Admin Bastian: /Minutes/

2026-04-15T08:24:09Z

Minutes

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::'''Agenda PPI BOARD MEETING'''
::'''--- 14.04.2026 17:00 UTC/19:00 CEST ---'''

:: Audio recording: https://owncloud.ag-technik.de/s/PKcZjt7nQKqXtL2
:: Video: https://jitsi.pirati.cz/PPI-Board
:: Pad: https://etherpad.pp-international.net/p/april-14-2026-board-meeting-1zm4051

== Record of the meeting ==
== 1 - ATTENDEES ==
=== 1.1 - Members of the PPI board ===
: Chairperson - Keith L. Goldstein / PP-IL
: Vice-Chairperson - Gregory Engels / PP-DE
: Board Member - Bailey Lamon / PP-CA
: General Secretary - Alexander Isavnin / PP-RU
: Treasurer- Sebastian Krone / PP-DE
: Board Member - Maycow Toledo / PP-BR
: Board Member - Mark Anthony / PP-NL
: Board Member - Carlos Polo / PP-CH
: Board Member - Grigorij Dizer / PP-RU

*participating: Bailey, Bastian, Keith, Alex, Gregory, Grigorij
:excused:
:unexcused:

* Alternate Board Members:
: Alternate Board member - Babak Tubis / PP-DE
: Alternate Board member - Schoresch Davoodi / PP-DE
: Alternate Board member - Lilia Kayra Kuyumcu / PP-DE
: Alternate Board member - Numero6 / PP-DE
: Alternate Board member - Bart Overkamp / PP-NL
: Alternate Board member - Thomas Gaul / PP-DE

* participating: Bart, Numero6, Babak (late), Schoresch (late)
: excused: Thomas
: unexcused: Lilia

: Quorum established with out of 9 board members present.

=== 1.2 - Others ===
:Guests: Kay, Pirates on Air, Mab

== 2 - PROCEEDINGS ==
:RoP: https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=PPI_Board/Rules_of_Procedure

:Meeting opened at 17:05: UTC by Keith as non-official
:Meeting chaired by Keith
:Secretary for this meeting is all with help from everyone

:Streaming started: ? https://piratesonair.net/live-stream/
:Recording started: 17:04 UTC
:Postal votes: none
:Votes delegated (§5 Votes (5. 3.) ROP):
:Notes on meeting process: ?

== 3 - APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES ==
{{motion|title=Do we approve the minutes?
: https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=PPI_Minutes_2026-03-24
|Yes= Bailey, Gregory, Bart, Keith
|No=
|Abstain= Bastian
|close= Minutes are approved.
|}}

== 4 - REPORTS ==
=== 4.1 - Short reports of the board members ===

====Board====

* Keith Goldstein: I met with PPCZ to discuss their concerns with PPI and ways for us to expand and improve the NGO. It was a very productive meeting, and I think they are committed to helping PPI. We discussed the current imbalance in membership fees that violate our statutes, the large proportion of fees that are spent on tech, and the need to have an extraordinary GA this summer to enable PPI to push forward statute changes. I also told them as I have told many of you that I do not intend to pursue the chairperson role when my term ends in January. I of course will continue to work hard towards improving our NGO. I have also spoken with numerous Pirate parties who are not members about joining PPI, and I think we should be open to necessary reforms and optimistic that we can improve and grow. I invited members from PPCZ and other Pirates to attend our board meeting to give them an opportunity to share their ideas about the future of PPI. Aside from this, I posted three blogs on our website about UN activities, 1 blog for April Fool´s day, and 1 blog about the Think Twice conference. All of the blogs I communicated about before and after with our Wire Blogs Discussion group. I have also attempted to collaborate with our Discord community, but we could use help reaching out with the general public there or on Telegram to collaborate on writing statements. I also updated the TT5 form, collaborated with PPEU and others on that conference, and so on.

* Gregory Engels: Notthinig to report. Unofficial board meeting last time.

* Bailey Lamon: Nothing to report

* Alexander Isavnin: Preparing for IGF,

* Sebastian Krone:
: I monitored PPI technology as I do every day.
: All patches are up to date. All systems are running smoothly.

: Due to serious, unfounded allegations regarding the billing of server costs and the resulting breach of trust, Denk Selbst e.V. has terminated the technical services contract effective June 30, 2026. We have provided flawless, trouble-free service here for nine years, yet no one has ever acknowledged this.
:The emails I have recently received from members of the board are very hurtful and disrespectful.:
Here, my integrity and loyalty – and those of my team – are being called into question for no good reason – and this is now the third time.

