Questions for potential candidates 2016 Edition

Thanks to all candidates for their contributions on irc. I think a well rounded variety of experience, youth and skills. I trust the enthusiasm will continue regardless of results. Party first.

Well it was interesting.

It was. Iā€™m new to irc so itā€™s a learning curve on a few fronts. I do have a question for candidates. There was some discussion about recruiting members.

What approach would you take in recruiting female members?

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I would recruit members. I find that is the best way to recruit female members.

Yeah, I struggled with my phrasing. Apologies to all. My wife asked me why she should #votepirate. Voting is a step away from joining I suspect. I answered her but Iā€™d like to know what you would say.

Transparency of government - to create a society without corruption or vested interests.
Privacy of Individuals - you have the right to make mistakes and a right to learn. A right to not be taken out of contextā€¦
Information Freedom - knowledge is what builds and continues to build our society and economy. It should be as frictionless and open as possible for maximum efficiency.

At its core, that is my understanding of the Pirate Party.

David asks a fair question. Iā€™d be interested to hear from the candidates how they would address diversity and reach out to a broader community.
Currently PPAu does seem to skew pretty male and, in my opinion as a community organiser, diversity does need to be addressed actively. Donā€™t assume women (or indeed anyone) will magically appear if youā€™re not making an effort to be inclusive.

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I have been working in Brisbane with quite a few groups that are tech/startup/IT focused and even ones that are specially aimed at women who work/study in a technical or IT field.
I personally know the previous QLD Google student ambassador (who is now in a graduate position with Vodafone), the founder of ā€œTech Girls are superherosā€, the QLD Chair of Oxfam, the last CEO of Engineers Without Borders and the person in charge of the Microsoft Innovation Centre to name a few, who are all women I admire for what they have achieved.

The contacts are out there, you just have to look for them AFK IRL

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While I canā€™t speak for potential female members, I think thereā€™s a level of hesitation for women to join any movement that has roots in tech and internet culture. This is an issue not unique to us, but I believe the onus is on us to show that women are welcome, not tokenistically, not for numbers, but for the contributions they can make as equals.

The idea that women donā€™t get involved in politics is absolute bullshit. @Asher_Wolf is a great example of someone whom advocates for most of the principles we stand for. This doesnā€™t make it her duty to support or represent us, but we need to show women like her a sincere appreciation for their contributions to the common cause. The ā€˜weā€™ I refer to is of course not referring to the national council or the candidates alone, but every person representing our community to the world.

Ohā€¦ I got preachy didnā€™t I?

ĀÆ_(惄)_/ĀÆ

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Hi all

My name is Joshua Pearson and I have nominated for pre-selection to run for the Senate in New South Wales
Going through the previous posts in this discussion it appears that there are 5 questions that people want answered so I will do my best to answer them for you now.

Why do you want to be a candidate for the Pirate Party?

What are your values, priorities and particular policy stances?

If you have any skills and experience, what concretely are they?

Could candidates please summarise which activities and projects they have been involved in with the Pirate Party?

How would you address party gender diversity and reach out to a broader section of the community

To me it seems like the first four questions can all be answered as one as they all link to a central theme of contributing to the party, the community, and the nation.
So I will attempt that first and try to come back to the final question of diversity afterwards. As some of you may have seen in the IRC chat on Sunday, Iā€™m a relative newcomer to the party, I became an associate member last year and only became a full member a couple of weeks ago. Because of that I obviously donā€™t have prior history of being involved in any projects with the Party. About 18 months ago I returned to Australia after nearly 9 years in London and I was saddened by the state of politics and political discourse in Australia. Everything seemed to be viewed through a prism that only allowed perspectives of black or white with no room for any subtletyin the grey spaces in between. This is what brought me to the Pirate Party, a desire to see a more nuanced understanding of education, technology, energy and environmental issues as well as a part ywhere policy decisions were made after evidence for a position had been considered rather than determining policy and then seeking out evidence that only supports the party position. This ethos of the party is central to my support of the Pirate Party along with the support of other progressive issues such as euthanasia, and marriage equality, in the form of the Civil Unions Act.

