Halx

Ok, I suppose in order to create accountability, we must institute a system. Give in a little to order. Here's what I am thinking.

Phase I.

Upon its release, the forum is released in the method I am suggesting. We see how it goes. If lawlessness overcomes it, I'll wipe it clean and start again with Phase II.


Phase II.

vBulletin has a reputation system built in. We'd use the reputation as status. Restrictions will be put on registration.

The top 50% of the population will be able to moderate posts.
The top 10% of the population will be able to ban users.

This changes the dynamic of what I was looking for originally, but it's more stable. It forces people to establish themselves, thus promoting accountability.

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Martian

Probably the better way to do it. By making the population accountable to itself rather than a select group of moderators and/or administrators you remove much of the formal structure but maintain some semblence of order.

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I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
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Halx

Ok, i'm not assuming that it will fail. I'd even prefer to say that "Phase II" isn't better.. it's just MORE. We don't know if it's better until we put it into action.

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rainheart

aKula

I'm sure this would add even more concerns, but would the users also be able to remove bans?

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Zyr

I think this would actually work, if there were a lot of people, and you could only ban, say, 1 person every hour. No chance for someone to have a bad day and wipe the whole board, and and plenty of time for retaliation. All you need to do to survive is make a couple of friends to back you up, and you'd be safe, as anyone who tried to ban you would find themselves gone in short order.

This will not work, however, if, like I said, some one can have a bad day and just ban everyone. The speed at which this could happen is the major difference between the real world and this.

I'd be very interested to see how this pans out. I can imagine groups of people banding together for protection, maybe group rivalries, even wars. Sign me up.

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Omnia mutantu, nos et mutamur in illis.
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- Neil Gaiman, Marvel 1602

maleficent

oooh that'd be like Survivor TFP Internet... with our own alliances...

Banning would probably be amusing for a few days, then it would settle down... As long as bans weren't perma bans... then it's not all that different than getting killed in a game... you can always heal yourself after a certain amount of time...

Alliances that retaliate would make a person think twice about doing the ban in the first place... Except for those that would just be gunning for Halx because it'd amuse them to no end to ban the boss... Be careful with that - he could be like a suicide banner... you ban him - and he bans 10 people at the same time...

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CSflim

There's no justice like mob justice!

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ratbastid

At which point the chaos in the system will give rise to The Anomaly, or "The One". The function of the One is to return to the source, allowing a temporary dissemination of the code he carries, reinserting the prime program. After which he will be required to select from the matrix 23 individuals, 16 female, 7 male, to rebuild Zion.

Glory's Sun

I like the idea of limiting bans. However, that is kind of pointless in the whole Anarchy ideal. I'd like to see which cliques form, and how they function <i>without</i> the use of a rating system. All in all, failure or success, I see this to be an interesting experiment in the lives of current TFP'ers. The only way to really see what would happen is for us to get on with it already and just try it out. Really.. what's stopping this from happening? I say, if you are against it then just don't join (although I wonder how many people are bluffing not going just to so they can raise some higher level of annominity and then come and wipe us all out)

fresnelly

Phase 1 = Bathroom wall

Phase 2 = TFP with different mods and some leftover tension from Phase 1

Consider me skeptical.

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Toaster126

This will work even less than real world anarchy.

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Lady Sage

Hal,

Go into this 100% sure it will work the way you wish it to. Do not doubt and make sure you can be totally committed to it's success. And it will work.

Any doubt, if you get upset and slack off, it may get out of your control fast and not be what you want it to be.

I know you want it to be a certain way, and it can work that way, but it's going to take hard work and patience and you have to be prepared for that.

Just some unsolicited and probably, unwanted advice.

To those skeptical and sure it won't work, you aren't participating right? I mean after all why waste your time in something that you have deemed won't work?

This idea can work and can be a success, the outcome is based on the beliefs of the people who participate. If they work to make it successful, it will be. If they go in with the belief it will fail, it will.

Halx

Well, you're all assuming we're gonna keep it inhouse. That's not my intentions. Why create a social experiment designed for only a finite number of people to use? If anything, the TFP influence would be small. Hopefully I can grab the attention of other groups on the internet and hopefully it can get going like that.

In any case, is all of this "It will never work" a lack of support? Let's get some constructive thinking going on. How can it work?

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maleficent

banning seems to be the biggest stumbling block - while anarchy is the absense of rules... what would the circumstances (rather than rules) surrounding banning be.

