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Ask HN: Is true democracy possible in online tech communities?

• orionblastar 1y ago
  No matter what, you won't have free speech; you will have censored/moderated speech where the users or mods vote it down. Some will vote it down because they disagree, others because they find it offensive or wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet%27s_Own_Boy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet%27s_Own_Boy Look towards Aaron Swartz on how he wanted information to be free and not behind a paywall. He wanted true Democracy and freedom of speech without being censored.
  • ff12wq111 1y ago
    You're absolutely right about the fundamental tension here. Aaron's vision of truly free information is inspiring, and his work shaped how I think about these problems. The challenge is that even the most open platforms eventually hit practical problems - spam, harassment, off-topic flooding. The question becomes: who decides what stays and what goes? What you're describing sounds like the difference between censorship (authority-driven) and curation (community-driven). Maybe the goal isn't eliminating all filtering, but making the process transparent and democratic?
    • ff12wq111 1y ago
      I'm curious: in your view, is there a way to honor Aaron's vision while still keeping discussions useful? Or do you think any form of community moderation compromises that ideal?
      • orionblastar 1y ago
        Moderation compromises that ideal of a true democracy and free speech. Look at what happened to Reddit, as users and whole subs can be banned by moderators/administrators. Anything they don't like is just banned.
        • ff12wq111 1y ago
          Exactly . That's actually why we're experimenting with no traditional moderation in our new community - just transparent community governance where the rules themselves are democratically controlled. Aaron's vision shouldn't require compromising on either democracy or free speech.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
• p_ing 1y ago
  > How do you prevent mob rule while maintaining democracy? You don't. Look at California's direct democracy, allowing voters to put propositions on the ballot that alter the State Constitution. (That's not really "mob rule" but it can lead to all sorts of interesting consequences) > Should all voices be equal, or should expertise/contribution matter? So if you're not an expert, your vote only counts for 3/5ths of a vote? > How do you handle spam/quality without authoritarian moderation? Stupid people are allowed to vote.
  • 4b6442477b1280b 1y ago
    >Stupid people are allowed to vote. ironic to say that here, where supposedly smart people say the dumbest, cringiest shit imaginable about a wide variety of topics.
    • moomoo11 1y ago
      Well. Have you seen the news recently?
      • ff12wq111 1y ago
        you mean paywall in reddit?
    • ff12wq111 1y ago
      Exactly. Intelligence and good judgment seem to be very different things.I've seen brilliant engineers make terrible community decisions - sometimes because they're optimizing for profit or ego rather than community benefit. Maybe the real question isn't who's smart enough to participate, but how to design transparent decision-making systems regardless of external factors.
    • burnt-resistor 1y ago
      Of one part, those who thrive in corporations must appear to drink the Flavor Aid. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair And then another part is the professional working class of privileged, moderately-to-highly educated, and brimming with ego without nuance or ambiguity while skewing to the tendencies of less wisdom, struggle, and wide-ranging life experience. There isn't much internal or external motivation towards integrity, self-improvement, or commonwealth investment. There are exceptions and they are gold.
• mzk_pi 1y ago
  There may be challenges unique to online communities, but in our real-world community, we’ve implemented a protocol specifically designed to address this issue— a system built to prevent the emergence of gatekeepers, and it's actually working in practice. There are small problems, sure, but they haven't disrupted or degraded the overall service. In fact, we’ve seen people who try to assert authority join the community, but they usually don’t last long. They naturally drift away because they don’t truly understand the value of long-term commitment and authentic relationships. If you're interested, we've written a formal proof that explains how the structure prevents gatekeeping: https://github.com/contribution-protocol/contribution-protocol-project/blob/main/stability_proof.md https://github.com/contribution-protocol/contribution-protoc...
• PaulHoule 1y ago
  I see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September As the real problem. I don’t tend to believe in natural hierarchies, but I do believe in this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations That in some sense that early adopters are better than other people and that things start out cool and deteriorate and one way to counter that when the party gets too big you start a new party and get the early adopters to come along. I would point out this essay https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm And say that I think her analysis is right factually but I take the opposite position that the ‘structureless’ organization she describes is capable of activism that more sustainable groups just can’t do and say form that kind of organization when you can and know it isn’t going to last. Sustainability is non-profit speak for ‘profitability’ and if you value that an organization because Oxfam or the ACLU or the Mozilla Foundation and suffers from the corruption of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha... I’d say ‘benign despotism’ is alright for an organization where you’ve got the right to exit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty But due process, democracy and all that are necessary for when you don’t have exit. Jurgen Habermas wrote a ponderous 2 volume book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_Communicative_Action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_Communicative_Ac... which pursues the idea of a perfect deliberative process which one some hand seems closer because of widespread electronic communications yet our experience with things like Twitter makes it seem terribly naive between (1) people not acting in good faith and (2) others believing that people are not acting in good faith.