: Furthermore, I have taken note of the claim that the technical costs are too high. That is a bad joke, considering the services and servers we provide here. The billed costs for the servers are expenses only and have an amount to only about 100 EUR per month.

: Additionally, we pay 12,000.00 EUR in technical costs ourselves every year, as well as additional expenses.

: A new group must now take over everything and operate it in a way that ensures reliability and compliance with legal regulations. Our support ends on June 30, 2026, midnight.

* Maycow Toledo:
: not present

* Carlos Polo
: not present

* Grigorii Dizer:
: He spoke briefly but audio problems.

====Alternates:====
* Babak Tubis
: nothing to report

* Schoresch Davoodi
: not present

* Thomas Gaul
: nothing to report

* Numero6
: nothing to report

* Bart Overkamp: No report

* Kayra Kuyumcu
: not present

====Guests====

:Raman:
: Issues discuss future of PPCZ in PPI. Particularly problematic is that they are restructuring financially because their budget shrank. This means that the leadership is paying close attention to membership fees. I have taken over the role of Michal Gill. I am responsible for maintaining relations with PPEU and PPI. They asked me whether the membership fees make sense and what the future is in these organizations. Some are skeptical about how important these organizations are important. I have convinced our leader and party that it makes sense to be within PPEU and PPI. PPEU restructured its membership plan recently. We are paying 250 euros currently there, with 1 vote of 50 euros, we get 5 votes. In PPI we are paying mostly the budget with the German party, and I think that our membership fee was 1000 euros which is 4 times what we give to PPEU. I convinced them that this is meaningful. We have 10000 euros for all memberships, but our current membership fees go mostly to server costs. I do think that the amount that we are paying for servers is a bit problematic and unfounded. It is just disproportionate, and we think that more parties should pay and give proportional membership. The statutes say that no party should pay more than 20%. We discussed with Keith and Zdenek on how to resolve this. Mab is also here, which is good to discuss these fees. We want to see if PPI can use the same servers that PPEU is using, this way we could reduce server costs and membership fees. We are discussing statute changes and structural changes that we can discuss at the next GA. We would like to restructure the memberhip tiers, but we can discuss mutliple proposals. Everyone is welcome to present alternative ideas. I think there should be 3 tiers, emerging, established, mature. The pirate party of czech does not have a problem with having the tiers associated with electoral success. We also realize that parties cannot contribute as much, but everyone should contribute something. For the Czech party it is a bit disproportional, as we give the majority and every party having one vote. I do not think the vote is the deal breaker, having 1 vote for each party, but the membership fees is a problem. But in governments and political systems the stronger party gets more votes. I am not saying that we shoud have such an outsized vote that it becomes a dictatorship. I always try to make sure that we do not use our votes to create a unfair regime. just because we have more votes does not mean we are trying to override others votes. it is not about trying to put as many members from ppcz on the board. in previous elections, i have tried to put people who had more knowledge and info. i do think pirate parties should be proportionally represented. i think in the future this should be restructuring the membership fees, moving server costs to a joint venture with ppeu to keep it affordable for all members involved. we do not require so much more capacity. i think mab discussed that this is a possibility. i think there should be a change on the voting system, on how it should be. we are still discussing how it should be. weighted voting model. we will think of a multiplier that would reflect each party. it could be about how old they are, whether they run in elections, how many votes they get.. i just wanted to present the idea to the board and we can brainstorm how to implement this and provide different ideas. and we can present differ.

:Bastian: Of course you can provide services. PPI is an umbrella organizaiton and not a political party. The members do the presenting. We had a combination with the PPEU> The member lists. We have a problem with GDPR. WE have to separate a lot of things. It makes a lot of work to separate things. Do what you want and as soon as possible, bevcause at the end of June the system that we have now. We provide the services and nobody asked who is paying. And i think that 100 euros is not much. And you are right, not everyone is paying their fees. It is a duty and not a question. We had a lot of money if the members paid their fees. I do not know why they do not pay their fees. I think if 185 euros it is not much because you have so much income. It is nothing. In total we have enough money to provide platforms, maybe provide events... and so on. You do not do political discussions here, which is my point of view. If you want to destroy that position that we have. We have no common platform for the pirate movement in the world. If you have statute change.. we are doing statute change since 2010. but keep in mind we are not too expensive.

