people can discuss the policy sumaries produced from the "active policy" discussions, people for/against/any particular persuasion to say their bit.. but a bit of a free for all, that members can draw from if they feel like reading it. Active policy would be where decisions were made and proper debate would take place, reactive would be for anyone for/against us to discuss their general views on our policy.

But it can't be done at this time, because we're in a situation of formulating policy, so I'd go for more general access during this stage.

[epriezka]

@andy_r:
With respect, I don't agree that you have the authority to take this decision, especially if it's against the wishes of the members. You may have been elected party leader, but as we are a small party this job mainly involves representing us to the media and helping to shape political policy, and decisions on how our site should be organised can still be taken directly by our very small member base. I think it's unfair that one or two executive officers be able to impose against the wishes of 100s of members. As Eric was saying recently, the job of the executive is largely apolitical and to do with administration of the party, which is an important thing no doubt, but this decision (level of openness of discussion) should be considered a part of the party's constitution and as such, decided by the general membership.

Andrew is perfectly entitled to make a decision that reflects his honest belief about the best interests of the majority of members. Andrew is the leader. Your opinion about his authority is absurd. He is clearly the one person who has authority to make decisions about the best interests of the party.

What makes you think you know the wishes of the members better than Andrew? Are you jumping to the conclusion that the people who post on the forum are a representative sample of the members? The number of people who post are a small subset of the members. Most members do not make posts. Most members do not use the IRC. I hardly ever use the IRC. I make posts here when I have time, not when I do not. I would be keen to know what makes you so confident you speak on the behalf of the membership. Have you spoken to hundreds of members to confirm their point of view?

Most people are motivated to complain about things they do not like; relatively few write to say they like something. Given the tiny number of complaints from a very small group of people, I'm inclined to believe the opposite to you - that the majority must be perfectly happy with Andrew's leadership and the decisions he is making.

Do not misquote me. I said that the job of the officers was apolitical with the exception of Andrew's job as leader. The leadership of a political party is a political post - the most senior political post in any party.

I must admit, I'm getting tired of this 'one or two execs against hundreds of us' carping. What you mean is 'one or two execs against one or two other people who imagine they must have the support of hundreds of other people'. There is an easy and more satisfactory solution to this problem. When the exec positions come up for election again, vote for candidates who share your point of view. Then we will see how much support everyone has. It took Labour 30 years to first get into government, so by the typical chronology of political parties, we have plenty of time to change leaders and change policies without acting like every decision is the start of a new crisis. Andrew comfortably won the election that was held. He should not need to justify his decisions every other day.

However, I agree with what you say about letting members decide this. That is why this poll here is flawed. This is not a serious attempt to canvass the opinion of all the existing members. In fact, it makes no sense to run a poll now, when we know the party is growing. In two weeks time we will have many more members. Should we re-run the poll then, so they get a democratic voice too? Why not poll every decision, every day, just in case we failed to be perfectly democratic? Of course, there is a reason why democracies do not vote on every decision all the time - it is because it gets in the way of actually doing anything.

[jez9999]

Andrew is perfectly entitled to make a decision that reflects his honest belief about the best interests of the majority of members. Andrew is the leader. Your opinion about his authority is absurd. He is clearly the one person who has authority to make decisions about the best interests of the party.

Indeed, IF you are going to leave a given decision to one person.

What makes you think you know the wishes of the members better than Andrew? Are you jumping to the conclusion that the people who post on the forum are a representative sample of the members? The number of people who post are a small subset of the members. Most members do not make posts. Most members do not use the IRC. I hardly ever use the IRC. I make posts here when I have time, not when I do not. I would be keen to know what makes you so confident you speak on the behalf of the membership. Have you spoken to hundreds of members to confirm their point of view?

This whole paragraph is premised on an invalid assumption - I am not claiming to speak for the members of the party, and am sorry if I gave that impression. I'm really saying that IF the membership thinks something should be done differently, it should override Andy's decision here. Notice the 'if'.

Most people are motivated to complain about things they do not like; relatively few write to say they like something. Given the tiny number of complaints from a very small group of people, I'm inclined to believe the opposite to you - that the majority must be perfectly happy with Andrew's leadership and the decisions he is making.

