Difference between revisions of "User:JohnTheYooper/Michigan"

Revision as of 23:17, 24 December 2025

Michigan architecture

The Michigan Pirate Party (name pending) seeks to have an official existence to point to at the start of 2026, even if its recognition by the PNC or any more formal organization take place later in the year.

Website

Domain: would like mi.uspirate.party (interim: tbd based on hosting; may select a standalone domain)
- holdup: IT official approval for domain usage, may select a standalone if this becomes a holdup after discussion
Host: current preference nearlyfreespeech.net from positive experience
Site: generated with jeckyll or hugo

The site would have the following features:

An FAQ, written to 'give it straight' about the pirate movement with inspiration from the national
A platform, largely driven by the national, with potential special addition of right to repair initiative
News, updates, sharing of events of Michigan note.
Contact, more in depth about as one page.
Relevant political causes to look into, links on how to engage, 'issues of highlight' aside from news entries ^.

Social Media

This is going to be tricky because the interim founder doesn't really like social media. Desirable coverage would be youtube, facebook,.... twitter.... possibly IG, mastadon, bluesky?, would like at least one decentralized option and at least one mainstream one. Promote what we want, use what works.

Communication

Leverage national architecture with #michigan on discord and a bridged michigan channel on more libre software. Founder's preference for this would be xmpp.

Emails attached to the domain of choice will exist to message the party and the party will be more than happy to signal boost reasonable comment.

Michigan volunteers

Help explicitly needed to round off membership for PNC recognition, for social media handling, and long term for officer roles including actual leadership. John is a bench warmer for these subjects.

A list of contacts will be maintained of recognized members. This may prove to be a layered party where there are people who are more into observing and don't want to share too much private information (good choice in this age), and people who do want to share more and sign up more boldly.

This is primarily being driven by John McCabe, known in national space as John the Yooper.

The fuzzy stuff

Speaking as first person here, John.

I'm not a politician, extrovert, door-to-door type, political expert, speaker, any of that.

I'm a dork who plays with computers, spends time in weird rabbit holes and just likes to fill out the corners for the cause like nibbling at long-needed updates for the wiki. So for Michigan I'm a bench warmer and a librarian. Anyone with leadership aptitude and stake in the project can have it.

Everything that exists is online and has little physical world presence. This is effectively a skeleton waiting for people with the necessary drive to take the party to the next step.

I'm not the guy who will run candidates and get people in office, nor can I manage my way out of a fishbowl let alone a campaign, so that will again require people with a lot more time, energy and relevant skills. But I'm happy to help out and share, even fill the gaps for someone who does want to go further but also needs support to get it done.

Conceptual things to work out

How to avoid shortening the MI Pirate Party so it doesn't read as my pp.

Branding. The Michigander Pirate Party, or just Michigan? Thinking a logo adapted from the pirate brand with Michigan coloring influenced by pirate purple.

Michigan principles

A John-founded Michigan Pirate Party would be bluntly honest, stick to the essentials in its technology (I personally intend to explicitly support people who browse without JS or who avoid Discord, and stuff like that), be self aware of its scale and influence, and seek that people who like the mission give it a chance anyway. Promoting not only pirate principles but also the development of third parties and more personal politics not bound by democrat-republican control. A Michigan that represents its components and not just national or majority interests, for example, the UP should be sovereign and self sufficient as far as possible. Michigan is a melting pot and deserves to be represented by its interests. Failing that it should grow in a way where Michigan, its counties, its cities and communities can have a good shot of surviving the collapse or tyranny of central authority. This, while being open to the benefits of unity and taking advantage of resources, while working to encourage the state to use its powers for the people and not for tyranny. Perhaps you could say a libertarian ideal that is more open to cooperation.