:Raman: We actually paid 1000 euros, and we also paid retroactively. It is not my place to state what is too much. Financial decisions have to be defended. WE do have budgetary responsibilites like any government, and we will have to defend. I am not saying to defend all of the tech. Maybe we could move to GOogle WOrkspace for the emails. I do realize that you have the same system since 2010, and i can say that it is not working for the Czech pirates. maintaining the status quo is never the best arguemnt for a political party. we are about reform and creating policies. maintaining a status quo is not the best way to move forward. we want to save

:Babak: Question about whether we are proposing to change our infrastructure and give it to a big company like alphabet or meta. This is what I understood that you said. Pirate parties are parties and not companies. We are a grassroots movement that came together for privacy, and giving our data to a big company is not what i would like.

:Raman: Everyone should present their own ideas. We do have GDPR and other legislation trying to curtail these big companies. If you look at the GDPR regulation, it does have privacy but there was a US resolution that fell apart. The EU does not have a privacy issue with most countries right now. I do not think that using Google Workspace we are not selling our data abroad.

:Babak: If the USA tells any company, then the USA has to give the info to that company. Microsoft just made that clear.

:Alex: I want to talk about self controlled services from another angle. Putting our emails and files into Google is not a good Pirate idea. For private stuff I use it, and it is suitable because I do not care that GOogle will spy on our activities in Russia. But having self hosted, it has to be done by Pirates, that is our main idea. I think we should review how we self host and European regulation. But these suggestions need to be worked a bit more. We could review our services about how they are hosted. I think we need a motion for neeed and start of the review and make this happen. When 2022 came, when Russia could not pay for foreign services, we needed to move the services within Russia. We reviewed the services and cut really unnesessary. Here at PPI we could have a regular review, once in 5 years, but suggestions need to be worked out. I do not think 200 euros a month for self hosted services is that much but, again we need to review and optimize, but i do not think cost optimization is that significant. We should optimize for security and reliability.
I missed the beginning of the speech , but I do not recommend changing voting towards voting power, as consecuencies needs to be better understood. The nearest example is elections in Hungary. Orban made adjustments to the legislation to keep them in power, but it beat slight changes in opinions in voters. Orban's party lost a lot of position in parliament in slight changes of preferencies.

:Bailey: I think it is clear that Raman is here to share ideas, and this is what we are here. THe board cannot decide on this anyway, which means that we need to have a GA. So I think we need to have a GA, so we can keep having these discussions. I want to remind everyone of that. This is not something that we are going to decide today anyway. It is good to make changes. Upholding the status quo is not ideal. I think it is good to review stuff and check in with things and how is it working. We believe in growth and change and evolution for the good.

:Gregory: The GA makes changes on statute amendments and budget, then affiliation fees and how it is calculated needs a 2 / 3 majority. I get Raman's statement , and there should not be parties that are not paying anything. I think it is hard to change because we need this majority. Every attempt to get them to commit, means someone needs to pay it out of their private pocket because the party cannot make the statement. I am happy to see the proposal moving forward. Maybe we can think of non-monetary contribution, like server hosting. Considering the proposal of sharing IT infrastructure with PPEU. We have had a history of hosting services for PPEU, as we predate PPEU. We have had common services, and they have been detangled. Since we turned off the mailing lists, we have no connection with PPEU. Putting them back together I would like to see them resulting in lesser IT costs, but I doubt that will happen. Intermingling with another organization could be problematic. We are an NGO operating on the international level and not on the European one. This is a critique that we tend to be eurocenteric and I fail to see how this would counter our argument. I would like to see the proposal where nascent and other parties make a

:Bart: I get the due diligence, to evaluate, support and be able to justify costs from Raman, and to examine these issues. I get there is also the desire for self hosting issue. I support Bailey in that you came to the meeting and try to come with ideas.

:Raman: In response to the membership costs. We discussed that parties could contribute non/financially by providing services or volunteering. In PPEU if a party does not pay membership fees, then it cannot vote. If there are no sanctions, then no one is going to do it. In the real world as well, this needs accountability. This makes sense, but of course this is a longer discussion. I did not come through with PPCZ's agenda. In the next few weeks, we hope to present a more detailed document. We will share it with you and we hope that other members from the board will share their ideas about privacy and what they propose, I am all in favor of it. We can create multiple proposals and let the GA decide.

:Gregory: PPI has a statute saying parties must pay to vote. I think in PPI and PPEU there are the same provisions, but maybe someone would like t

== 5.1 - Proposals ==
*Summer GA
: Keith: should we vote for Summer GA?
: Alex: Any objections? Otherwise we could declare consensus.
: Keith: Ok, let's have GA online and let's work out GA date suggestions till next boart meeting.

