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-https://luminosoa.org/site/books/m/10.1525/luminos.181/
-
-# Introduction: democracy in the wild
-
-* Online communities are different to in-person communities.
-* Online politics in the small reflect in the large.
-* Online communities must explicitly be democratic, self-governance instead of top-down authority => governable spaces.
-* Democratic erosion in the world is influenced by online communities.
-* Users of online communities perceive arbitrary rule enforcement, unaccountability.
-* Online movements have not resulted in lasting gains.
-* The design of online spaces has atrophied everyday democracy skills.
-* Garden club from 1960 with eight pages of bylaws => more successful than most only communities that will not live as long.
-* Fervent US enthusiasm for forming associations observed by Alexis de Tocqueville in 19th century US.
-* Tocqueville: democracy requires education, democracy in education requires political engagement.
-* Tocqueville: associations can serve the social order.
-* Will bad players behave better if they care about mini-democracies?
-* Online spaces are different, more churn, faster, distributed, diverse.
-* Participating in online spaces correlate to political participation.
-* Author unclear about his disagreement with Tocqueville's conclusions, author is more optimistic.
-* Democratic self-governance is harder in online spaces, but possible.
-* Design to achieve self-governance, refuse corporate control.
-* Technical solutions are not sufficient.
-* People do not believe their governments are democratic.
-* People are more willing to change due to technological progress.
-* Governments use technology as an "unavoidable excuse", but it doesn't have to be this way.
-* Introduction of citizen voice happens even authoritarian governments (!)
-* Crypto ledger structures have new power structures, even though it's often antidemocratic, but presents an opportunity.
-* For many, democracy is something that was created for them before they were born, or something they won't have in their lifetime.
-* Online communities are closer to most than their democracy.
-* Designing online communities offers chance to learn how to shape the larger government.
-* No single design can work for all scenarios.
-* Design should be based on accountability.
-* Democracy on a small scale gives hope that it's possible on a bigger scale.
-* From server control to community control.
-* Implicit feudalism: power derives from founders and admins.
-* "Governable stacks", "modular politics" to learn from.
-* Widespread participation => burdensome, elitist, uninformed governance? Overwhelming to participants.
-* Sometimes governable spaces should be highly participative, in others, use representation.
-* Governance designs sensitive to economy of attention.
-
-# Implicit feudalism. The origins of counter-democratic design
-
-* A popular group that called for accountability had a flagship organization with a single board member.
-* Facebook claimed having "the hacker way": open, meritocratic, but Mark Zuckerberg has majority control.
-* Founders solidify.
-* Early social platforms had technical conditions that grant administrators complete control.
-* Use of "feudalism" is not historically precise.
-* "Implicit" because it is not explicit.
-* Sometimes platforms do not even allow transfer of power.
-* Democracy can arise in feudal technologies due to pressure, this democracy can be similar to primitive democracy.
-* But democracy in technology tends to go against the design, the most natural outcome is nondemocratic.
-* Implicit feudalism is not a feature, it is merely seen as a non-intentional lack of features.
-* First step: perceive lack of democratic features.
-* "Exit" vs. "voice"; can only leave, vs. can change things.
-* Exit can have costs => captivity.
-* Refine voice into "Effective voice" vs. "affective voice" => venting vs. being able to make changes.
-* BBS: runs in the sysop house, sysop has absolute power, but also most responsibility and maintenance burden.
-* Users being able to leave makes some accountability.
-* Limitations of real world (sysop responsibility) lead to implicit feudalism.
-* Usenet was bigger scale than BBS, but ultimately "the big 8" ruled (and they named their successors). But Usenet hosted more popular communities than BBSs.
-* Usenet hierarchy is decided by the big 8.
-* Mailing lists follow similar patterns, administrators have all the power.
-* In IRC, iconic channel/network names are a big factor in popularity over performance.
-* IRC pioneered bots to execute authority.
-* BBS, Usenet, mailing lists, IRC's structure follow that of UNIX, with root, etc.
-* Linux and Wikipedia are very productive.
-* Linux has BDFL (feudalism).