I want to be a Pirate Party candidate for a simple reason, at the time that I applied, there werenā€™t enough people to provide two potential Senatorial candidates from New South Wales and I felt that I could no longer sit by and hope for somebody else to come along and take up the torch to achieve the sort of change that I want to see. Itā€™s not fair for me to expect other to do the things that I wonā€™t do, regardless of how intimidating the prospect of running a political campaign might be, I could no longer hold others accountable for failing to achieve something I believe in if I wasnā€™t
willing to attempt it myself. My skills and experience may or may not necessarily translate well to a campaign or a political career, I was a part time stand up comedian in London for approximately 2 years so Iā€™m comfortable speaking in front of a crowd, and I have been the captain of various sporting teams throughout my life, as well as a stint as Club Secretary for an amateur AFL club so Iā€™m comfortable in leadership roles and have others look to me for direction. How those skills will translate I suppose is something that will be found out on the campaign trail. Other than these things I have worked a fairly standard IT career and have an analytical mind and an easy manner with people that I think will serve the party well.

With regards to gender diversity of the party membership and interaction with the community Iā€™m not sure I know how to do that. In my experience of recruiting for a footy club the easiest way to do it is just to get out amongst the community and make yourself known, something David August explained very well when discussing why he wants to run in the seat of Bennelong rather than for the senate. Canvassing at local markets for example. Isaac Pursehouse also seems to have a very good plan for community networking in this discussion thread. Gender diversity I suspect can be dealt with in a similar fashion, for example, are there any female tech forums that we could have a presence at? To be honest, Iā€™m not entirely aware of the make-up of the party membership, Iā€™m assuming that this is a discussion topic because it is heavily male dominated. That being the case, Iā€™d first like to hear the opinions of any female members as I suspect theyā€™ll be able to provide more of an insight than I could hope to.

Thanks very much
Josh

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We have an odd situation.

One of our potential candidates, Luke Housego (or edeity in this thread) posted the following after the pre-selection meeting. I just thought that Victorians would like to know and take it into consideration.

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Thanks Simon.

Not really odd IMO. I thought that with the reception of digging into my several thousand posts on reddit, obviously in an informal environment and intent, and obviously not statements of policy or based on fact in almost all cases, that it can be understood people say things online that they themselves do not necessarily believe in. I didnā€™t invent this, a lot of english literature is based on this concept and it is exceptionally common in the modern socially networked world.

The fact I did not try to hide or obfuscate my online presence is perhaps the only odd thing here.

The post you have linked was based on my perception of the reception of a link to my posts and views on my suitability I viewed it as unlikely to be preselected, and was sharing this view with my small group of computer gaming friends, some of who had expressed interest in committing time and effort to the campaign for me. It is justt a heads up in the form of the culture of this group of people. Language and communication norms vary across cultures, and this group has very different, distinct culture. That is what you are reading.

Hope that helps. Feel free to ask questions here or on reddit.

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Do candidates have a social media strategy?

Depends what you mean by ā€œstrategyā€.

Strategy:
Objectives -> Themes -> Outcomes Measures

Strategy Execution (what you probably mean)
Measures -> Message -> Engagement Channel -> Cross Channel Synergies -> Content

Example:

Objectives

  • Party Differentiation
  • Party Credibility
  • Candidate Trust
  • Core Platform Relevance

Themes:
The Pirate Party stands out in Australia to represent Information Rights of everyday Australians and corporations fairly.
Like all Australians the Pirate Parties candidates want a fair and just Australia - accountable transparent government and protection against improper use of private information

Measures:
Ad / Meme Views
Engagement (share, upvote, retweet, like)
PirateParty.org views
Media References

Message:
IP Law, Market faliure and Monopolies - Relevance - Game Of Thrones Downloads
Government Transparency - TPP - Impact vs. consultation of government
Relevance - Meta Data - Range of gov. departments and non government groups with access to your private data.
Credibility - Pirate Party record in protest and messaging

Channels:
Twitter (Pirate Party official twitter)
Facebook
Facebook ads - traditional advertisement
Facebook Memes - leverage a design approach to memes using memetics - funny/relevant/cool/aspiration
Youtube - Platform video (possibly use animated presentation tools like Prezi)
Youtube - Meme - funny, weird, catchy easy to share short videos
Discussion forum - engagement platform for socialising for people interested in Pirate Party core platform issues - enable them to have their own voice, not just the parties to effect viral spread. Slack is a good choiceā€¦

Focus on quality memes for viral spread over breadth of messages. A voter decision just requires them to connect deeply with one meme.