* Request from PPDE to make statement condemning PPGR and USPP statements on Israel.
: Babak: some greeks says, that we are for genocide. In Germany it should be brought to trial. We need to make a statement on such kind of attacks and lies,
: Keith: Is there an exact motion? Or will you present it later?
: Babak: i will work on it till next meeting
: Bailey: Is your proposal on condemning PPGR and USPP's statements on Israel or on condemning what those parties have said about PPDE?
: Bastian: we are platform and not a party, we could condemn anything. But we could not make resolutions without our GA. We are NGO, but if our member misbihave only then we could make a decisions.

* Remove copyright statement and WP theme recognition from our website.
: Bastian: ???
: Gregory: regarding https://pp-international.net/contact/#Copyright there was a discussion years ago, it was decided to have CC-BY licence. We could update 3.0 to newer one. But we are supporting open licences.
: Keith: there is another statement https://pp-international.net/contact/terms-of-service-and-privacy-policy/ and it looks like copypaste
: PPEU: we have kind of such statement, but it is much shorter. https://europeanpirates.eu/provider/
: Gregory: this copyright section of TOS basically says "respect our copyright, respect the CC-BY", we surely can change this wording, but i'm sure noone read such bullshit anyway. We are not supporting copyright, but we are supporting Creative Commons

*Tech Issue Resolutions
: Redmine and Nextcloud seem to be lacking use in recent years.
: Emails are blacklisted by many servers and thus arrive in spam. This seems to be the result of use of the word pirate in the email and not a problem with the email system that was improved a few years ago.

*Committee for member and non-member outreach

== 5.2 - Working Groups Update ==
* Broadcast call for speakers for TT5.
: We revised the amount of time available for speakers to recommended 30 minute talks with opportunities for more or less time, due to requests.
: Mab: dates are 16-17 of October, cal for speakers: https://europeanpirates.eu/think-twice-call-for-speakers/
: https://lime.ppi.rocks/index.php?r=survey/index&sid=264919&lang=en

:Mab: I am very excited to see this conference continue and see European pirates promote this.

== 5.3 Economic Update ==
*Membership fees

*Tech payments

* Bank accounts
: 1,532.43 CHF
: 90.63 EUR
* Paypal
: 535.72 EUR

== 5.4 ECOSOC/UN ==
*IGF: Alex will discuss a potential proposal, but the event is not yet announced. Monitor your local IGFs. There will be an event in Straousburg in June. The global IGF I will

== 5.5 PPI HQ update ==
* The office is set up and running.
: https://ppi.works/
: As you know, we have taken over the “Glaesernes Mobil” from PPDE to make it available to the Pirate movement.
: Perhaps you have a few suggestions for the new design in purple and orange.
: https://ppi.works/en/the-glass-mobile/

== 5.6 Blog Updates ==
:https://pp-international.net/2026/04/ppiatunreview/
:https://pp-international.net/2026/04/tt5/
:https://pp-international.net/2026/03/aprilfoolsornot/
:https://pp-international.net/2026/03/cndvienna/
:https://pp-international.net/2026/03/ppi-at-unog-on-the-global-inequality-emergency/

:There was no blog updating about the next board meeting.

==6 AOB - Any other business==
* Board members in our website were not updated and dates were wrong. This has been updated.
*: Board Member -Thomas Gaul / PP-DE (2024-2026) /
*: Alternate Board member - Stefan Dekkers, PP-NL (2025-2027)

: These entries were listed and do not match our GA minutes or the length of terms.
: Grigorij Dizer was added along with the new alternate board members.
: I was not able to add all of the new email addresses. Can someone double check the emails and adjust that.
: The old boards Wiki should also be updated. https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=PPI_Board/Old

* We should update the wikipedia member list, because a Greek member has criticized that there is a false claim. I can

* Website overlaps on a mobile device and could be improved.

* Add TT5 to https://pp-international.net/events/think-twice-conferences/
: https://tt26.thinktwice.today/

: Kay: i doubt that we could guarantee IT security. We need to have redundant options. Some parts (like website) could be moved to Google for reliability. Also, mails are not that valuable to not keep on Google
: Bastian: we are not idiots, we have everything double-double-double backed up. And in case i went insane it could be instantly restored.

:===================================================
: Tuesdays every 3 Weeks, 17:00 UTC
* Next Board Meeting: 05.05.2026, 17:00 UTC / 19:00 MESZ/CEST

* Meeting Closed: 18:20 UTC by Keith

<noinclude> [[Category:PPI:Agenda]] </noinclude>

PPI Minutes 2026-04-14 - Revision history

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