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authoralex <alex@pdp7.net>2026-02-21 13:32:08 +0100
committeralex <alex@pdp7.net>2026-02-21 13:33:53 +0100
commite88606ec1901b94634747537c829333ba7002f5e (patch)
tree5d2620ccd6873c0521e03b7baa1bba856fbc1bb9 /cliffs_notes
parent8eae17f7d4ea00ddeee36fa24278915984d77d83 (diff)
Move cliff's notes to blog website
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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.
diff --git a/cliffs_notes/mythical-man-month.md b/cliffs_notes/mythical-man-month.md
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-# The mythical man-month
-
-## Chapter 1: the tar pit
-
-* "Program": complete in itself, ready to be run by the author on the system on which it was developed.
- What we initially develop and delivers some value is normally a program.
-* "Programming product": can be run by anybody, in any operating environment, for many sets of data.
- A programming product is thoroughly tested.
- A programming product is thoroughly documented.
- A programming product costs three times the cost of the program.
-* "Component in a programming system": works as a part of a larger product.
- A component in a programming system follows a well-defined interface.
- A component in a programming system is tested in integration.
- A component in a programming system costs three times the cost of a program.
-* "A programming systems product" is a programming product and a component in a programming system.
- A programming systems product costs nine times the cost of a program.
diff --git a/cliffs_notes/peopleware.md b/cliffs_notes/peopleware.md
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-# I. Managing the human resource
-
-People are different from software.
-
-## 1\. Somewhere today, a project is failing
-
-* 15% of all projects deliver nothing.\
- 25% for projects >25 work/years\
- Not for technical reasons, "politics" => sociology
-
-## 2\. Make a cheeseburger, sell a cheeseburger
-
-* Errors should be encouraged
-* A project objective is to be ended. Therefore, a project is never steady. Therefore, a project is always changing and there is no steady state
-* Need to think more about "why" this task needs to be done rather than how the task must be done
-
-## 3\. Vienna waits for you
-
-* Spanish Theory Management: increase productivity by extracting more work for the $
-* Mechanizing development, lowering quality, standardizing procedure reduces enjoyment of work
-
-## 4\. Quality-if time permits
-
-* Self-esteem makes people emotional
-* Self-esteem is tied to the quality of our work
-* Deadlines conflict with quality
-* Manager: Market wants time-to-market over quality
-* Builders: want to match their past best achieved quality, more than what the market wants
-* But quality is a means to productivity
-
-## 5\. Parkinson's law revisited
-
-* "Work expands to fill the time allocated for it"
-* Parkinson was a humorist
-* Motivated people do not want to work forever in the same task
-* The team can motivate people better than the manager
-* Productivity by task estimator. No estimate > Systems analyst (unbiased expert) > Programmer > Programmer + supervisor > Supervisor
-* Bureaucratic work does expand
-
-## 6\. Laetrile
-
-* People are desperate to increase productivity, fall to the seven sirens, seven false hopes of software management
- * Missed something obvious: no
- * Others are succeeding, you are getting outdated, not using the right programming language, need more automation: technical gains affect just a small part of the total effort
- * Need to get to the bottom of the backlog: bottom of the backlog is worthless
- * Workers need more pressure
-
-# II. The office environment
-
-It's hard to increase productivity, but easy to decrease it
-
-## 7\. The Furniture Police
-
-* Optimizing for cost, and uniformity is not productive
-
-## 8\. You never get anything done around here between 9 and 5
-
-* Top performers work in quieter, more private, with less interruption, bigger spaces
-
-## 9\. Saving money on space
-
-* Cost of workplace is a small past of cost of worker
-
-## Intermezzo. Productivity measurement and unidentified flying objects
-
-* Gilb's Law: Anything you need to quantify can be measured in some way that is superior to not measuring it at all
-* Individual productivity should only be measured by the invidivual
-
-## 10\. Brain time versus body time
-
-* Interruptions are expensive
-
-## 11\. The telephone
-
-* Ensure people attend their email with reasonable frequency (3/day) to allow prioritizing non-interrupting communication
-
-## 12\. Bring back the door
-
-* People work better in quiet environments
-
-## 13\. Taking umbrella steps
-
-* Developers should design the working environment
-* Windows
-* Provide outdoor space, public space
-
-# III. The right people
-
-* Get the right people, make them happy, let them work
-
-## 14\. The Hornblower factor
-
-* Difficult to improve people, choose well
-* Appearances << capabilities
-* Do not hire for uniformity in the company
-* No dress codes
-
-## 15\. Hiring a juggler
-
-* Interviews are about performing, not talking
-* Portfolios
-* Aptitude tests are not for hiring, they are for self-assessment
-* Audition on topic related to work selected by the candidate
-
-## 16\. Happy to be here
-
-* Turnover is expensive and leads to short term planning
- * Needs quick promotions, leads to inexperienced people doing the building
-* Company moves are the worst
-* Good companies *retrain*
-
-## 17\. The self-healing system
-
-* Humans can improvise, automated process cannot
-* Big M Methodologies automate
- * No improvisation, so must grow to cover all cases
- * Lots of documents
-* Big M Methodologies take responsibilities away from people into the Methodology
-* Big M Methodologies lead to malicious compliance- follow the Methodology even if it has bad outcomes
-* Convergence of methods is good, easier to onboard, etc.