Cross Channel Synergies
Twitter / facebook - IRL - events in real life are able to be participated in by online participants
Platform ads x Memes - start to blend and lead audience to explore memes to lead interest into becoming proponents / evangelists of the party (without needing to join)

Track metrics daily, view and correct messaging (depending on production cycle / resources)

Theres some advanced techniques in use of game theory for messaging design and approaches (counter signalling strategies etc) but thats a whole academic discussion.

This is the basics.

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No, I donā€™t have a social media strategy.

I deleted my facebook account more than a year ago now and have a personal twitter account that I used once approximately two years ago to complain to Taxis Combined. I have a Linkedin account and a Reddit account and thatā€™s about it and even then I donā€™t regularly use either.

I would be relying on the party for guidance with regards to a social media strategy, or edeity as his answer above seems to be pretty much on point.

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Aside from expanding my limited existing presence to accommodate possible future interest (basically creating a dedicated candidate Facebook/Twitter account) I do not have a personal social media strategy. I do however feel that increasing our presence in these more mainstream forms of social media is critical both to raising awareness about our party and specifically recruiting voters who may otherwise not have had a serious interest in the more tech oriented nature of our policy. In particular, the expansion of our mainstream presence should give us an opportunity to reach and subsequently engage with more women voters, something David brought up earlier and that I agree may need additional focus.

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I would perhaps add to this that I suspect there is a level of hesitation for women to join any male dominated group. Men often just donā€™t realise just how dominating they are. My theory is that the way the political system is structured, it tends to attract more dominant, self-confident, macho types from all genders - in general, that is.

Of course we get involved in politics. We get involved in politics on our own terms. For this reason I would be careful using phrases like ā€˜recruiting female membersā€™. Political party systems were set up by patriarchal cultures, so it should come as no surprise that they are (still) dominated by men.
I am not at all interested in discussions about how to get more women to join. They will join us when they feel that their voices are heard, listened to and contribute to the outcome. Same with everybody else. This is why Iā€™m interested in liquid democracy projects.

It also occurred to me that women in general might have less time available to dedicate to a political party. Everything would be much much easier if societal inequalities were finally cleared up.

Cheers

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LMK, what do you think about ideas like a Code of Conduct for the party and a Diversity statement?

Havenā€™t thought about it tbh.
First thoughts are: code of conduct: whoā€™s gonna police peopleā€™s behaviour? Also Iā€™m talking about behaviour that isnā€™t necessarily BAD or sexist in and of itself, but nevertheless is part of the scheme of oppression simply because of perhaps lacking a degree of self-scrutiny&-awareness. Iā€™m not here to educate party members about how to be ā€˜better feministsā€™ or whatever. Iā€™m here to contribute to whatever Iā€™m interested in. It is up to people individually to educate themselves, perhaps outside of the party. Iā€™m sure there are plenty of resources out there.
I also want to stress that people in the party have been doing amazing work since its inception and this is not a criticism of peopleā€™s work & contributions to the party. Iā€™m merely responding to questions of inclusiveness.

Sorry if this doesnā€™t exactly address your question. (I got to bed at 6am this morning and am feeling itā€¦)

My gut feeling atm, though I could be proven wrong, is that codes of conduct and diversity statements wonā€™t make much difference on their own and could be just superficial, in the case of a statement, and prone to abuse in the case of a code of conduct, though this might be my pessimistic tiredness talking.

Thanks.

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A social media strategy is basically just using social media. All you need to do is have regular announcements/updates on whichever platforms are currently in vogue with the top 2 at the moment being facebook and twitter.
10 years ago having a website was a big deal and and is now taken for granted, today social media is a big deal and will soon be taken for granted as well.

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