PNC 08/31/2025

The August 17th, 2025 PNC Meeting was one of the weekly meetings of the Pirate National Committee (PNC). This meeting took place on IRC.

Meeting Minutes

14:20:45 — 17:59:40 JohnTheYooper and Wanda-FL have joined
17:59:52 <Wanda-FL> ahoy
18:00:46 NomadOfNorad-FLPP has joined
18:01:20 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> Ahoy.... (I am on my tablet)
18:01:30 <Wanda-FL> I thought you would'nt be able to make it
18:01:32 <Wanda-FL> ohh
18:02:04 <Wanda-FL> If you're here, would you mind being Florida's voting member today? I was a little busy and only came because I thought you wouldn't be able to 18:02:05 Citizen has joined
18:02:07 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> Yeah, forgot I could try my tablet....
18:02:24 <Citizen> ahoy
18:03:07 EliMass has joined, Wanda-FL has quit
18:03:56 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> So, I'M voting for Florida today. Whatcould possibly go wrong. :D
18:07:11 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> So, are we at the IDing step yet? Or are we waiting on more ppl to show up?
18:09:29 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> Anyway, I'm David Hall, one of the Florida PP reps.
18:10:34 <Citizen> I'm Dustin, one of Arizona's PP reps.
18:10:57 <EliMass> Eli McGee, the Massachusetts rep
18:12:41 Jester has joined
18:12:54 <Jester> Ashley Melody, Interim rep for Indiana Pirates
18:13:14 <Jester> Sorry for the delay, my Internet connection has been having issues all day
18:13:36 Cyfun has joined
18:13:51 <Cyfun> Hello there!
18:16:38 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> Do we have quorum? I don't see particularly the biggies here at the moment.
18:18:56 EliMass has left
18:18:59 <Jester> Yea, I'm kinda shocked that Mitch isn't here already, it's a little concerning
18:19:43 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> yeah
18:19:46 <Jester> Well we've got at least 4 voting members
18:20:34 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> Do we have anything on the agenda carrying over from last week?
18:21:33 <Jester> The business regarding indiana is still tabled til next jitsi meeting
18:22:29 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> So, any new business?
18:24:12 <Citizen> Rowan brought up the effectiveness and availability of IRC and potential alternative on our last Jitsi meeting
18:24:16 <Jester> I do not know off of the top of my head
18:24:24 <Jester> Citizen is right here I believe
18:25:23 <Citizen> I had to join in incognito mode on browser to attend. NomadOfNorad-FLPP did you have any issues on the tablet?
18:26:16 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> I'm perfectly fine with irc myself. It's old enough and still supported by basic stuff to still be accessible by Android tablet via the Web.
18:26:49 <Jester> Excellent
18:27:07 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> No, no troubles, simply clickied the linkie in the Discord announcement and it took me to the web interface.
18:27:25 <Jester> Oh yea that's the beauty of it
18:27:44 <Citizen> I'll have to try a mobile device myself next time. I think old credentials were cached for me or something. It said no account found.
18:27:50 <Jester> I say as I'm going to be doing a big tech upgrade in about two weeks after having my laptop break on me
18:28:26 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> I have no items to bring up. Not much activity in FLPP
18:28:43 <Jester> I'm still not seeing a quorum yet, only four state reps last I checked
18:29:18 <Cyfun> as far as alteratives to IRC/Jitsi, i did manage to get an instant of Mumble hosted on my OpenWRT router lmao. dunno if that's up to your standards.
18:30:10 <Jester> My standards are for my personal hardware
18:30:24 <Jester> Remind me what mumble is?
18:30:38 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> Oh well, tere's no great urgency on this IRC-potential-replacement matter.
18:31:15 <Jester> Yea not really
18:31:18 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> iirc, mumble is another voice-chat tech
18:31:23 <Jester> ah
18:31:36 <Jester> but you can run your own instance
18:31:38 <Cyfun> Mumble is an open-source secure voice/text chat server, popular among gamers
18:31:46 <Citizen> https://www.mumble.info/
18:31:48 <papegaai> Title: Mumble (at www.mumble.info)
18:31:58 <Jester> it may be something to look into, at least for private inter-party things
18:32:21 <Jester> Especially since discord is currently getting caught up in a spyware dragnet to my knowledge
18:32:42 <JohnTheYooper> nothing that discord hasn't been involved in for quite some time tbh
18:32:47 <Cyfun> yuuuup, anything's better than Discord. i just wish there were more available options, especially opensource
18:33:32 <JohnTheYooper> matrix is the largest immediate alternative people tend to think of, followed by revolt for a discord-like alt, signal on the more privacy end + simplex or session
18:34:08 <Jester> But having a discord makes it easier to find us, and gives us a window through which we can perform Maskirovka
18:34:17 <Cyfun> i've had Revolt installed for years, never met any communities who utilized it
18:34:24 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> There's an open-source Discord clone called Spacebar, but I don't get the impression they've gained much traction.
18:34:57 <JohnTheYooper> the best bet, which is a pita, is a bridge between the two platforms be it discord-irc or discord-matrix (but discord-matrix-irc is not a good recipe). Spacebar is behind but a nice idea
