Pirate Party is in Danger

[simonclifford]

Proposal - extend Internal party nominations due to breach of party constitution and that this extension should be notified twice, to the membership by their registered email addresses submited with their membership.

I believe the Party is in danger due to a lack of democratic legitimacy. Intem 4.4 of the constitution states the following:

"Members shall be entitled to vote in all relevant internal Party elections"

This implies that the membership is fully notified of all key votes.

The following notice was only made on the forum and it is my beleif that the majority of the party were not full aware of this, evidenced but the complete lack of nominations from an infmormed and passionate membership.

12th January 2010 12:41 | by Andrew Robinson
Internal Party Elections

I propose that not only is an election with 1 nominee un-democratic, but that the lack of notification goes against the constitution of the party and therefor the only remedy is the extending of the nomination process notified to the entire membership by email.

[samgower]

There is only so much the exec could have done to notify people. A blog post is as good as any notification; better than email, arguably, because it is a public announcement rather than a private message, although this is clearly a lesson to be learned in the future: send emails not only regarding the elections, but nominations for the elections too. In any case, the exec should not have to prod party members to participate in the party, the members themselves have to take responsibility.

Also, the party's electoral system is more democratic than most, even if there is only one candidate this time around. This is because there will always be at least three options: the candidate, abstention, and the option to reopen nominations. If the party lacked "democratic legitimacy," you would not be able to campaign for reopening of nominations. Even the option wasn't available in the election, you could start a vote of no confidence afterwards to force nominations to reopen.

If the party is in "danger," it is because we are in the run up to a general election and we have only a few of our membership getting involved, not because the party's highly committed, hard-working leader of six months is likely to be re-elected.

So, let me ask you this, Simon: if nominations are not reopened, will you continue to participate in the party? If not, why?

[simonclifford]

“There is only so much the exec could have done” is a feeble argument, when a group email would take a matter of minutes. What percentage of the membership visit the site on a weekly basis? If it is less than 50% it would be obvious that the membership would not all be informed about the nominations, which is evidenced by the poor response. The blog post was totally appropriate to the membership and the wider community, but also an email to the membership, who have paid to be involved.

It reminds me of Arthur Dent and the bypass notice.

In response to your question I am participating now and will continue to do so, however I would not like to be asked in a public forum to defend the fact the party leader was elected without a single other nominee.

I think that is not democratic, look at the flak Labour have had for doing the same thing, surely we don't want to be compared to them. "You are just as bad as Labour and Brown with your leadership vote" is the criticism we risk.

I think your loyalty is commendable but misguided. I feel strongly the the likelihood that Andrew will be re-elected even with other nominees is strong due to his experience of the past six months, however his legitimacy is weakened if he runs un-opposed.

As for your suggestion to “start a vote of no confidence” I think it would be regrettable to go down this route as it would show a lack of leadership that such a vote was raised should and should the vote gather any traction, it would then show that not only was Andrew elected without an alternate, but that a number of the small membership have no confidence in him, whether the vote was successful or not. This would make things work for him.

Your comments suggest you lack the experience off real press scrutiny. Should we be taken seriously by the press (because as of now we are not) every crack and issue will be amplified to ridicule us. As we are a still a fragile, young party the impact of this could be to terminally undermine our progress. We do not have the history or size of the Labour party to withstand this so we must be correct about how we do things, and nothing is more important than democratic legitimacy.

[scuzzmonkey]

we are an internet based party - 100% of our members signed up online and thus 100% of our members have visited the site at least once.

speaking as someone that is pretty damn active on these boards, and tries to spur discussion of topics as well as help out the back end with the web team and with things like the Street Teams and Merchandise, it takes little to no effort to get involved - and takes even less effort to check a forum once a day, let alone once a week.

nominations were open for 2 weeks, and frankly, if you didn't visit the site for 2 weeks, and are now complaining that nominations should be re-opened due to you personally not knowing they were going on and - i suspect - couldn't nominate yourself, are purely selfish and are basically sh*t stirring. Not to mention the fact you have what? 7 posts, and at least 3 of these have been you complaining about the nominations, so even if you did nominate yourself, short of promising everyone free money and sex for life, no one is going to vote for you because we don't know who you are.

the fact andy is unopposed has no "undemocratic" means and as sam pointed out, there are opens to abstain and re-open the votes.