Actually, I disagree with that assertion - most people stay quiet, and that *always* applies. It's always a relatively small minority that bother to speak up on issues, because speaking up on issues takes time and effort. I don't think it's fair to just argue that if a significant chunk of people speak up on an issue, they aren't really that important because 'the silent majority isn't complaining'. No, I disagree with that premise.

Do not misquote me. I said that the job of the officers was apolitical with the exception of Andrew's job as leader. The leadership of a political party is a political post - the most senior political post in any party.

Fine, but you're the treasurer, not Andrew... and you seem to be commenting on what is quite a political decision here.

I must admit, I'm getting tired of this 'one or two execs against hundreds of us' carping. What you mean is 'one or two execs against one or two other people who imagine they must have the support of hundreds of other people'. There is an easy and more satisfactory solution to this problem. When the exec positions come up for election again, vote for candidates who share your point of view. Then we will see how much support everyone has. It took Labour 30 years to first get into government, so by the typical chronology of political parties, we have plenty of time to change leaders and change policies without acting like every decision is the start of a new crisis. Andrew comfortably won the election that was held. He should not need to justify his decisions every other day.

No, but when a significant number of people raise an issue, I believe he should need to. And, if need be, be overridden on a decision by the majority. Whether you agree or not, I'm asserting that a significant number of people (given the size of the party's membership base) have made the effort to express, via the channels available to them (IRC or the forum), that they would like more general policy discussion on this site. At a very rough estimate, I've probably seen at least 30 people say something like this.

However, I agree with what you say about letting members decide this.

You seemed to imply the opposite above, that the members shouldn't be consulted because most of them wouldn't object.

That is why this poll here is flawed. This is not a serious attempt to canvass the opinion of all the existing members. In fact, it makes no sense to run a poll now, when we know the party is growing. In two weeks time we will have many more members. Should we re-run the poll then, so they get a democratic voice too? Why not poll every decision, every day, just in case we failed to be perfectly democratic? Of course, there is a reason why democracies do not vote on every decision all the time - it is because it gets in the way of actually doing anything.

Although I take this point, you could equally make this argument to suggest that we should never canvass the members. The members that get canvassed are the ones that happen to be members when the canvassing occurs - that is why I was not canvassed on the election of the executive. I don't think this is a reasonable argument for not consulting the members about a contraversial topic at this time.

[epriezka]

I don't think this is a reasonable argument for not consulting the members about a contraversial topic at this time.

Which brings us neatly full circle to why you need leaders. Who judges what is controversial? In your argument, you identify maybe 30 people who are unhappy with the decision. I'm sure you will concede that you don't know if all 30 are members. Does that warrant categorizing this a controversial decision? Is this controversial like the Labour Party and its policy on unilateral disarmament, or reform of clause 4, or OMOV? Is this controversial like the Tory Party and the Reform Act, or the constitutional crisis prompted by Lloyd George's budget, or the purchase of helicopters from Westlands? I don't think so. I think this is really very minor. I think things like this are distracting people, causing them to pour energy into trivialities because of some perception that the party is doomed unless it goes down a different path. I dislike the hyperbolic language about one or two execs standing opposed to hundreds members, as if this is a vital issue. People are going to have heart attacks if we sustain this level of introspection and fretting about every decision. I know I am getting worn out by it. Each day that goes by, I find it easier to say to myself 'knock it on the head, you're wasting your time trying to make this happen, if it wasn't tough enough already there are a lot of fractious people who seem hellbent on making every decision a big deal'. And if someone with my skills and experience thinks like that, I can promise you other people with similar skills and experience won't be fighting to put in the hours that I have been recently.

In the next few months there are literally going to be scores of decisions made. They will be made just as quick and have similar numbers of people in opposition. Or, we can not make those decisions. In which case other decisions people make on these forums ("we will fight the Norwich by-election!" "we will form constituency parties all over the country!") will be shown to have not really been decisions at all - because we don't do what was supposedly decided. We decided to fight the general election. But we won't fight the general election if we make lots of other choices that get in the way and spoil our chances.