  • ff12wq111 1y ago
    This level of thinking is exactly what we need more of in community design. We're actually launching a developer platform called GistFans that experiments with these governance questions - contribution-based voting, transparent processes, etc. Would love your perspective on our approach - happy to share details if you're interested.
  • ff12wq111 1y ago
    I owe you an apology - your brilliant analysis deserved much better than my brief response earlier. You provided the most thoughtful theoretical framework in this entire discussion, and I responded with just a throwaway line. That wasn't respectful of the depth you brought. Your analysis of Habermas and "perfect deliberative process" is exactly what we're grappling with in GistFans. The tension you identify between early adopter quality and scalability, the corruption of sustainable organizations vs the power of "structureless" activism - these are the core contradictions we're trying to navigate. We're experimenting with a "Stars" system where users earn influence through contributions, then spend these stars on governance decisions. The hypothesis: when participation has real cost (earned influence), people might act more thoughtfully - potentially addressing both the good faith problem AND the "believing others act in bad faith" issue you mention about Twitter. But your point about "benign despotism with exit rights" is fascinating. Maybe the key isn't eliminating hierarchy but making it transparent and merit-based rather than arbitrary? We're deliberately staying small and experimental rather than chasing sustainability/growth. Better to run genuine experiments that inform future builders than create another corrupted institution. Have you seen any examples where contribution-based influence actually improved deliberative quality? Or do the fundamental human nature issues make this unsolvable through design?
• ethan_smith 1y ago
  Discourse's trust level system (https://blog.discourse.org/2018/06/understanding-discourse-trust-levels/ https://blog.discourse.org/2018/06/understanding-discourse-t...) offers a practical example of democratic governance that scales through automated promotion/demotion based on participation patterns rather than explicit voting or moderator intervention.
  • ff12wq111 1y ago
    Great example! The Discourse trust levels are exactly what I've been thinking about. We're experimenting with something similar - a "Star" system where users earn influence through contributions and can spend it on governance decisions. Early results suggest contribution-based voting leads to much more thoughtful decisions. How well does Discourse handle controversial governance choices? I'm curious if trust levels work when communities face difficult decisions.
    • WHA8m 1y ago
      haven't looked into the link, but the way you phrase it, I'd be worried you're creating a system that only gets gamified. Trust should not directly feel like a reward.
      • ff12wq111 1y ago
        You're right about gamification risk. What if the formula is transparent though: Your contribution = Your Stars = Your Influence? Traditional systems reward activity (posts, comments, time spent) which are easy to game. But measuring actual contribution outcomes - did your help work, did your advice get adopted - seems harder to fake. Still gameable probably, but at least people would be gaming by actually helping others?
• armchairhacker 1y ago
  Not tips for a "democracy" but a "good, tolerant community": - Use a boilerplate rules list like "no spam, no personal attacks, no hate speech, don't be obnoxious, etc." (but more specific, e.g https://www.statsoc.org.au/Forum-rules https://www.statsoc.org.au/Forum-rules or https://macrumors.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201265337-Forum-Rules https://macrumors.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201265337-Fo...). Have a "no politics" rule unless you want culture warring on your platform for whatever reason. - Then you enforce the rules as you see fit. The final rule should be "moderators have discretion" and if someone is pushing against the rules and/or irritating others, ban them. At the same time, be lenient and give second and third chances at least for non-blatant offenses; escalate, first with a warning, then with a temp ban, then a longer temp ban, etc. It's a careful balance, but if done correctly, your form will be both tolerant and not dominated by assholes. - To prevent spam and banned users opening new accounts, either: make the form invite-only (where users can invite others) and screen applicants; charge a small fee for signing up; require flexible proof of identity (e.g. one of: phone #, Google account, GitHub account, Facebook account, etc.); require new user posts to be approved by moderators before they show up; or something else. This will make it significantly harder for your userbase to grow, and many people will refuse to sign up, but it will be hard and some people won't sign up anyways. - If your forum grows enough, you can recruit moderators. You need enough people and activity to select moderators who you trust, because every time you override their moderation or kick them beyond "very rarely", you look worse (more incompetent, power-tripping, incoherent) and the overall community "vibes" become slightly more toxic.