Length of a ban:
Can you do anything while banned
How many bans to you get a session


For players of this game - or users of this envirnment
will there be levels of users where one level gets more power than others - or can i ban at will from day one?

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Glory's Sun

ahh, see I thought this would start out as a site with mostly TFP'ers and then grow outside of that after an initial trial run. If it's set to outside influence from the start.. well fine with me

As far as the bans go, I think you should limit it to not being able to ban IP addresses. This would allow more retaliation, if necessary, or the ability to come back and state ones case.

I'd also like to see maybe a max of 5 bans per day. This would eliminate the possibility of just coming in and wiping everyone out.

I say all that and then wonder if that really sets a tone for anarchy. Some sort of disclaimer will have to be made that any illegal activity such as child porn etc would naturally have to be pursued by *IRL* authorities.

Of course, given the nature of the site, I'd assume that if someone did post such trash, they would be banned immediately and their post deleted. Hence we will see who emerges as protectors of the site and who emerges as destroyers.

Whatever you decide I'll give it a go.

Redlemon

True.

Unless people are talking here about how well things are going over there, I don't plan to visit. I really appreciate the rules on TFP.

(Is anyone going to invite Bones over to AFP? )

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fresnelly

For one thing, don't use "Anarchy" or any of its derivatives in naming the forum. As this thread demonstrates, it's too loaded a term that would undermine any noble intentions.

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Building an artificial intelligence that appreciates Mozart is easy. Building an A.I. that appreciates a theme restaurant is the real challenge - Kit Roebuck - Nine Planets Without Intelligent Life

Glory's Sun

It's funny you mention Bones. I started to wonder about him in my last post.

Charlatan

I don't see Anarchy as an absence of rules or laws, rather it is an absence of heirarchical authority.

There is nothing to prevent the users from establishing laws and rules.

I think the key is to have a system that allows for a level playing field while giving users the tools of onsequence. It's why I still say some form of meritocracy is the key.

It isn't order or law, it is just a system. A system like survival of the fittest or the most diplomatic.

Here is one scenario to think about:

A group of people who have amassed a great number of negative points, but not enough to be banned, form their own sub-forum in which they can hang out and grant positive points to each other for their good work in tweaking the nose of "the Man".

A user, let's call him Bones, becomes the leader of this wayward group. Perhaps they set the rules to their sub-forum so that anyone with too may "good" points cannot gain access.

... anyway you can see where this is going.

The point is "meritocracy" in a system as I describe it doesn't have to be all law and order as some seem to think it will be.

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Halx

Well, once again, I'm not doing this to prove a point, but rather to just observe what happens. Charlatan, wouldn't it be fascinating if that did happen?

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maleficent

Hal the Puppeteer watching in the background - gleefully rubbing his hands together...

It's be an interesting experiment

especially if everyone came in at the same level - and with unknown names - or assign them a random number so they can't even exercise some power positioning with a name... who do you align with and who do you ban...

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pan6467

I think this could be a very interesting forum that would definately draw some attention.

I think if you are truly going for "no rules" then you may see people register and post the nastiest, foulest, most racist, prejudicial things just for attention and to see it fail.

I do believe there should be an application process or a tiered process that will weed those people out. But in doing so would that not defeat your whole idea?

It is quite a complex problem, how do you keep something totally without rules and yet make sure it is not ruined by people who wish to see it fail or want to try to make power plays?

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Charlatan

I think just about anything that comes out of this will be fascinating to observe.


How will you track all that happens? Will there be a logging program that will make all that happens available to you? I imagine you will need something like this as you are just as likely to be kicked off the board as anyone.

Hmmm... what happens if the site is hacked and the "system" is changed or you are locked out of the logging software... do you let it continue or do you pull the plug (literally because you no longer have the passcodes)?

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Toaster126

By this, I mean I think the very concept of anarchy as applied to a forum is doomed to crash and burn. There is no way to force accountability for actions when we are talking about an internet forum without creating something that isn't anarchy.

I wouldn't participate, but I'm not hating on those who would... why would I?

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Halx

Well, i dont anticipate any script kiddies. That's a whole other monster - then you're getting into basic website security. In any case, all activity can and will be logged. I would have an ultimate admin account that would be the only one capable of changing the structure and settings of the board, however all other accounts would be able to manipulate the content.

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Glory's Sun

See this is the point. I think it's an observation on how it will work or if it will work at all.

I think if done the right way, the results could be surprising. Anarchy doesn't necessarily mean things are going to be bad.

