Knowledge is power says one sentence attributed to Sir Francis Bacon. While is almost certain that he didn’t said that, the wisdom included in it is no less valuable or true. And when power (kratos) is given to the people (demos) we have democracy.

This article is about a simple piece of paper that makes all the above true.  As you found out from the press or the articles preceding this on, at the Bundesparteitag, the German Pirate Party debated fiercely on online General Assemblies and online voting.

But how can be a debate held with more than 1000 people in the same space, whatever the size of the room? The German pirates did it.

Every participant had a chair, a space on a table, a cable connection to high speed Internet, an agenda and a speaking system that allowed views to be expressed on the issues.

But for me as a guest there, the tool that I found most interesting was a colored sheet of paper: A4 format, folded in three and printed on both sides.

This is the first page:

It clearly explains for what is it used, what it contains and gives an explanation of symbols that can be combined to express a possible structure for online votes.

The second page looked like this:

This is the second part of the article you could have read yesterday, named "Online voting? German Pirates want it, but..." and actually I've also written a very similar article for the Czech readers in my blog, where I described more thoroughly the late development of the German Pirate Party and their issues within a wider context.

But let's get back to the general assembly of the German Pirates - the atmosphere was quite amazing - especially when you see democratic processes take place in front of your eyes. And you also feel like in a documentary with all those cameras around. But that doesn't seem so much interesting for the traditional media - more than a thousand people engaged in a long discussion and getting to a democratic compromise. They were explaining their concerns about possible flaws of the system of the online voting.

In the end they didn't agreed upon one system and the discussions will continue, namely it might be accepted at the next Bundesparteitag - but a huge part of the work has been done.

It wasn't so easy, because German Pirates use a 2/3 majority voting system - they require a wide agreement. And the one proposal that was just closest to be accepted missed only 23 votes. Probably because in the last day some tired Pirates have already left. Even such things can influence the party shaping process.

After a fast and hard fall from the heights the German Pirates are up and running again and their preferences grow up. They focus their forces now on hard-working preparations for the elections instead of internal disputes and feel motivated #ichbinmotiviert. And it pays off - the last Bundesparteitag was a success, commented as outstandingly productive as most local media stated.

There were though some reasons of the previous fall and one of them was actually the inflexibility of the modern party. Because the German Pirates, as all Pirates around the globe put much emphasis on direct democracy and at the same time their general assemblies take place only twice a year, it was virtually impossible for their leaders to take any position in reaction on current events, if nothing connected was approved by all the members.

You can imagine that it hurts your PR, when you keep saying into cameras "Sorry, we don't have an official position on this." Any opinion is better then just plain "I don't know."

Rumour has it that the Pirates are a bit unorganized. It has also been an European inside joke for centuries that Germans are, extremely and uncanningly organized.

So what happens when German Organization skills and Pirates unite? The results were amazingly well organized general assembly which again resulted in productivity and happiness.

As soon as we entered the town, Neumarkt, we were greeted by signs of the German Pirate party which led the way to the Assembly. It was a bit like treasure hunt.

The assembly comfortable hosted over 1000 pirates, participating, a well equipped press room and accessible food stalls. Everything organized by pirates.

I must say that I was very happy to see that they decided not even bother with trying to have a wireless internetconnection for everybody, but instead provided a high quality internet through wired connections. Therefore therer was no frustration because of flunky wireless connection and people could get their Twitter and facebook fix.

I was equally impressed with the organization of the food. There was something for everyone, vegan, meat-dishes, grill and beverages. It was nicely organized, even one booth which was selling coupons for food so there was never a hassel because of lack of change or something alike. It is not easy to make enough food to feed ten dozen people and I must say that the Germans did splendidly.

There is one exception though. The coffee management was a borderline crisis situation. Apparently, the coffee machine was somehow broken. The fact that there was not another coffee machine or some alternative method to make the coffee to make sure that the Black Essence of Life was available to the attendees was, in my opinion, the only flaw of the organization of the assembly. But, people could of course retire to Club Mate.

Piratenpartei!!!

 

Last weekend I visited Piratenpartei's members' congress in Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz, Bavaria. It was a grand event - around 1500 people gathered to make important decisions about the election platform. It was a time of reconciliation - the new spokesperson Katharina Nocun and party chairman Bernd Schlömer were impressive in their way of looking ahead and their belief in the capacity of the party to work constructively towards success in the Bundesdagselections of November this year.

I am as always amazed by the organizational capacity of Germans. The halls were well-attended, the feeding opportunities supreme. Networks, press room, proper air in the big meeting hall and simultaneous sign language interpretation raised the overall impression of the event. There were many meetings with old and new friends that give me the hope, strength and motivation to continue my endeavours in Brussels. Over all, it was superinspiring and many German Pirates seemed to have a similar feeling :-)

On the Sunday morning after the final debates on opportunities for online meetings in the party I held an address:

Honourable pirates, representatives,

This week we have an event on Collective Rights Management and how to make it work. Amelia will also have several meetings on the directive on electronic identification as well as many other duties that you can see here below:

Monday 13:00 – 14:00 Meeting with the Dutch permanent representation
14:30 – 15:00 Meeting with GSMA 15:00 – 18:30 ITRE meeting on Collective Rights Management
Tuesday 10:00 – 11:00 Talk with students from Plusgymnasiets
14:00 – 14:30 Filming message for the Romanian Pirate Party

Wednesday 17:00 – 18:00 Meeting with the Task Force Legislation Team (eIDAS) of DG Connect

Thursday 09:30 – 12:30 Event 'Collective Rights Management: How to make it work' 12:30 – 14:00 Lunch meeting with the speakers of the event on Collective Rights Management
15:00 – 18:30 Event 'A European instrument for biodiversity: Access and Benefit-sharing'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvQ4xWuF_pg