I believe that everybody who has joined this party has decided they want the party to contest seats at the next election. Let me tell you a straightforward, apolitical opinion - not everybody on these forums has a clear idea of what it will take to make that happen. That is why some enthusiastic people made some bold predictions about what the party would do, and subsequently the party wasn't able to do the things they predicted it would do. It is going to be very hard to fight a few seats in the general election, AND to attract enough votes that we are not doomed as political failures from the outset. Don't sit back and assume what happened in Sweden will happen here. They had more time to organize, a favourable culture, a favourable electoral system, favourable electoral laws, and they fought the European elections, which is also easier to fight than our national general election. In short, we could easily be a total washout. The JuryTeam party was set up before the European Elections. It was set up by a relative political heavyweight with £50,000 of his own money - an awful lot more than we have so far, and which meant he did not debate every detail on how to run the party. They generated mainstream press coverage and they engaged literally thousands of people in the open votes - not closed to members, but open to the public - that were used to select their candidates. Esther Rantzen spoke in favour of them and Martin Bell was keen on them. They got 0.5% of the votes at the European election. Most people in this country have still never heard of the party. That is what motivates me. Not worry about a 'controversial' decision that is going to be one of literally hundreds of decisions that need to be made quickly. Worry that if we waste too much time and energy on every trivial decision, then by the time of the election, we will be a complete washout. We only have one chance to get it right first time. If we get it horribly wrong, there may not be a second time.

[jez9999]

I think this is really very minor.

I and a bunch of others disagree. And so that's how I justify consulting the membership on this, over all the other lots of little decisions we'll have to make. I will say that I think a party like ours should have much more direct engagement with its membership than the established ones, though - certainly on political issues.

We only have one chance to get it right first time. If we get it horribly wrong, there may not be a second time.

Only one chance to get it right first time? I'm *banking* on that not being the case, because we are not going to get ANY electoral success the first time, it's all about slowly and surely building up momentum, and the more of a community you have, the better your chance is of doing that.

[JohnB]

I and a bunch of others disagree. And so that's how I justify consulting the membership on this, over all the other lots of little decisions we'll have to make. I will say that I think a party like ours should have much more direct engagement with its membership than the established ones, though - certainly on political issues.

Jez: Correct me if I'm wrong, but is this poll open to all forum visitors? That is, not just the membership? If so, then I cannot consider the result as having any particular validity, such a poll could be called for, but it should be held in the members area and members should vote on it. Not simply whoever is actively visiting the site at present.

[mattd]

Lets face reality.

Party members are entitled to vote on party matters.

Job done.

Anything else is "OMG I AM L33T MEMBER!!!! U ARE NOT LOL". Shutting the discussion away and hiding it from the public is sinister, counter productive, and above all, stupid. You are going to alienate people at a rate of knots. I am active in the forums, active in IRC, I have made donations via PayPal but I am CATEGORICALLY NOT A MEMBER FOR VERY VALID REASONS but suddenly my opinions are worthless unless?!

Get to fuck I want my donation back. This fucking stinks and I know I am swearing like a docker but this is ludicrous you people just lost all credibility you gained in the last few weeks. Anyone looking at this from a neutral point of view is jsut seeing you as another "invite only" (i.e.pay up) oink.cd or what.cd. Well done. You just set us back another 10 years.

[rancidpunk]

Well you certainly appear to be looking at it from a neutral point of view. Could you maybe hint at what stopped you becoming a member? Privately if you want, 'cos it's difficult to respond otherwise.

[johnsmithson]

Is there not an obvious solution to all this. I see both sides of this argument, and feel I have the solution.

Make the members only section of the forum, which I agree should exist, readable by all.

Then we can all quote and comment on everything, and non-members can do this in the public area.

This solutions appears to solve everything. Comment please!

[cabalamat]

I think all forum members at least need to be able to see the party discussion on matters so that we know what the party direction is

Why? If you're not a party member, then the Pirate Party's internal discussions are NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.

and we can give prompt suggestions...

LOL

Yes, because party members, particularly activists, care SO MUCH about what people think, who can't be bothered to cough up 10 quid for membership.

[johnsmithson]

I think all forum members at least need to be able to see the party discussion on matters so that we know what the party direction is

Why? If you're not a party member, then the Pirate Party's internal discussions are NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.

and we can give prompt suggestions...

LOL

Yes, because party members, particularly activists, care SO MUCH about what people think, who can't be bothered to cough up 10 quid for membership.