-* Git seems to break feudalism with its distributed nature, but Linux uses a mailing list and the BDFL to control.
-* GitHub promotes forks, and user voice in issues, but each project has owners and collaborators.
-* Git/GitHub make "exit" easier, but not effective voice.
-* Linux added a code of conduct, GitHub encourages project to have one.
-* Debian Project Leader is elected, technical barriers of entry.
-* Debian/Apache are outliers, non-profits. (Linux is a non-profit too.)
-* Wikipedia also has self-governance, but also has BDFL.
-* Wikipedia uses MediaWiki for governance (dogfooding).
-* But most MediaWiki sites do not have self-governance.
-* After Wikipedia's BDFL overreaches, BDFL has diminished power.
-* Although software designs can have power vacuums, in the absence of technical software vacuums, "tyrany of structurelessness" often arises.
-* Anyone could participate, but not everyone has the time, knowledge, and incentives.
-* Big corporate platforms could not have the technical limitations of smaller earlier platforms.
-* US Communications Decency Act protects platforms from liability from user behavior.
-* Companies could control the platform, but let communities self-govern.
-* Facebook/Reddit are different (real names vs. pseudonyms) and in theory provide more control to users.
-* Management of communities requires a lot of effort.
-* AOL tried to reduce cost of access to voluntary moderators, but moderators realized they made benefits for AOL without sufficient compensation.
-* To offload moderation to volunteers in a cost-effective manner, they are paid with unchecked power.
-* Author thinks Slashdot moderation worked well and satisfied users, but failed in producing benefit from provocation/engagement.
-* Facebook/Reddit grant "affective voice" through karma, etc.; but not "effective voice". Exit is the most effective voice.
-* Facebook/Reddit provide moderation tools and gamify moderation (reports on groups performance to incentivize admins to maximize usage). This amplifies implicit feudalism.
-* Mark Zuckerberg has power over the Facebook group admins, and engages in democracy theater (2009 referendum on changes to terms of service, required 30% of participation, only 29% achieved, declared "advisory", did what they wanted).
-* 2015 "Reddit revolt", blackouts by making subreddits private. Reddit tightened their rules.
-* Conway law => structure of software reflects the structure of the organization.
-* Facebook/Reddit => the structure of the software shapes the structure of the organization.
-* Facebook tried to go to individuals over communities, mirroring WeChat/TikTok which have no social graphs, only driven by personal habits.
-* Because TikTok etc. do not have communities, there is less politics, but everything is still controlled by the company.
-* Implicit feudalism => control over communities, founder authority, named succession, opaque policies/decisions, supression of user voice, user exit only effective means, only platform owners resolve disputes.
-* Implicit feudalism made some sense with limited resources, but not so much with unlimited resources from large corporations.
-* Implicit feudalism is part of the business model.
-* In contrast, authocratic governments have more democratic "performances" because it resembles legitimate authority.
-* But no major online community offers possibilities of even democratic "performances".
-* Implicit feudalism is not so effective; most Reddits are small, Miecraft servers median lifetime is eight weeks.
-* Exit leads to variety, choice, innovation, but effective voice leads to comitment and stability.
-* Example of BDFL becoming inactive led to subgroups becoming more resilient.
-* Debian does not exist in isolation; sits between Linux and Ubuntu (both with BDFLs).
-* Ubuntu benefits from Debian.
-* Debian/Wikipedia combine elections with meritocratic barriers.
-* Self-governance seems to emerge more in nonprofits or cooperatives, mirroring ownership structures and technical infrastructures.
-* Usenet has some shared governance and autonomy in newsgroups.
-* Combination of different power structures helps self-governance; electoral processes + meritocratic barriers for popular but capable leaders.
-* Multiple governance mechanisms helps prevent one entity from becoming too powerful, but also allows differently-skilled users from having voice.
-* Python had PEPs, when BDFL retired they had some prior art in choosing their new governance, with elections.
-* Disassociation/cancellation => no appeals, how long does it last? Affective, not effective voice. These things come because there is no process to challenge those in power.
-* communityrule.info => online design of community rules and publication/forking. Try to make it easier to create self-governance.