* 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.
projects / alex.git / commitdiff