Caltrops - Links 2003





	[quote name="E. L. Koba"]The irony is that for all his talk about learning from other peoples past mistakes, he misses the fact that this debate has been going on for pretty much all of human history. Trying to find a good system to determine "who is in charge" and "what are the rules" of a group didn't start 10-20 years ago with the first BBS's. It's been going on ever since humans started organizing into groups larger then their immediate family. Should it be the man who can beat all the other villages in a wrestling match? The son of the previous king? A consortium of those that control the means of production? The wisest priests in the land? The people who own the most stock in a company? The person with enough computer skills to code and run a forum? Why not let everyone decide? But then how do you avoid the tyranny of the majority? I think all these things have already been discussed ad nauseum by people much smarter than you or I (we know they are smart, because after all, they owned many negros). They came up with the Constitution, which seems to have worked out pretty well. I've seen a few sites go through these same questions. The <a href="http://tank-net.org/">Tankers Forum</a> has changed location a couple times. The first couple admins pulled a Chet, so finally a group of the hardest-core grognards formed a group that pays for the server and shares the admin duties. They rule the place with an iron fist, but usually don't ban people just because they don't like them. They are pretty harsh about enforcing the "where you post" rules. But they've survived at least 7-8 years total now. Every site I can think of (including this one) is basicaly a dictatorship. The guy/group who owns the server can ban / delete / change anything they want with free reign. Yah occasionaly the peasantry will revolt against a really unpopular move and they change it, buy that's usually the exception. Some are benevolent dictatorships, but dictatorships nontheless. Yah, I think it would be an interesting experiment to have an web community based on an actual constitution. Why not use the U.S. Constitution as a base? The Legislative would decide and set policy. The Executive would be the coders, admins, forum moderators, editors, etc. And the Judicial would judge of course. The actuall ownership of the site would somehow(?) belong to the whole group, so no one person could ruin it all by taking their ball and going home. The one main question, and the one I wish he had focused more on, is how do you decide "citizenship"?[/quote]