Structure Proposal

I'd like to present on this page my proposal for improvements of the structure of Pirate Party Belgium. Some things I suggest might already be the case or on their way. --317070 19:03, 27 January 2012 (CET)

For discussion and comments I'd like to refer to the forum.

Identification of the Current Problems

I think this list gives the main issues at the moment:

• Not a lot of pirates know what the structure of the party looks like
• Even fewer pirate know where to find information about the structure of the party
• The current structure isn't designed for resilience
• The current structure isn't designed for rapid growth

There are also some secondary issues which I would like to address here.

• More vividness is needed
• Not enough people are connected and tied to the party yet

The Current Structure of the Party

I believe the main philosophy behind the party structure now is a grass-root bottom up approach. So it is easy to add new groups at the bottom, the so-called Crews. This appears to be good for rapid growth, but to me this is not completely the case. It appears as if some Crews are inactive or 'dead'. More importantly, currently it is not possible to determine if a Crew is 'dead'. Also, only Crews can be added bottom-up. This is only a part of the party, other groups should be able to be added quicker in my opinion, preferably even in a decentralized way.

Also I've been following the party for quite a while now (I dare say since 'the beginning') and I believe the following should be an exhaustive list of the organs in the party. This is probably not correct, but to my opinion this incompleteness is merely a symptom of the lack of transparency in the current structure.

• The core team
• A team of writers
• A team of translators
• The IT-workgroup
• Various crews around the country

First Priority: Transparency

I think it is really important that the structure gets communicated. There should be a document about the Pirate Party Structure where everyone can look up:

• which organs exist in the current party
• who is in charge of the organ
• how to contact whoever is in charge of the organ (provide as an absolute minimum mail addresses, preferably of mailing lists)
• who are the other members in the organ
• what exactly is the organ responsible for
• which communication channels are used by the organ

This document should be made complete by someone who actually knows the structure. The details can be filled in by the individual organs if needed. Currently this already exists for the Crews, which is superb.

The reason it should be communicated is because it gives everything volunteers do some perspective and purpose. If there is a structure, the chances you're doing everything in vain appear smaller. Also in case of problems/ideas/requests, everyone knows where to go.

Second Priority: Fast Growth

An issue which comes around for quite some time already. The people looking for the Pirate Party do seem to join, but don't seem to contribute. Or people who want to contribute, seem not to be able to find out how to help. When help is needed, this is usually found by mailing everyone or posting on the forum. This way neither new nor passive volunteers are reached. On the other hand I hear from the top that they have too much on their hands to get things done.

This could all be solved by having some kind of procedure to handle new volunteers.

• Have a button become volunteer on the frontpage of the Pirate Party. This page should point to a page listing jobs which need to be done or groups where more people are needed. For instance: the translation team is looking for someone who can be contacted in order for an occasional translation to German. Do you speak and/or write German: contact xxx@yy.z. or We still need more writers to occasionally write a piece for the frontpage. Are you a writer who would like to join our writing team? Do you have some writing experience and can you work in a team? Can you volunteer on a weekly basis? Contact aaa@bb.c. Don't estimate too low when setting maxima's for a group, rather have too many people joining than too few. Volunteering creates a connection which might eventually lead to more volunteering. Even if the job is already filled, I bet you can find a hole somewhere else or invite him to join a Crew instead.
• Always reply to people twice applying for jobs. Always, no exceptions. First respond that you received his application and will discuss it, the second with the result of that discussion. If you apply for a job and get a reasonable deny, you apply for something else. If you don't get a reply, why would you even care about what's going on if they ignore you offering your spare time for free?
• This page should also have all Crews, when they meet and how to contact them. Throw those in the face of the visitor, make sure they have seen it and make sure they can contact the existing Crews in a minimal number of clicks.
• When a new job/team/group is being set up, use all channels available. I think I've never seen a vacature on facebook for example. This way you also contact new people.
• Don't require people to real-life volunteering before doing digital volunteering. While it is true digital volunteering alone won't build a party, you can still use digital volunteering as a step-up to connect more people to the party. Eventually digital volunteering might result in real-life volunteering anyway.
• Build in some resilience. If communication happens at least some part in public, dead groups can quickly be identified. Also, work can progress from where it was left off. Also think about worst-case-scenarios: if someone doesn't show up or doesn't deliver work as promised, have ways to deal with those situations. What happens if the group leader can't be contacted any more for example? Are there backup communication channels to the group?
• Delegate work. If someone doesn't have time to do something. Say what you want/need to do in public or contact other people who might do it instead. If this work is recurrent, maybe it might be a good idea to create a new group? If you are doing something, communicate about it, maybe others have good ideas or can help out.