[simonclifford]

So is this the level of debate you are reduced to when offered a reasoned argument.

As is clear in many posts not all the memebers have the free time to check the boards every day. Does that mean they dont have member rights? Are you saying you are therefor better than members who do not actively participlate in slandering anyone with an oposing view? Where does it say visiting the site daily is a pre-requisite to being a member?

I think you should calm down and consider the impact of your argument.

This is not an internet party this is a political party and the fact that the internet is the most effective and cost effective medium to enable debate, discussion and communication does not take away from the fact that the membership have the right to be actively informed.

I personally think it is not the volume of posts but the quality of the member and the contribution they can offer that matters, on-line or off.

You are clearly mis-reading my messages, if I were to stand it would be to offer some balance to the debate. Whether I were elected or not, is less important than the process, which must be democratic. I would probably vote for Andrew, but cannot due to a lack of an alternative.

[samgower]

As is clear in many posts not all the memebers have the free time to check the boards every day. Does that mean they dont have member rights? Are you saying you are therefor better than members who do not actively participlate in slandering anyone with an oposing view? Where does it say visiting the site daily is a pre-requisite to being a member?

Given that the party operates almost entirely online, visiting the site an average of twice a month shows a certain level of interest and interaction you would expect from anyone wishing to become a member of the NEC.

[simonclifford]

However not necessary for members who wish to be involved in key votes. There is no argument I am afraid Sam, the party constitution is clear.

I think upon reflection Andrew will recognise that a communication failure has occurred. I think he is a fair man and will recognise the impact of the correct remedy is less harmful than saying, or this will do and the message that would send out.

You also seem to be misguided in thinking I am looking to become leader, whilst I would be capable, I would only put myself forward if no other suitable alternate were to do so. I do not seek the role but would take it on if the members were to ask it of me.

This is because I am committed to the party ideals first and am prepared to sacrifice my time in support of this.

[scuzzmonkey]

the party constitution is clear.

yes, yes it is, and people were informed - it is not the fault of the exec if members don't check the website - yes, an email would have worked even better, but is still rife with extra problems (spam filters and the like) so short of calling every member and making sure you talk to a person, there will be problems.

however if people don't feel like they have the time to keep up to date with the goings on of the party, even just once a week (an activity that takes at most 10 minutes) then - speaking for myself solely - i don't think that they have a right to complain that things aren't going the way they want it - when they make no effort to change things.

and yea, i agree, the quantity of a persons posts prove nothing - however, there is still a community that has formed around the party, and as such members should be active within the community and thus the party.

and yes, we are an internet based party, with internet based policies and 99% of all the party's activities are carried out online, so it makes even less sense that are members don't use the boards.

[simonclifford]

I take you back to the original post:

"Members shall be entitled to vote in all relevant internal Party elections"

For this to be true it implies that they are kept informed. It is not adequate to say, well they should have checked, or an email might have been spam filtered.

Every reasonable effort should have been made, and sending an email to the membership would be reasonable.

Speaking for yourself you are wrong. As members we all have the right to vote, as I said earlier, it is not a requirement to check the site weekly. Some members have very full lives. They should not be penalised for this, they are supporting the party through their membership fee and that is all they are required to do to be members. You are suggesting they should pay their money and shut up unless they are actively involved every week. This is appalling, undemocratic and bordering on totalitarian.

[borgs8472]

I'm confused. I got the email and went and voted for candidates, and I'm half running the forum. Just vote to reopen the nominations if you're unhappy.

[epriezka]

I take you back to the original post:

"Members shall be entitled to vote in all relevant internal Party elections"

For this to be true it implies that they are kept informed. It is not adequate to say, well they should have checked, or an email might have been spam filtered.

Every reasonable effort should have been made, and sending an email to the membership would be reasonable.

You're confusing two separate questions. One question is whether an email should be sent to every member notifying them that nominations are open for party posts. It wasn't, but the constitution doesn't require this. It's quite a stretch to say that "members are entitled to vote"="members are entitled to expect an email notifying them that nominations for a vote are being taken". A second question is whether an email should be sent to every member notifying them that they can vote in the election. Every member has received an email about their right to vote.

