Post-Election Activities

From what i know , to form a political party as such we need a minimum of 100 "registered" members. To achieve that , loomio alone will not do. We'd need a proper constitution and a manifesto and the person wanting to be a member should apply for a membership formally (written application type.) So until we have a 100 "registered" members we will not be able to form a party as such.
Min age =18 with a valid voters ID , etc.

1. We'll need at least 100 people and I don't want this to be just 100 random people. I want them to be committed to our goals. So we'll revisit this when we reach 100 members. Lets focus on spreading pirate ideas and increasing our numbers.
2. Then we need to make a constitution that will reflect our core ideas of peer to peer structure and transparency.

@praveenarimbrathod yeah, I agree.

@arjun @praveenarimbrathod we can wait until enough people join us to form the party, it's okay. but do we need to wait anymore to improve the Constitution or Manifesto? i don't think we should. i also believe that having a strong Constitution and Manifesto (not talking about Election Manifesto, but something like GNU Manifesto) makes it easy to spread the Pirate ideas. here's a list of issues which i think we should address soon even if we're not forming a party in the near future:

1) we all agree that the Constitution needs to be updated. so let's do that now. i've already initiated a thread here regarding the restructuring of the current Constitution. requesting everyone's suggestions on the same.

2) reach an agreement on the rights and powers of members and associates. for example the conditions to accept and reject a proposal, the voting rights of members (whether one should be given veto power, etc.) need to be stated clearly in the Constitution. you can find the related discussion here.

3) quoting @vidyut's words from here: "We are not ourselves clear on what we want to do. We should form teams to identify areas we would like to work on, and reach an agreement on our stand first."
i agree with her. also, since it may not be possible to list our stand on each and every issue in the Constitution, let's consider a different approach as follows:

• let the Constitution contain basic principles only in the form of concise statements. Constitution should act as a set of guidelines for Pirates.
• the current Manifesto located here is more like an election manifesto, like a document of promises. instead let's restructure the Manifesto in such a way that it can be used to explain the basic principles and related ideas in detail. Manifesto should also contain the stand of Pirates on important as well as general issues like Privacy, Net Neutrality, etc. in a way that it conveys the need of Pirates in detail. Let this Manifesto be the bible of Indian Pirates (like GNU Manifesto) and let it also be a call for collaboration.
• make use of public Statements (which we publish on our website) to explain our stand on specific issues like "aadhaar", "free basics", etc.
• publish an easy to navigate FAQ page on our website to answer some of the important questions such as "Why the name Pirates?", "How can Pirates stand for Privacy and Transparency at the same time?", etc. in order to avoid confusions.
• publish a list of tools and resources including easy-to-follow tutorials (on the topics like encryption, vpn, etc.) on our website to help people adopt Pirate ideas in their daily life.

I can see a parallel here with Free Software. In proprietary software, people only have the option to choose a software based on features. In Free Software, even if its missing a feature today, we have the option of adding them. The key difference is the rights to modify it. I think looking for a perfect manifesto and constitution comes from the same thought process. We are used to selling a group, be it a party or religion, based on the strength of its founding document. With those groups or religion, having a perfect document is significant, because ability to change it is not available to everyone (for religions, no one). I don't think we should 'sell' our collective based on our constitution or manifesto alone, but the ability for anyone to suggest modifications.

And what makes you think we are waiting? If no one suggest anything, it won't happen from thin air like magic. If we are not seeing any changes, it means, no one really bothers to change it. But we are continuously making changes. You suggested many changes and we already made some changes and in the process of making more changes (protecting environment was added, associate member was renamed to associate to avoid confusion, more changes are currently considered). I don't think there is any need to rush it, I see it as a living document that will undergo changes continuously rather than a final document that we need to blindly follow like bible or gnu manifesto.

1. Your changes are already being considered. No one is stopping any member from proposing amendments.
2. Yes, it is in my todo list, if some else wants to propose it before me, feel free. Currently 6 more people have the right to propose amendments.
3. No one is stopping anyone to form teams. @ambadyanands, you can start sub groups on any issue and invite people. Just repeating, "nobody is doing anything", won't change anything.

Yes, we can definitely add more items and details there. Just propose those changes and find a member to sponsor your proposals (I will also propose some but I'm not in any rush to make a bible or gnu manifesto or perfect final document). I want this to look complete when people make it complete. I want people to join us not just for what is there in those documents, but what they want to see there, at least for the initial period.

We are already making public statements, its just that no one really bothers to contribute. Just propose those statements.

Same for faq and tutorials. Start it and ask for contributors. Waiting for others to do something is not going to help much.

@praveenarimbrathod i agree with many of your ideas. and i didn't mean to complain or blame anyone, i was asking for support instead. also, i'm glad that the Constitution is slowly undergoing many amendments.

"And what makes you think we are waiting?" //let me tell what i think. i don't know the exact date, but i think it has been more than 2 years since Indian Pirates has formed. and yet i see that the Pirate ideas are not organized well anywhere. i mean there are still a lot of doubts to be cleared, especially for a new-comer (again not as a complaint, just shared my observation). that's why i proposed the all three points above.

"'nobody is doing anything', won't change anything." //i didn't mean that nobody is doing anything. just expressed my opinion that we should be more active. i'll start threads on creating FAQ, adding more statements, etc.

"I don't think there is any need to rush it, I see it as a living document that will undergo changes continuously rather than a final document that we need to blindly follow like bible or gnu manifesto." //fair enough. i admit that bible wasn't a good analogy because a book like bible (or any other religious book of principles) usually represents a set of rules and guidelines that every follower should follow blindly without questioning.

i also agree that what we need is not a perfect and final document but a living, free-to-edit one. so let's declare it explicitly in the preface of the Constitution and the Manifesto so that everyone will get the idea easily.