To do this, the people responsible for infrastructure should be able to provide the tools necessary to set up new organs quickly. There should be people who can set up a complete group without relying on other people.

• Provide a mailinglist
• Provide a (public) subforum on the forum
• Provide a wikipage
• Provide some space to handle documents if necessary
• Copy-paste the important information in there in stickies, pages, etc. Who to contact in what case, what are the responsibilities of the group, ...
• Setup vacatures in the vacature system. Communicate those vacatures to all channels available.
• add some experienced members of the party which will help the group when they need support and which might provide some initial directions until the group takes off.

While a 'feel free to add' approach works onto a certain level, if you don't appoint people responsible for certain tasks, nothing will be done. I am yet to see one project which was totally completed under a 'feel free to add' approach without someone throwing their weight into it.

Third Priority: Vividness

This is a third issue, which is that the party as a structure appears 'dead' to outsiders. Take for instance the homepage of the pirateparty, which is broken everywhere, appears to have had its last update over 3 months ago, is objectively ugly, doesn't provide necessary information, contains quite a lot of 'work in progress' and doesn't link through to the most vivid pages (facebook, forum, wiki).

It is very important that we as a party look alive. Since we currently are only starting to be visible on the streets in contrast to other parties, and given the background of the parties worldwide, it is of main importance that we look alive on the internet.

Keeping some of the core communication in closed circuits such as mailinglists (which can't be read by late arrivals) or behind the closed gates of Agora also play a role here in my opinion. How am I to know if there is something going on behind those login fields? The facebook-team on the other hand does an excellent job here in my opinion.

Maybe someone could write a piece about the history of the Pirate Party in Belgium, about what happened and what has been done. About the events in the last election for instance. That way we are not only words, but also acts. We have some story to tell already.

On a bigger scale, wouldn't it be possible to set up a central communication system where newstips and background stories can be provided by members, where the twitter/homepage/facebook/forum-guys than can pick up on the stories and post them where needed?

Fourth Priority: Participation

Involve people in the decision making of the party and if this is not possible, give at least the arguments which have lead to this decision. Give people the impression that their opinion matters while not giving in to random nutjob-issues. Provide a platform where politics can be discussed. Not only about what we are going to do once we are in parliament but also on how we're going to get there.

We should also make sure we have the right tools for the right job to do this. On a forum topics go down and are eventually out-of-sight, which makes them good for cutting new issues, but horrible for collecting and gathering information. In a wiki, contributions and additions are chaotic and all over the place, which makes them bad for quickly addressing issues, but excellent for collecting and maintaining information. The liquid feedback system is good to build a program for the party, but is useless for communication. Crews are the best place for campaigning and discussion, but meetings might be to unstructured to set up programs. And so on... use the right tools for the job and offer those to the groups.

Conclusion

In conclusion I want to say that I believe the party currently looks promising. If we keep on growing the way we grow now, we will be able to gain seats in the next elections of 2012 and 2014. It is possible to make the change and to gain political influence, we are certainly sailing the right track and the wind is still blowing the right way. I just wanted to provide a map through which I think we might take some shortcuts.