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[MetalSlimeHunt]

Our own forum is somewhat anarchistic. Toady is admin, but he doesn't do that much in overall policing or rule-making. This place only stays standing because we are stable on our own merits. It brings up a good point about anarchist philosophy, in that normal, adjusted people do not wake up in the morning thinking about who they could fuck over today.

[Pnx]

Who maintains Wikipedia?  Who filters its information?  Who makes sure no one defaces it?  There's no direct answer to that, except everyone does.  And it works.

There is actually a bit of organization for Wikipedia.

So much so that I wrote a lengthy post about it:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Wikipedia actually has a behind the scenes paid support staff that helps maintain it, though they mostly deal with server issues, legal stuff etc. As far as I know the content of wikipedia is managed pretty much entirely by the community. They're the reason why you see those big donation drives every so often.

The community also has it's own representetive democracy that runs more or less like every other one on earth. The difference being that anyone that wants to become a steward (highest level moderator) can run, and if they get enough votes (and don't have more than 20% of people voting against them). These elections are also overseen by the Wikimedia foundation, who are said paid staff behind the entire thing.

So basically you've got this kind of crazy thing where stuff is done by voluntary action of the "citizens" and is governed and regulated by a representative democracy that's governed by a benevelonet plutocracy.

The only reason I can see why this typically works out much better than in most "real world" governments is that there's not a lot of corruption or money to be made off of winning elections, I mean, while bribing a wikipedia steward so that you can put your own content into an article could potentially be a thing, I've never heard of it happening.

It's also worth noting that while wikipedia has gotten a lot of stuff done, there's a lot of stuff on wikipedia that hasn't gotten done, like all those messy citations that very few people actually want to go around sorting out. Not that this renders any of the other stuff said invalid, but if wikipedia is your model for how you think the world should be run, it seems like it'd be a world full of half finished houses.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

But most people (in modern countries) don't wake up in the morning wondering where they'll get food, if their possessions are safe, whether or not they'll be attacked by other people needing wanting these things more desperately than they.
Using an online forum as an analogy for human interaction & government isn't very valuable because resources & survival don't even come into the picture. Woo ecological approach.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

But most people (in modern countries) don't wake up in the morning wondering where they'll get food, if their possessions are safe, whether or not they'll be attacked by other people needing wanting these things more desperately than they.
Using an online forum as an analogy for human interaction & government isn't very valuable because resources & survival don't even come into the picture. Woo ecological approach.

Yes, and that is the point. What I am trying to present is that people are not naturally adversarial towards one another. These behaviors are a learned product of one's environment, not a normal state.

[Devling]

This, oddly enough, reminds me of some stuff in The Prince.

People are fine when they are content. Food, shelter, friends.

But when they lack that, they will try to get those things. Often at any price.

Point is, the natural state of humans is scrabbling to get out of it.
Our environment serves to pacify us.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

People aren't naturally adversarial towards each other only in an environment of limitless or unimportant resources, (unless, you know, grudges..). This is the case in online forums, where only abstracts like ego and community standing are at risk.

When you're in an environment that takes more concrete concerns into consideration...well, behaviors are a product of one's environment.
One can't simply whisk away these things, things that are still around and prominent in the minds of many across the world. (things being want of nutrition, safety etc)

[Devling]

How we enter this world is indicative of how we act in it.
Only by are environment do we learn the skills necessary to placate our most basic instincts.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

This, oddly enough, reminds me of some stuff in The Prince.

People are fine when they are content. Food, shelter, friends.

But when they lack that, they will try to get those things. Often at any price.

Point is, the natural state of humans is scrabbling to get out of it.
Our environment serves to pacify us.

The Prince is not necessarily an honest book. One must always keep in mind that it was written so that Machiavelli could get in good with the Cesare family. The whole thing is him sucking up to them and is in contrast with almost everything else he wrote.

It also helps that there are sections in The Prince that work perfectly when read in an angry, sarcastic tone.

When you're in an environment that takes more concrete concerns into consideration...well, behaviors are a product of one's environment.
One can't simply whisk away these things, things that are still around and prominent in the minds of many across the world. (things being want of nutrition, safety etc)

We can't? I think that we can. We need only the technology, the will, and the action to functionally eliminate hardships. We are entering an age where our advancement can put the problems we suffered for...well, ever, behind us. I suppose you could counter with pictures of all the Smallpox-laden children of this generation, but you might find that problematic.

[Devling]

Even if Machiavelli meant it in an insincere way, I don't see how that effects me or my reading of the book.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The lessons you learn from it may be fallacious if you are taking a work of stealthy satire seriously.

[Bauglir]

We aren't there, yet. But within the next couple of centuries, if we can survive as a species and don't fall into the trap of stagnation, we could very well come to a world where it's unnecessary for people to do work they don't want to in order to survive. But we need, right now, to get started on modifying our society so that we can get there. Already, we're coming up against a barrier where solving problems and making a job more efficient can hurt as many people as it helps by "destroying jobs". If we're to continue, the least we need to do is shift away from the paradigm that makes a job, any job, a good thing. If we don't, those advances can never be allowed because they'll annihilate the economy, instead of enhancing it as they would in any sensible world.

Relevant to current discussion only in that economics and politics are intrinsically connected.

[Descan]

Our own forum is somewhat anarchistic. Toady is admin, but he doesn't do that much in overall policing or rule-making. This place only stays standing because we are stable on our own merits. It brings up a good point about anarchist philosophy, in that normal, adjusted people do not wake up in the morning thinking about who they could fuck over today.

Actually, according to him when I asked him about what he thinks causes our fairly well-balanced board culture, he said he thinks that it's because him and Zach are on the ball when it comes to muting and banning the more scummy people. The example he gave is that he'll be quick to ban someone if they say "N****R" or "F*****T".

His guess is that the forum would turn into another Internet suburb within a month if they stopped, and that terribleness is the natural setting of the internet.

Just so I don't misrepresent him, here's the full quote:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And the rather large visible LGBT community you seem to have fostered. How everyone is caring and intelligent, and open to newcomers, despite having mostly the same resources as other forums that... aren't so much. The only differences I can see are the hidden post counter and the relative difficulty of DF, but even that seems like not enough. I've heard of obscure/difficult game communities that were as terrible as the worst of SomethingAwful or /b/...

I've done a lot of cracking down on bigots is probably the short answer.  Mutes and bans for words like "f****t" and "n****r" go a long way toward cleaning the crappy parts of the web out of a place.  And it would turn sour here in a month or two if we took our fingers out of the dam.  It's like the natural setting of the internet.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Toady is of course entitled to his thoughts like anybody else, but I'm on here a lot and I just don't see that at all. We don't get that kind of stuff very often (I am speaking only of the lower forum of course, upper forum is a hive of scum and villainy).

[Devling]

That is terrible.

"I disagree with this person, I don't see it!"

and then,

"But yeah it totally happens, where I don't see it."

[MetalSlimeHunt]

It is perhaps my fault in that I did not make the distinction from the beginning, but when I'm talking about the forum I am almost always talking exclusively about the Lower Forum. Upper Forum and Lower Forum are effectively two different communities.

I post in the Upper Forums maybe once every four or five months.