18:35:32 <Jester> I think one problem we are having is that we are supposedly the "party of the internet" that stubbornly refuses to adopt modern internet services. partially out of privacy concerns, but we also need to meet the people where they are at
18:35:53 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> Irony of ironies...
18:36:17 <Jester> It is isn't it?
18:36:18 <JohnTheYooper> modern and private tends to still have more modern tools while my impression so far has been a tech stack that has not substantially advanced since 2012
18:36:22 <Cyfun> what is everyone's opinion on Telegram? is it secure enough?
18:37:42 <Cyfun> i agree completely Jester. how can we claim to be more tech savvy than tech billionaires when we can't agree on a digital platform? cuz resorting to using the popular platforms is kinda part of the problem
18:38:29 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> Telegram is a mite clunky... also, I keep findin I've been ninja-invited to random cryptocurrency channels I didn't ask for and have to quit back out of.
18:39:25 <Citizen> I don't like Telegram because it's not fully open source. I prefer signal.
18:39:38 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> teleggram did add some Discord-esque multi-channel features, tho.
18:40:00 <Cyfun> ya Telegram isn't as good as protectig users' privacy as one would hope. plus being decentralized makes it a bitch to get support. which is why i've been leaning towards the self-hosted route.
18:40:19 <Cyfun> god i miss ICQ. and Trillian.
18:40:24 <JohnTheYooper> telegram has not been the same since its founder was arrested iirc
18:41:27 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> The Powers That Be playinghardball to get what they want.
18:42:20 <Cyfun> i wonder how Pavel Durov is doing lately. just realized he's been in jail for an entire year already
18:42:29 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> ouchies
18:43:47 <Jester> We also need to get better at general communications and taking advantage of outreach via other social media platforms
18:44:56 <Cyfun> we almost need an IT ticketing system for tracking issues and communications. you know... one that doesn't suck tho
18:45:25 MangoMan has quit
18:46:41 <Cyfun> who is in charge of outreach currently? i'd like to make a concerted effort around Idaho and Wyoming
18:48:53 <Citizen> @Cyfun An open source jira service like https://github.com/opf/openproject would be cool for tracking initiatives, projects, etc
18:48:54 <papegaai> Title: GitHub - opf/openproject: OpenProject is the leading open source project management software. (at github.com)
18:49:27 <Citizen> Lol twice now @papegaai
18:50:36 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> How close is that one to being non-sucky, tho?
18:51:49 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> Or to put it another way, does to check all the boxes for what we need or want?
18:53:22 <Cyfun> if our intent is to make an open-source government, largely for the sake of transparency and public involvement... then the right tool for the job might already exist somewhere
18:53:33 <Citizen> I haven't tried it but I think it's worth a test to evaluate. It's active on Github development.
18:54:14 <Cyfun> what software do politicans currently use for tracking interactions with constitents/lobbyists/etc?
18:54:54 <Cyfun> OpenProject might work well if we can tweak the UI so that the average luddite can still navigate it
18:55:38 <Citizen> I'd bet Salesforce just because they are the leader in CRM
18:57:08 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> I'd wager whatever official government reps are using would have military-grade-security on it.
18:58:02 <Jester> likley yea
18:58:41 <JohnTheYooper> it may be less than you'd think to be honest
19:01:01 <Cyfun> do we know anyone we could ask? liek who are the USPP's allies already in elected office?
19:03:02 <Jester> I think we could make inroads with Bernie and AOC if we haven't already on the national level. But I think we need to focus more on our local politicians. The GOP has so much power right now since they decided that controlling state level governments in the long term was most important, we must take the same strategy
19:04:34 <Cyfun> @Jester i'm of the same thought. we should rub shoulders with some of the less popular politicians that are hungry for attention, especially at state levels
19:05:08 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> Well, we've already started onto that front at least.
19:06:22 <Jester> Yea I know that some of the state parties have been doing good work on that 19:11:00 <Cyfun> i'm actually headed down to Denver soon. do we have any friends in Colorado? 19:12:30 <Citizen> I'm signing off, see folks next week. 19:12:54 <Cyfun> ciao 19:12:57 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> Yeah, been an hour and change. 19:13:05 Citizen has quit 19:13:56 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> Headed Down to Denver would be a good name for a music group. 19:14:20 <Jester> Well since it has been an hour, and we have no quorum, there is no reason for the rest of y'all to be here. Feel free to go if you like 19:15:04 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> To Denver? :D
19:15:23 <Cyfun> Southbound and Down! Two wheels a-rollin'!
19:16:28 <Jester> "Take him to Detroid!"
19:16:37 <Jester> Detroit*
19:16:55 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> Take him to Detroid woul be
19:17:05 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> a good name for a scifi movie
19:18:40 <NomadOfNorad-FLPP> assuming Detroid was the name of a droid, anyway. Gotta love typos that sound neat-o-keen.
19:23:35 — 21:09:21 JohnTheYooper, Jester, NomadOfNorad-FLPP and Cyfun have quit