-* Achieve convergence of methods by training, tooling and peer review, without forcing a Methodology
-* Hawthorne Effect: people perform better when trying new approaches
-* Do new things on every project to benefit from the Hawthorne Effect
-* But have a 10-page max. standard
-
-# IV. Growing productive teams
-
-* Teams working as one on a challenge are the objective. Help the team form
-
-## 18\. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts
-
-* Jell: a jelled team is more than the sum of its members. Jelled teams enjoy the work
-* Jelled teams have a common objective, low turnover, strong sense of identity, feel elite, join ownership of product, enjoyment
-
-## 19\. The black team
-
-* The black team tested other teams code.
-* The black team outlived the original members
-* Identity: dressed in black, some evil mustaches, mystique
-
-## 20\. Teamicide
-
-* You can't make a team jell, but you can prevent it from jellying
- * Defensive management: preventing people from making mistakes. If the team cannot do the job, they cannot do the job.
- * Bureaucracy
- * Physical separation
- * Fragmentation of people's time: the team must be together most of the time
- * Quality reduction of the product: quality jells a team
- * Phony deadlines
- * Clique control (preventing the team for working together in further projects)
-
-## 21\. A spaghetti dinner
-
-* Small successes lead to bigger successes
-* Perform small projects, demos, etc.
-
-## 22\. Open kimono
-
-* Trust the team
-* Get them out of the office
-* Let skunkworks projects happen
-* Let people choose their peers and project
-* Natural authority by being competent
-
-## 23\. Chemistry for team formation
-
-* Some organizations have environments that favor team formation
-* Managers do not seem busy nor manage a lot, they maintain the chemistry
-* Chemistry building
- * Cult of quality
- * I told her I loved her when I married her. Provide closure to each task. Small tasks for frequent closure
- * The Elite Team. Allow and grant uniqueness.
- * On not breaking up the yankees.
- * A network model of team behavior. Managers are not part of the team. Occasional leaders inside the team
- * Selections from a Chinese menu. Do not have a uniform team
-
-# V. It's supposed to be fun to work here
-
-## 24\. Chaos and order
-
-* Constructive reintroduction of small amounts of disorder
- * Pilot projects. All projects as pilots, but limit experimentation
- * War games
- * Brainstorming
- * Provocative training experiences
- * Training, trips, conferences, celebrations, and retreats.
-
-## 25\. Free electrons
-
-* Some people should be left to work at what they want
-
-## 26\. Holgar Dansk
-
-* A "sleeping giant" can oppose any bad change
-
-# VI. Son of Peopleware
-
-## 27\. Teamicide revisited
-
-* Those damn posters. Motivational posters tell obvious things people already know. It is demeaning
-* Overtime: An unanticipated side effect. If someone is exent of overtime, it is even more damaging
-
-## 28\. Competition
-
-* Internal competition inhibits jell
- * Prevents internal coaching
- * Can come from:
- * Annual salary or merit reviews
- * Management by objectives
- * Praise of certain workers for extraordinary accomplishment
- * Awards, prizes, bonuses tied to performance
- * Performance measurement in almost any form
-* Musical ensembles are better metaphors of good development teams than sport teams. Individual sport teams members can have differing valoration from the rest of the team
-
-## 29\. Process improvement programs
-
-* Standardized interfaces are good, standardized processes are not
-* Goal is a good product, not building it efficiently
-* Good products are risky projects, process improvement avoids risky projects
-* Better teams do more complex projects, more risk
-
-## 30\. Making change possible
-
-* People fear change
-* Degrees of fear to change
- * Blindly loyal (ask no questions)
- * Believers but questioners
- * Skeptics (show me)
- * Passive observers (what's in it for me?)
- * Opposed (fear of change)
- * Opposed (fear of loss of power)
- * Militantly opposed (will undermine and destroy)
-
- Blindly loyal can abandon a change for a newer one. Only Believers but questioners can be allies to a change. Work with them to make change successful
-* Celebrate the old system
-* Phases of change
- * Introduce foreign element/catalyst
- * Chaos
- * Transforming idea (finding the "correct training"/correct way to adopt change)
- * Practice & Integration
- * New status quo
-* People need to feel safe for change, there should be room for some failure
-
-## 31\. Human capital
-
-* Money spent of people is only lost if they leave
-* Replacing someone is expensive
-
-## 32\. Organizational learning
-
-* Organizations can only learn if people stay for a long time
-* Organizations learn when middle management works together without competition and without reporting to upper management
-
-## 33\. The ultimate management sin is...
-
-* Wasting people's time
- * Being late for meetings, blocking meetings, inviting people who don't need to be there
- * Status reporting meetings
- * Early overstaffing (and leads to fragmenting time of people)
-
-## 34\. The making of community
-
-* Aristotelian politics is building communities, extending ethics to a group
-* Creatin \ No newline at end of file