  • ff12wq111 1y ago
    This is excellent practical advice. The invite-only approach especially resonates - we're actually planning something similar. I'm curious about the cold start dilemma though: invite-only is great for quality, but creates a chicken-and-egg problem for early adoption. Do you think it's worth the slower growth from day one? Also, for initial promotion - better to avoid platforms like Twitter (where average user quality is lower) and focus on higher-quality channels, even if reach is smaller? Would love your thoughts on balancing growth vs quality in early stages.
    • 1y ago
• quintes 1y ago
  In good faith, I’d love to know. Democracy as Socrates or written by Plato would have said democracy is hard to succeed at as it’s ruled by many who may not have the education.. wisdom.. to run well for all. Read Ship of State. A certain level of freedom of speech is required, or else it’s a pool of similar thinkers. A collective who everyone else must talk and think alike, for the good of the collective. See Ayn Rand. Pretty much like downvoting, I get downvoted without knowing who or why and is a form of censorship and one or more are offended or just don’t like it. Just cuz you don’t like it doesn’t mean it should be downvoted. My other comment here on YT shorts being useful is an example. A down vote and all I said is “ I learnt drums for a song I like from shorts. Blanket bans are not a solution” Take care to not apply so much policy that group think and collectivism takes hold.
  • ff12wq111 1y ago
    You're absolutely right about these concerns, and I should be more honest - we don't have a magic solution to groupthink. Even our transparency isn't absolute - we only guarantee proposal transparency, not complete visibility. But I think a community's real vitality might come from self-direction rather than top-down solutions. Democratic processes themselves promote community self-purification. In our ideal community, everyone has the right to propose. Every proposal goes to public vote with open voting. When proposals pass and get executed, that execution itself improves the community. This might be closer to what an ideal community looks like. Our ideal community has only one rule: community-driven. That's all. I tend to describe it as a kind of utopia - where the community continuously evolves through its own collective decisions rather than having solutions imposed from outside. Maybe the answer to groupthink isn't preventing it, but creating systems where the community can organically correct itself over time. It's admittedly idealistic, but I think there's value in experimenting with these utopian concepts, even if they don't solve every problem perfectly. What do you think - can democratic self-governance actually lead to self-correction, or am I being too optimistic about human nature?
    • quintes 1y ago
      I think your proposal through to voting has merit, and a healthy community would pass good proposals, and hopefully you don’t get to an environment where people abstain. That means something is wrong and ultimately abstain is a vote in and of itself. Self governance could end up like mutiny on the ship (I referred to that above) but we must have some form of governance or we have anarchy. I wish you the best on the platform. Let us all know of any lessons you learn in time.
• zeroCalories 1y ago
  Was on a discord server that let everyone delete one comment and temporarily ban someone using a command. People were careful to not misuse it because people would just use it on them if they did. Unfortunately it broke down when big factions started coordinating attacks, and smaller factions just left the server entirely.
  • ff12wq111 1y ago
    Thanks for sharing that example! That's exactly the kind of failure mode I worry about with pure democratic systems. The "retaliation equilibrium" working initially is fascinating - shows that peer accountability can work at small scale. But the faction coordination problem seems almost inevitable as communities grow. Makes me think the key might be preventing large factions from forming in the first place, rather than trying to make democracy work despite them.
• aristofun 1y ago
  What exactly is true democracy? Even socrates back in the days understood that it is far from ideal (or “true”) form. Anyway all the flaws stem from human nature and human nature has nothing to do with technology.
• ff12wq111 1y ago
  Thanks for the thoughtful discussion - your insights on democratic governance really helped refine our thinking.
• 1moreshadowban 1y ago
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• firefax 1y ago
  One big issue is a core tenet of democracy is one person, one vote -- online, it's easy for people to spin up nyms and skew things.
• mikewarot 1y ago
  I think that limiting voting/ranking of things to a single scalar is extremely counterproductive. It's the forum version of First Past the Post, which ruins politics. Instead of a single score, there should be a wide variety of dimensions at play. A post might be insightful, or funny, or wrong, AI slop, spam, etc. Having a wide variety of tags or scales could be very useful.