Simon, the difficulty I'm having with some of your arguments is that you talk about 'every reasonable effort' and 'rights' and 'the party' like everything that happens is done by some abstract machine. Everything that happens is done by somebody who volunteers some time and effort. Perhaps you'd like to identify who, specifically, failed to volunteer the time and effort needed to meet your expectations. Then we can punish that person, perhaps by throwing them out of the party. Then we'll have one less volunteer and... erm... be no better off. The challenge here isn't making demands. It's easy to make demands. The challenge is motivating people to give up their time to do things out of the goodness of their heart. You'll win more support for your arguments if instead of saying what some faceless unnamed person should have done but didn't do, you tell us how you've been volunteering your time to help the party and how you're setting a good example for everyone else to follow. When John McKeown/Rancidpunk does that, it's hard to argue with him... he really does get out on the streets and encourage people to vote pirate! If you don't know how to volunteer or how to help, then you've already identified one job that has been vacant and nobody asked to do, even though I made it public that I wasn't doing it any more on several occasions... you can ask the exec to be the Election Overseer and be personally responsible for managing elections and notifying voters in future. That would be a more constructive response.

[samgower]

I agree with Eric: I would absolutely support you becoming Election Overseer, Simon. You clearly feel very strongly about this issue, so I think you would do a very good job ensuring fair elections in the future.

Regarding this particular problem, however, I feel it was entirely reasonable that a public announcement on the official party blog was used to announce the opening of nominations, and that the period was long enough to allow all members to nominate themselves, should they have wished to.

[rancidpunk]

I must admit that I only found out that the elections were underway by accident, my fault I know, but it does seem that Executive elections should be much more of a main event than they appear to be. Surely a big spalsh on the front page of the website with all the relevant links could have been organised or is organising the whole election process being dumped on the web team leader who is busy enough as it is?

[epriezka]

I must admit that I only found out that the elections were underway by accident, my fault I know, but it does seem that Executive elections should be much more of a main event than they appear to be. Surely a big spalsh on the front page of the website with all the relevant links could have been organised or is organising the whole election process being dumped on the web team leader who is busy enough as it is?

Everything was dumped on Tom, even though he's Web Team Leader, not Election Overseer.

It's a very bad idea to fall into the trap of making Web Team Leader responsible for anything and everything that happens to involve the web site. He'll end up being expected to do everything. He's a skilled worker and it doesn't need his skills to set up polls or send out emails.

[cabalamat]

There is only so much the exec could have done to notify people. A blog post is as good as any notification; better than email, arguably, because it is a public announcement rather than a private message, although this is clearly a lesson to be learned in the future: send emails not only regarding the elections, but nominations for the elections too.

This seems a good idea and I think we should follow it for future elections.

[epriezka]

There is only so much the exec could have done to notify people. A blog post is as good as any notification; better than email, arguably, because it is a public announcement rather than a private message, although this is clearly a lesson to be learned in the future: send emails not only regarding the elections, but nominations for the elections too.

This seems a good idea and I think we should follow it for future elections.

As an exec, it's no good just saying it's a good idea and it should be done. Lots of things should be done. The hard part is identifying who is going to do it.

Note my previous post about dumping lots of the Election Overseer's work on Tom, the Head of the Web Team, because nobody found a replacement to take on the Election Overseer's work that I had done previously. Philip, out of all the execs, you've been the one most prone to coming up with suggestions/tasks for what the party should be doing and then routinely dumping them all at the feet of the Head of the Web Team like he's some kind of multi-purpose slave-cum-dogsbody. If you can't find a way to share the work around, then you're not effective at taking the good ideas and making them a reality. Good ideas are worthless if you can't execute in real life.

[simonclifford]

Epriezka

“It's quite a stretch to say that "members are entitled to vote"="members are entitled to expect an email notifying them that nominations for a vote are being taken”

As to your first point, I disagree its not a stretch at all.

“Every member has received an email about their right to vote.”

As to your second point, there is no disagreement here, although I do not see why the nominations were not communicated like this, ergo my whole argument. I think you un-intentionally made my point there very well.