Toaster126

I think it does if you are involving people on the internet.

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"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers." (M. Scott Peck)

CSflim

I think that there are a number of things that could be done to help this Anarchy experiment.

One is to make people's accounts "valuable" to a certain extent.
Bannings mean nothing if someone can just create a new account on a whim. So at least some effort should be made to ensure that 1 person = 1 account. Of course it's pretty much impossible to ensure this, but you could make sure that only one account comes from any given i.p. address. Sure, there are ways around that, but it will at least be a mild annoyance and deter those "casual" users.

Also, a ban should not be a permenant one.
Perhaps it should be the case that a ban lasts one full day. But if multiple people ban you, the bans are served sequentially not concurrently. So if ten people ban you at the same time, you are banned for ten days. Also, any particular person can only place a 'ban' on any other person once every....day? two days? week?

Another is to make everyone's actions fully visible. So if someone bans someone else, everyone can see that. Also, if a post gets edited, it can be seen that it has been edited, and the edits can be viewed through a posts "history". So the original post can be viewed in a "pre-modded" form. Think of how wikipedia does it. Deleted threads/posts should end up going to a "recycle bin" rather than being literally being removed (except of course for anything ilegal).

Making all actions visible and making accounts non-trivial to set up, may encourage people to take responsibility for their actions on the site and give people an incentive to make it work.

Just a few thoughts.

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Moyaboy

How about having the person who started the thread be allowed to ban people from posting in thier threads only.

That way no one is banned from the forums, but banned from annoying those who offend them.

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John Henry

As far as simply creating a social experiment within a forum goes, both of your ideas sound great and I see no reason not to try them out. However, I would say that the first sounds like mob rule and the second like meritocracy.

We're so conditioned to thinking of a society as being divided into leaders and populous that it's very easy to miss the point of anarchy and think of it as being what arises when you take away the ruling classes. Of course what really happens in those situations is that everybody fights to become the new ruling class. An anarchistic society should really be one in which nobody imposes their will on anybody else, not just one in which the ruling classes do not impose their will on the populous. If people go around shooting each other then you're about as far from anarchy as you can get.

If you wanted a true model of anarchy, I would say take away the deleting and banning powers. After all, by not giving people these powers you are not removing anything from them which they had before, you are simply not granting them the ability to impose their will on others.

If you wanted to then keep some sense of order, maybe you could have the forum only open to invitees, who would be able to invite others etc. That way, everybody in there would have at least some sense of mutual responsibility towards other members of the forum

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Zyr

Ah, see there's the problem. In an anarchistic society, no one imposes their will upon another, but at the same time, they can, being that no one will stop them, as that would be imposing. To limit the people's power would be to impose the will of the forum's creator on them. While they will have some limitations, due to the nature of the forum, for this to work they need to have as many freedoms as they can. It's a delicate balance.

Anarchy requires that everyone have the same goal, a stable society, and the same idea of how to achieve that, by not imposing their will on others, and this would be a test of that.

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"Oh, irony! Oh, no, no, we don't get that here. See, uh, people ski topless here while smoking dope, so irony's not really a high priority. We haven't had any irony here since about, uh, '83 when I was the only practitioner of it, and I stopped because I was tired of being stared at."

Omnia mutantu, nos et mutamur in illis.
All things change, and we change with them.
- Neil Gaiman, Marvel 1602

MSD

Phase I sounds like something I would liek to try. Your decription of Phase II literally made me feel sick to my stomach.

xepherys

Well, allow for accountability. List each account that has banned other accounts recently. If anyone wants to develop a sense of community at all, they will not want to have to continually register new names.

Wikipedia, to an extent, follows an anarchial approach. It seems to work quite well with only an occasional hiccup now and again.

Giltwist

So my thought is that you aren't going quite far enough with this anarchy thing.

Banning is a form of minimal state saying, "You are no longer welcome." So I honestly think banning should not be possible at all.

On the topic of deletions, I think that can be okay too. Wikipedia allows anyone to edit anything with only a nominal level of protections to maintain a degree of factual consistency. However, since we are talking discussion, I think we are okay. So don't allow deletions either, unless in some sort of automated way to keep clutter down (I.E. Abandoned threads) It would probably really help to have a weekly auto-prune.

With editing, my only concern is that there be some evidence of editing. Sure, let A edit out something wrong or offensive in B's post, but make sure the world know's that A edited the post so that it is not ascribed to B directly.