With respect, I do not see it like this. If the members area is a least readable, people coming here know what it is like to be here. So, they can then decide if they wish to join. They would find it in google searches etc, so more would find us. As I see it, we would grow faster with more people paying their 10 pounds, with a freer, flatter, more open, party.

Currently, for people coming here, PPUK is a "pig in a poke".

[cabalamat]

With respect, I do not see it like this.

You're entitled to your opinon. If you're not a PPUK member, you've no entitlement or valid say in how PPUK chooses to run its website.

If the members area is a least readable, people coming here know what it is like to be here.

That's a valid argument. However, if it's readable, our political oponents can read it too. They may quote things out of context, etc. All other politivcal parties have discussions that are not made public; why should PPUK be any different?

So, they can then decide if they wish to join. They would find it in google searches etc, so more would find us.

This is also a valid argument. I think it makes sense to have some areas that are members-only and other areas that are readable (and writable) by all. But we have to be careful: if the open area is part of the pirateparty.org.uk domain, our political opponents vcan quote things out of context, including things that people who aren't even party members said, and misleadingly say "this is what PPUK believes! They're all extremists and bad people!"

So i think that while an open discussion area has advantages, it might well be best for it to be under a different domain. If you look, other parties do this, e.g.

Labourlist
Labourhome
Lib Dem Voice
Conservative Home
Liberal Conspiracy

etc.

As I see it, we would grow faster with more people paying their 10 pounds, with a freer, flatter, more open, party.

Indeed there may be advantages of being more open. There are also disadvantages.

[jez9999]

If the members area is a least readable, people coming here know what it is like to be here.

That's a valid argument. However, if it's readable, our political oponents can read it too. They may quote things out of context, etc. All other politivcal parties have discussions that are not made public; why should PPUK be any different?

Nonsense. 'Political opponents' will have no trouble ponying up £10 to get access to member-only discussion if they really want to quote us out of context.

So, they can then decide if they wish to join. They would find it in google searches etc, so more would find us.

This is also a valid argument. I think it makes sense to have some areas that are members-only and other areas that are readable (and writable) by all. But we have to be careful: if the open area is part of the pirateparty.org.uk domain, our political opponents can quote things out of context, including things that people who aren't even party members said, and misleadingly say "this is what PPUK believes! They're all extremists and bad people!"

And the political opponents can easily join for £10 and quote us out-of-context anyway. We need to accept that this may happen whether discussion is limited to members or not, and if it does, we simply call bullshit on any idiotic journalist / politician that does this because they have lifted some guy's quote from an UNOFFICIAL forum which has absolutely NO reflection on official party policy, or (not necessarily) on the beliefs of the majority of party members. If the majority of party members DO agree with what's been quoted, I doubt we'd have a problem with them publishing it.

So i think that while an open discussion area has advantages, it might well be best for it to be under a different domain. If you look, other parties do this

Do we have to be like the establishment? We are a new, internet-based party, and have the opportunity to do things differently and engage a community much more on our website than they can do. It'd be something that makes us fresh, different, and exciting. I don't think 'the way the establishment do it' is necessarily something we should be looking to emulate.

[johnsmithson]

First, I am a member of PPUK.

It is important that outsiders know the status of the content, but once we make that clear there is nothing to fear.

It might also interest the other parties in how things can be done.

Furthermore, say one of the main parties hijacked our best ideas, we would have succeeded. If they fight us with what they see, we increase our press profile. Win win!

[samgower]

I'd like to see public discussion, with member-only voting.

I believe that the comments, suggestions and arguments of people outside of the party membership is necessary to form politically realistic policy. If we close off to members-only, there is a real risk that the ideas flying around could stagnate. Opening up to others -- especially our opponents, if they choose to come here -- can allow us to fully develop our policies and arguments until they are watertight and ready for the Court of Public Opinion and, ultimately, Parliament.

Discussion should be in a public forum, and then later on a party official can make a poll (either on a private forum or on another voting system) that only members can vote on. Moderators, preferably but not necessarily from the party, should use their best judgment to decide if a topic is suitable for 'official' discussion (i.e. is it relevant to the party?) and should move inappropriate topics to an 'unofficial' forum.

Internal party issues, like electing the party officials, should be invariably and totally members-only, however. Only policy discussions should be public.