Regarding your third point which is nonsense, you are implying something I have not suggested. I have not called for any punishment or anyone to be kicked out of the party. I do think however you are mistaking a political party from company or university politics, when you suggest poor community communication is acceptable by virtue of the fact it is voluntary, and bare in mind all I am calling for here is an email. Less time than it takes to write this post.

I have been constructive in my criticism of this error from the first.

“I propose ... the only remedy is the extending of the nomination process notified to the entire membership by email”

This is my opening argument, and it is the beginning of a discussion, however all the replies I have received so far are blindly defending this failure.

I think an error was made, and as a party we should man up, take it on the chin and remedy the situation. No heads need roll, but the failure be remedied, by virtue of postponing the election whilst the nominations are extended with an email recognising the error in a mature way. That way this issue will not come back to haunt us down the line, which if let to stand, I think will.

As for you last point, it appears that I have become the informal, unofficial election overseer, and whilst attempting to make an important point with a clear remedy, I have mainly been vilified for simply making this observation/contribution. For me its water off a ducks back, but looking at the views of these threads, I think there may be many members who will likely have been put off posting, fearing the wrath of some of the less diplomatic forum posters.

I have noticed that in the main my posts have received replies that are purely critical, but avoid the central issue. Not wholly in your case, although you dismiss my main point out of hand then make a confused recognition that an email is appropriate, which is kind of better.

Please understand I am a party advocate and member, I am on your, our side. I just see the potential problems that will arise from this election. I don't want to be saying I told you so six months down the line, I just want the party to be the best it can be.

[epriezka]

Epriezka

“It's quite a stretch to say that "members are entitled to vote"="members are entitled to expect an email notifying them that nominations for a vote are being taken”

As to your first point, I disagree its not a stretch at all.

We'll have to agree to disagree. The constitution is a kind of legal contract. If it says people have a right to vote, then that's in the contract. If you wanted to go court and argue the contract was broken because, although you had a right to vote, you didn't get an email notifying you of the right to nominate yourself to stand in the election where you could have voted, I think you'd lose 100 times out of 100. But let's not debate this any more as this is going to degenerate into "I'm right" "No, I'm right".

“Every member has received an email about their right to vote.”

As to your second point, there is no disagreement here, although I do not see why the nominations were not communicated like this, ergo my whole argument. I think you un-intentionally made my point there very well.

No, I understood your argument. You're now rephrasing it. You implied there was some constitutional duty to send an email. There isn't. I didn't say it was wrong to send an email, and if you'd only said you wanted an email, I wouldn't have any reason to question your argument. It's because you linked it to the constitution that I pointed out a confusion between what is in the constitution and what's definitely not in the constitution.

Regarding your third point which is nonsense

Is it me, or does PPUK attract a lot of people who can't stick to an argument without throwing in a needless jibe? Why is that? Is there a Jeremy Morton School of Debate that I don't know about?

you are implying something I have not suggested. I have not called for any punishment or anyone to be kicked out of the party. I do think however you are mistaking a political party from company or university politics, when you suggest poor community communication is acceptable by virtue of the fact it is voluntary, and bare in mind all I am calling for here is an email. Less time than it takes to write this post.

On the contrary, you've implied something I did not suggest. I did not suggest that somebody should be punished or even that you believe somebody should be punished. I hinted at a much more fundamental issue you seem unwilling to accept - you can tell a bunch of volunteers what you want them to do until you're blue in the face, but if none of them happen to do it, then what are you going to do about it? Tell them some more? Punish them? Give up? Write a lot of posts on this forum? You've joined the party with the rather odd idea that if you point out the obvious (sending an email means more people get to know stuff) then all the dolts in this party will wake up and think: "Hey! I never thought of that! Let's do it!" That's not the problem. The party is not full of idiots. It's full of people who are maxed out on the contribution they make already. The problem is there's a few hundred other things that also need doing and you've not probably thought of them. Perhaps there are even more important jobs not being done. I think so, but just listing them all doesn't really help anyone. I mean, I could produce a long long list, but it won't actually help anyone. I write lots of posts all the time about lots of things the party might/could/should do. I'm realistic enough to know it's a good day if 1% of them get done. And that's despite the knowledge there's lots of other things the party needs to do that I'm not mentioning.

And as for the argument that sending an email is just one more small job, well that doesn't help either, because even small jobs add up.

I think an error was made, and as a party we should man up, take it on the chin and remedy the situation. No heads need roll, but the failure be remedied, by virtue of postponing the election whilst the nominations are extended with an email recognising the error in a mature way. That way this issue will not come back to haunt us down the line, which if let to stand, I think will.

I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill. Do you expect some controversy because our internal elections were uncontested? Its a freaky day if the mainstream press notices PPUK even exists. What odds that anyone in the real world is going to ever know, never mind care, that our leadership contest was not contested? If you don't believe me, I suggest you try an experiment. Phone around news desks of the press and see who picks up the story. Seriously, do it. Chances are you'd be wasting your time but if you're not, there's always the adage that 'there's no such thing as bad publicity'. A nice controversy would at least get us some attention.

As for you last point, it appears that I have become the informal, unofficial election overseer, and whilst attempting to make an important point with a clear remedy, I have mainly been vilified for simply making this observation/contribution.

Now you're getting way ahead of yourself. You're not election overseer, informal or otherwise. That job involves things like letting people know about nominations and reviewing the votes to look for irregularities. You didn't do the former and you're not in a position to do the latter. I just suggested that if you really want to help, instead of suggesting somebody should do these things, you should volunteer to be the person who does them in future.

And I don't see why suggesting you might offer to do a serious job means you've been vilified. Rather the opposite. I've just suggested we put a lot of trust into someone who has no more track record than a dozen posts on the forum and seems to care. That's quite a leap of faith, if you ask me.

[glambert]

Sorry Simon, but if you're serious about standing for a role within the party then you should be checking the website for the latest news a lot more frequently than the 10-14days period that we had the votes running for.

[simonclifford]

You still don't get it. There are ways to do things and ways not to.

The party should have been more robustly informed, ie an email, that's it, that's my point.

Regarding the legalities nobody is going to court, but on that subject there is the spirit of the law which holds equal weight in our judicial system, so I think your 100 out of 100 is easily off by 50. But lets just bury that one, agree to disagree.

What I said was I think every member should have been informed by email, that's it and that is consistent with the constitution and a democratic party and the spirit of the constitution.

As to your later point about sticking to an argument, I was simply trying to answer your points and many others in previous posts, so any sway from my original and continued point is simply to answer my critics. As for “throwing in a needless jibe ” followed by “Is there a Jeremy Morton School of Debate that I don't know about? ” threw me, but I think it is a Jibe, which speaks for itself really.

“Perhaps you'd like to identify who, specifically, failed to volunteer the time and effort needed to meet your expectations. Then we can punish that person, perhaps by throwing them out of the party.” Your comments not mine, I simply denied any wish to do any of the above. You implied this was my wish then went on to make your point about its volunteer so its OK.

Now you further suggest I think the members a idiots, which could not be further from the truth, nowhere have I made the slightest indication of such a view, the contrary is in fact the case.

I don't see where in my discussion I have said anything that deserves these attacks on my character. If you can't debate the issues, but attack the messenger through slurs, you are not really debating, just name calling.

My point about telling volunteers what you want them to do, and if they agree to do it and they don't repeatedly, surely the answer is you replace them with someone more reliable. But this is very abstract. Was a note to email the nominations even requested? Because no-one was at fault if it was not, and my raising the point is a reminder not a big issue, unless simply the criticism become the issue.

The rest of that paragraph smacked of excuses and I am not looking for that. The “oh we are so busy defence”; when you do something do it to the best of your ability and as part of a team, listen when a member gives you a helpful hint that something was missed.

I know numbers of posts seems to be held in high regard to those that post a lot, I think quality not quantity is most important. Another implied jibe, “oh I posted more than you, so that make me better/more committed”, really do people have to keep harping on like that.

Regarding you penultimate point, I don't the the media give a flying crap about us at the moment. But I think this can change, with good communication, campaigning and the membership spreading the word, and when it does as I previously mentioned any crack in our legitimacy will be discovered and used against us. Do we not think there should have been a proper election in the Labour party before Brown got the leadership, because we can't argue that point if we do it ourselves.

As to your last point, I was simply responding to your point of the same vein, suggesting that this thread was not created by any other member who is in such a role, and I am therefore the UNOFFICIAL election overseer (which as a post means nothing) in their absence.