From e88606ec1901b94634747537c829333ba7002f5e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: alex Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2026 13:32:08 +0100 Subject: Move cliff's notes to blog website --- cliffs_notes/governable-spaces.md | 113 -------------------------------------- 1 file changed, 113 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 cliffs_notes/governable-spaces.md (limited to 'cliffs_notes/governable-spaces.md') diff --git a/cliffs_notes/governable-spaces.md b/cliffs_notes/governable-spaces.md deleted file mode 100644 index 0669148c..00000000 --- a/cliffs_notes/governable-spaces.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,113 +0,0 @@ -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. -- cgit v1.2.3