So where is the safety net? Well, there are a couple options. One, allow for the creation of passworded forums. This allows a limiting of posters without creating the outright tension of ban-and-return. Secondly, allow for usergroup-only boards. This is similar to the first except that, perhaps, it is more dynamic. Additionally, viewing priveledges can be limited to members of usergroups so that nobody even notices that they are not allowed somewhere.

Johnny Rotten

It will rapidly devolve into spam, porn, and porn spam, with a sprinkling of links to very shady websites. It won't be a message board. It will be a billboard for the entire Internet.

In other words, it's genius.

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guthmund

Exactly! I really don't think you need to impose much order at all. If given adequate time and such, the forum will find order on its own.

I'd like to add that I think the notion that you could 'ban' anyone from an anonymous forum on the internet is pretty naive anyway. So, no one bans and no one deletes. Allow everything else just make the process transparent.

Phase II...sounds horrible. The 'good' can do just as much damage as the 'bad.' Point systems? Reputations? It will only give rise to a board run by a clique comprised of members with 'good reputations.' Clique members, who have and will continue to, reward each other (you know, they need help doing the 'right' thing) until they control the top 50% (or whatever). The forum will turn into a wasteland of non-offensive, homogenous threads because the voices of dissent have been silenced by the clique's ability to delete the 'inappropriate' and ban indiscriminantly.

Phase I sounds interesting. Phase II sounds too much like high school yearbook committee to me.

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hiredgun

I really find it interesting that a concensus seems to have emerged here that it is consequences that might help bring an order out of the anarchic chaos. My instinct upon reading the original idea was the exact opposite.

That is, I worried that if the experiment succeeds in bringing about a stable anarchic order, there will be limitations on what it can tell us about real life precisely because unlike real life, the stakes here are just so small. No one has anything to gain but an online ego-stroke by banning you without provocation.

I'll admit that I'm far more interested in the results of Phase I than Phase II. I'm not even too concerned about the ban-and-return thing. Think of it as death and reincarnation; if we're lucky, we can play out the evolution of human morality as we slowly stop banning each other and over multiple iterations, realize there are cooperative strategies with which the game can be played.

To bring us sadly away from the philosophical side and back to the boring technical side, my biggest concern is automated spamming which could bring the server and the experiment to a grinding halt. We should find some way of excluding machines and professional spammers from our little social experiment.


For Phase II, what might really make it interesting is if the most popular forumer can become an admin and start changing the very rules of the game (though his powers would somehow have to be kept proportional to his 'mandate' among the other users.) It might be fun if we TFPers thought of a way to secretly signal each other amidst the internet riffraff, and then slowly mounted a campaign to take over the board, seeing how long it would take for us to convince the other users to allow us to enslave them.

MSD

Having discussed the safeguards ad nauseum with several Wikipedia admins, I can tell you with certainty that this is entirely untrue.

Martian

guthmund: Maybe I'm just not cynical enough, but I disagree with your assessment of "phase II". If I'm understanding the whole thing correctly, there is nothing given that cannot be removed; that is to say, someone who gets up-voted (for want of a better term) can also be down-voted. The part about this that is interesting to me is that it creates a self-moderating community. If, at any point, the majority feels that those at the top are not acting in the spirit of the community, said folks may be removed and/or replaced. If it does turn into a non-offensive, family friendly hug-fest, it would be a safe assumption that this is representative of what those present are looking for in a forum. That's just as interesting a comment as any that might be made through an anarchistic forum.

Unmoderated or self-moderated forums as presented here are not a new concept. Mind you, I'm not saying I'm totally against the idea of trying it or that it will never work. I'm just skeptical that without some sort of balances to the power given to the average Joe, it could very quickly become very chaotic.

Another of the dozens of hypotheticals that can be made. Let's say I, as a non-user of TFP and a random internet denizen, stumble across this. I might register and start banning and/or deleting as much as I can. That may seem alarmist, but I don't think it is; after all, an outsider's attitude coming in like that may well be "it's not my forum." There's no accountability, there's no consequences.

Maybe what might be more practical, a phase 1.5 if you will - base a user's abilities on either time or post count. It would be a bit like the distinction between rookies and full member here on TFP - we restrict access until the user invests something into the forum, creating a vested interest for said user. The key difference, of course, is that instead of basing it on a panel-type review, as we do here, we'd want it based on something arbitrary. I reckon having one person or group of people doling out the abilities is against the spirit of the venture, but maybe restricting those abilities to those who show real interest isn't.

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I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame