User:Guosherry/sandbox

Potential articles I want to improve upon:
Missionary Church of Kopimism: needs to be updated, are there any more news

United States Pirate Party

Articles I want to create:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Magnus_Andersson_(Pirate_politician)&action=edit&redlink=1

Magnus Andersson: leader of Pirate Party in Sweden

edited: Pirate Party edit regarding Icelandic Pirate Party:
Currently, it is the largest political party in Iceland. In the most recent election, it won 23.9% of the vote.

= Magnus Andersson (leader of Pirate Party in Sweden) = Magnus Andersson (1974-) is the newly elected leader of the Pirate Party of Sweden from Gothenburg, Sweden. He was voted into office at the party's spring meeting on May 2, 2016 which took place online along with a vice-leader, Mattias Bjarnemalm, and a party secretary, Anton Nordenfur in the Pirate Party of Sweden's first democratic party election.

Party Beginnings
Magnus Andersson first joined the Pirate Party of Sweden in 2009 shortly after the trials against the founders of the popular torrenting website, The Pirate Bay, Neij, Sunde, and Svartholm Walg ended and the verdict was delivered.

On a recent press tour, he was asked why he initially joined the Pirate Party and he responded that he felt that the verdict against the Pirate Bay founders demonstrated the corruption of the judicial court and believed that "it was a shame to see how our entire legal system lacked insight into the basic principles of the Internet" and its culture of sharing.

In 2014 he was chosen to hold the position of the party's Activist Coordinator, a position he held until his election into the leadership role in May, 2016

Election
The Pirate Party of Sweden was founded in 2006 by Rick Fakvinge, who became the leader of the PPSE from its creation until 2011. Fakvinge then stepped down and handed the leadership position to his vice leader at the time, Anna Troberg, who remained the leader of the Pirate Party of Sweden until 2014. Because of the structure of the Pirate Party, the board was able to choose the next leader out of their own accord, however, they chose to take time to extend the process in order to increase the democratic nature of the party so that Pirate members could elect their own leader.

Without a leader, most of the activities of the board focused on improving internal structures and streamlining operational processes.

On May 2, 2016, the Pirate Party held its election using a digital meeting platform where all members of the Pirate Party of Sweden had the right to vote in order to demonstrate its commitment to a transparent government.

Leading by a wide margin, Magnus Andersson was selected. A statement was posted onto his blog moinois.com:"'Alright friends and beloved ones, if you haven’t seen it or understand what is happening at the moment:""A few hours ago I was elected leader of the Swedish Pirate Party!""It’s a fantastic show of faith from my fellow party members to give me this mandate and I will most definitely do my very, very best to live up to their expectations as well as my own.""The future is coming, and it brings so much fun and excitement that I can hardly wait!'"

Goals for the Party
In an open letter to the party members, Magnus Andersson has expressed a desire to improve upon the building of the Pirate Party's policies, stating that "time is with us, for our policies are becoming more relevant every passing day...we need to be even more active in highlighting the positive aspects of the network". He also aims to continue with the Pirate Party's goals on combatting internet privacy violations and surveillance as well as to educate people on why the freedom of the Internet is worth preserving.

Political Tour
Beginning on May 20, 2016, the newly elected officials, Magnus Andersson, along with deputy leader Mattias Bjarnemalm and party secretary Anton Nordenfur embarked on a political tour with the goal of visiting as many Swedish cities as possible including:
 * Stockholm (May 20-21)
 * Lund (June 10-11)
 * Gothenburg (June 18)
 * Visby (July 2-10)
 * Orebro (August 20)
 * Norrkoping (September 10)
 * Linkoping (September 11)
 * Stockholm (December 2-3)

Party Accomplishments
will add to this as per witherwingsblog user suggestions :)
 * What he has done/accomplished in the party
 * Update: Can't find anything online

= US Pirate Party =

Ideology
Factions within the Pirate Party include left-libertarians, classical liberals, anarchists, progressives, and radical centrists. Many Pirates explicitly decline to identify with any particular political ideology or philosophy. They are driven to "do what works" rather than being driven by a particular ideologist.

The Pirate Party's platform originally centered on issues of copyright. "Like its international counterparts, the USPP’s main practical concerns are digital intellectual property [sic!] and privacy laws—specifically, the abolition of a 1998 digital U.S. copyright law, the reduction of copyrights to 14 years (from 95 years after publication, or 70 years after the author’s death), and the expiration of patents that don’t result in significant progress within four years (as opposed to 20 years)."

In 2012, the party began an expansion of its platform, inspired by the Pirate Wheel. The party emphasizes the cultural values of the hacker ethic, open source and free culture, strong protection of individual civil liberties, government transparency and participatory governance, and evidence-based policy. They solidified these tenets by publishing a series of essays in January 2012 where they wrote their requests using quotations from historical figures, including Benjamin Franklin (“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain al little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety”), Mark Twain (“Only one thing is impossible for God: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet”), Albert Camus (“The only way to deal with an un-free world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion”) and Thomas Jefferson (“Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.”) in order to highlight the timelessness, urgency, and consensual agreement on their positions on free culture.

Values
As of 2013, the national Pirate Party has not adopted an agenda beyond a set of 8 core values. Individual state parties are given free rein to interpret these values and experiment with more concrete platforms. Its eight ideologies are as follows:
 * 1) "We stand for open culture. No one should have the power to prevent the free exchange and expression of ideas, tools, or works.
 * 2) We stand for transparency and openness. Government activities should not be hidden from the public.
 * 3) We stand for individual privacy. The amount of oppression in a society is inversely proportional to its privacy protections. Individuals must be free to make personal decisions that do not harm another person.
 * 4) We are anti-monopoly. No monopoly should be able to prevent works, tools, or ideas from: being freely used, expressed, exchanged, recombined, or taught; nor to violate individual privacy or human rights. A creator’s right to be compensated for their work or idea is only acceptable within these limitations.
 * 5) We stand for individuals over institutions. Universal human rights apply only to human beings, and not to corporations, limited liability organizations, or other group entities.
 * 6) We are a post-ideological values-based meritocracy. We place all options on the table. We choose a specific approach because the available evidence shows that it is the best way to promote our values. We do not make decisions based merely on tradition, popularity, authority or political expediency.
 * 7) We are egalitarian. We believe in equality and a level playing field. We accept input from all sources, and we value all people equally.
 * 8) We actively practice these values. We hold ourselves accountable for our own adherence to these principles."

Social Media Presence
The United States Pirate Party is active on their Facebook page which, as of October 21, 2016, has 4,203 members. They make posts around once a week about various issues, never aligning towards one political party.

They have called upon their members to support Bernie Sanders as well as other third party candidates in the recent United States 2018 Election as well as calling upon Massachusetts Pirates to support Aaron James, their candidate for the State Representative.

Oftentimes, they link articles about current events and policies, especially those to do with the legalization of Marijuana, improving access to unbiased news sources , and open source access.

= Kopimism stuff = The Missionary Church of Kopimism (in Swedish Missionerande Kopimistsamfundet), is a congregation of file sharers who believe that copying information is a sacred virtue and was founded by a 19 year old philosophy student named Isak Gerson (added this line)

As well, multiple nations have accepted the Missionary Church of Kopimism as a legitimate religion; the state of Illinois in the United States has specifically registered Kopimism as a non profit 503(c) organization in the form of a church.

Gerson has denied any connection between the Church and filesharing site The Pirate Bay. (added this line)

Under Tenets, added:
In fact, the act of withholding and economizing information through copyright is against the sacredness of information.

The community also hold a religious service known as "kopyacting" in which information is distributed to the believers using photocopiers.

Controversies
Both founders, Gerson and Nipe have had an extensive background in online activism and served as major players in the Swedish Anti-Piracy Movement which caused many journalists and government officials in Sweden to speculate on the real goals of the creation of this organization.

There was severe backlash amongst the media and Christian journals in 2011 after the founders first submitted their application for registering as a religion as journalists condemned the Missionary Church of Kopimism as "a political adventure", "a PR stunt" , and "a devaluation of religion".

International Locations
Multiple Nations have accepted the Missionary Church of Kopimism as a legitimate religion including :
 * Canada
 * Japan
 * Israel
 * United States of America
 * In the state of Illinois, Kopimism has registered as a non profit 503(c) organization as a church.

Name
The name Kopimism, derives from the words copy and me which are the fundamental roots of the Church's beliefs and calls for an invitation to copy information. The work "Kopimi" first showed up on a pirate Agency Forum. Isak Gerson, one of the core founders saw something beautiful and theological in this concept of "copy me" and argued that the digital sharing of data is a fundamental act in our universe through the reproduction and copying of cells, DNA, and genes and that the entirety of the internet is essentially for sharing.

The Missionary Church of Kopimism (in Swedish Missionerande Kopimistsamfundet), is a congregation of file sharers who believe that copying information is a sacred virtue and was founded by Isak Gerson and Gustav Nipe in Uppsala, Sweden in the autumn of 2010. The Church, based in Sweden, has been officially recognized by the Swedish Legal, Financial and Administrative Services Agency as a religious community, after three application attempts.

Gerson has been credited with once saying, "The only thing we can do as Christians now, I suppose, is to do what Jesus tried doing – and do it better."