Additionally, this party would not demand absolute loyalty or people's participation in every possible angle the party supports, and be satisfied working with people and groups which generally embrace the spirit of the Pirate movement. It may have participants who overlap with less explicitly political organizations, and it may work with people who take the approach of using one of the mainstream parties to further Pirate ideals, for example a pirate-by-heart who runs in a 'big party' primary.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-For ease, this is written with the assumption that things are already made. They are not, current progress is just "I am here and here are ideas."
+==Michigan architecture==
+The Michigan Pirate Party (name pending) seeks to have an official existence to point to at the start of 2026, even if its recognition by the PNC or any more formal organization take place later in the year.
+===Website===
+* Domain: would like <code>mi.uspirate.party</code> (interim: tbd based on hosting; may select a standalone domain)
+** holdup: [[IT|IT official]] approval for domain usage, may select a standalone if this becomes a holdup after discussion
+* Host: current preference nearlyfreespeech.net from positive experience
+* Site: generated with [https://jekyllrb.com/ jeckyll] or [https://gohugo.io/ hugo]
+The site would have the following features:
+* An FAQ, written to 'give it straight' about the pirate movement with inspiration from the national
+* A platform, largely driven by the national, with potential special addition of right to repair initiative
+* News, updates, sharing of events of Michigan note.
+* Contact, more in depth about as one page.
+* Relevant political causes to look into, links on how to engage, 'issues of highlight' aside from news entries ^.
+===Social Media===
+This is going to be tricky because the interim founder doesn't really like social media. Desirable coverage would be youtube, facebook,.... twitter.... possibly IG, mastadon, bluesky?, would like at least one decentralized option and at least one mainstream one. Promote what we want, use what works.
+===Communication===
+Leverage national architecture with <code>#michigan</code> on discord and a bridged michigan channel on more libre software. Founder's preference for this would be xmpp.
+Emails attached to the domain of choice will exist to message the party and the party will be more than happy to signal boost reasonable comment.
+==Michigan volunteers==
+Help explicitly needed to round off membership for PNC recognition, for social media handling, and long term for officer roles including actual leadership. John is a bench warmer for these subjects.
+A list of contacts will be maintained of recognized members. This may prove to be a layered party where there are people who are more into observing and don't want to share too much private information (good choice in this age), and people who do want to share more and sign up more boldly.
+This is primarily being driven by John McCabe, known in national space as John the Yooper.
+==The fuzzy stuff==
+Speaking as first person here, John.
-==Problem is==
 I'm not a politician, extrovert, door-to-door type, political expert, speaker, any of that.
 I'm a dork who plays with computers, spends time in weird rabbit holes and just likes to fill out the corners for the cause like nibbling at long-needed updates for the wiki. So for Michigan I'm a bench warmer and a librarian. Anyone with leadership aptitude and stake in the project can have it.
-Everything that exists is online with no in-person representation.
+Everything that exists is online and has little physical world presence. This is effectively a skeleton waiting for people with the necessary drive to take the party to the next step.
+I'm not the guy who will run candidates and get people in office, nor can I manage my way out of a fishbowl let alone a campaign, so that will again require people with a lot more time, energy and relevant skills. But I'm happy to help out and share, even fill the gaps for someone who does want to go further but also needs support to get it done.
+===Conceptual things to work out===
+How to avoid shortening the MI Pirate Party so it doesn't read as my pp.
-==How it's set up==
+Branding. The Michigander Pirate Party, or just Michigan? Thinking a logo adapted from the pirate brand with Michigan coloring influenced by pirate purple.
-Michigan is set up as a skeleton party to be filled in by volunteers. Its priorities are,
-* promoting resources for getting people to think pirate, even if they don't identify as that or they don't want to sacrifice whatever affiliation they have
-* kind of be an opinionated angle, partisan neutral who tries to inch in on at least third party space if not the mainstream
-* Have a blog or the like committed to Michigan level affairs
-* lean on and support national infrastructure as much as possible, avoiding repetition of effort
-* Have an open model to build other states to a simple level with
-* Absolute bluntness and transparency. There will be no stupid games to pretend to be what we are not, or mislead expectations. People who want to know will have every tool they need to choose where they want to go, even if identifying as a full on political pirate is not really their cup of tea, but they still despise the broken binary of the country's politics.
-* mi.uspirate.party?
-* experiment with alternate management models
-I'm not the guy who will run candidates and get people in office, nor can I manage my way out of a fishbowl let alone a campaign, so that will again require people with a lot more time, energy and relevant skills. But I'm happy to help out and share, even fill the gaps for someone who does want to go further but also needs backup to get it done.
+=== Michigan principles===
+A John-founded Michigan Pirate Party would be bluntly honest, stick to the essentials in its technology (I personally intend to explicitly support people who browse without JS or who avoid Discord, and stuff like that), be self aware of its scale and influence, and seek that people who like the mission give it a chance anyway. Promoting not only pirate principles but also the development of third parties and more personal politics not bound by democrat-republican control. A Michigan that represents its components and not just national or majority interests, for example, the UP should be sovereign and self sufficient as far as possible. Michigan is a melting pot and deserves to be represented by its interests. Failing that it should grow in a way where Michigan, its counties, its cities and communities can have a good shot of surviving the collapse or tyranny of central authority. This, while being open to the benefits of unity and taking advantage of resources, while working to encourage the state to use its powers for the people and not for tyranny. Perhaps you could say a libertarian ideal that is more open to cooperation.
-===Structural blurbs===
+Additionally, this party would not demand absolute loyalty or people's participation in every possible angle the party supports, and be satisfied working with people and groups which generally embrace the spirit of the Pirate movement. It may have participants who overlap with less explicitly political organizations, and it may work with people who take the approach of using one of the mainstream parties to further Pirate ideals, for example a pirate-by-heart who runs in a 'big party' primary.