My wife wouldn’t touch these places of controversy with a 10-foot pole….
This is open list behavior. There are a number of solutions, but many
of them involve setting up a dictator. I.e., a moderator. More on this below.
I do want that thing to be changed. I want to enable people who are
giving their time, who are pushin quality levels higher, I want these
people not to leave such place, but stay there enabling creation of a
place that would become relevant, hot, popular place. Place where
people could really see constructive, progresive topics and other
people who share their aproach.
Yes, and this often happens, though not so often in politics…..
I think it is important to recognize the organizational problem as a
generic one. Special fields may have special problems, but the basic
problem is the same, especially when the scale becomes large.
Direct democracy works very well in small groups, but when the group
size gets large, deliberation breaks down, unless something is done.
In government, the common solution, in democracies, is to convert
from direct democracy to something like Mayor/Council, with this
officer and these representatives being elected. But then, to some
degree or other, the freedom of direct democracy is lost. Political
scientists seem to generally believe that this is inevitable. I think not.
What I’ve noticed is that the problem of scale does not apply to
voting. It only appears with deliberation, with meeting process. If
everyone can speak, and the group is large, meetings start to become
long and tedious. Scale brings with it the necessity of some kind of
representation, but proxy representation is not only a very old
solution to the problem, it avoids elections completely. It is
standard practice in share corporations that you may vote your shares
directly, i.e., you can attend the Annual Meeting and vote, or you
can delegate the right to vote to your proxy. We have added to this
delegability, that’s what is new and untried.
But we see more to the matter of proxies than this. Proxies serve as
filters. They protect the client from too much traffic, and they
protect the organization from too much traffic.
There are attempts afoot to try to do the filtering with automated
systems, but my opinion is that we are safer with people. If a proxy
does not take on too many clients, the load is light.
So, can parelemnt in this very time do such thing? It can not. At least
I do not trust it at all. What I want to see is a feedback mechinism
that can not be hijacked by majority or something like that. I want to
see free process of networking and creating popular clusters where most
fine would lead others in this proliferation process of such forum.
FA/DP is exactly this, particularly if the delegable proxy part is
implemented. DP effectively sets up virtual caucuses, groups of
members united by sharing the same proxy, and these proxies can
independently contact all the clients. So somebody can hijack (by
majority vote or otherwise) the central structure, and the proxies
simply recreate, independently, what they want. Proxies also can
contact their proxies, plus they will generally have contact
information for their peers; we think that a proxy will normally
operate a mailing list for his or her clients, and those who mail to
this list would be providing their email address to all subscribers.
Very, very difficult to successfully hijack such a structure. As I’ve
written, somebody can go to a lot of trouble to create sock-puppet
accounts, then vote in whatever they want, and all they end up with
is a handful of sand. This is the FA protection: this is why FAs
don’t collect power. No collected power, nothing to hijack. The power
remains with the members.
Without DP, though, hijacking the communications structure can
effectively hijack the organization even if it is only an advisory
one. This is because the members don’t have any way to easily contact
each other except through the organization…. and what I’ve seen
when an organization has gone astray and is censoring communication
improperly is that members who try to object and to contact other
members are seen as troublemakers, nut cases. But if your proxy, whom
you have chosen because you trust this person—or are at least
willing to see what happens if you trust him or her—contacts you
and tells you what is going on, your response will be quite different
than if it is someone you don’t particularly know….
So. That is the point. You need FEED BACK MECHANISM that would enable
bypassing of spamers/flamers/trolls and in the same time not to disable
freedom of speech. When you do that, I believe we will have a place
that could start new era of internet communication, based on
autopoitical process of selforganisation of mases.
Freedom of speech is actually not the most important freedom, freedom
of association is more important. And freedom of association includes
the freedom not to be overloaded with unwanted communication.
Consider an ordinary mailing list, with some moderators. The list
sails along, completely open, and usually works well. But
occasionally somebody trolls, spams, flames. So a moderator steps in
and puts the member on moderation. This, by itself, could seem to be
censorship. But if the moderator is supported by, at least, a
majority, it is quite proper. What is offensive is where there is no
appeal, no process whereby the decision of the moderator can be
reviewed. And if you engage in debate on the list over a moderation
action, it can defeat the purpose of moderation.
So what do you do? My solution has been a metalist, or an
administrative list. This list handles administrative questions,
including appeals from decisions of the moderator. The admin list
must have a decision-making procedure, it must be able to engage in
deliberative process. But it has its own rules. Any member of the
mail list can join it, but the member may go on no-mail status; if
there is a proxy list where members can name a proxy, then DP can
ensure that every member who cares can be represented in deliberation
and votes.
I’ve seen this work without DP, but simply because there was a
congenial group of moderators who maintained the metalist. Not
reliable when there is much controversy…. that metalist grew
gradually, as moderators turned over active moderation to others but
remained on the list, becoming an extended resource with substantial
moderation experience. DP could make this wider, much wider.
Whenever traffic on a list becomes too great, one solution we have
worked on has been to moderate the list, but to allow established
writers to post without moderation. Others post by getting moderator
approval or by convincing any writer with the privilege to forward
their post.
I was banned from one list—some moderators are quite allergic to
my advice—but I continue to participate at a lower level. When I
really want to write to the list, I simply write to my “proxy.” Who
then, if he agrees that the post is worthwhile for the list, forwards
it to the list….
I could also go onto no-mail status on the list (I was banned from
posting, not from receiving the list, and, in any case, it is
generally easy to set up another list membership, and not a problem
if you don’t post through it), and ask my proxy to let me know if
there was something I should see, in his opinion.
What we need to see is more usage of the proxy concept. It doesn’t
have to be complicated.
And, if an organization wants overcome the “participation bias,” the
“bias of the active,” it can set up and use a proxy list. Proxies are
valuable even when the organization doesn’t recognize them, but the
possibilities rapidly expand if proxies and delegated proxies are
recognized. Proxies counterbalance the participation bias, by giving
weight to those active participants who represent those who are not active.
And you ask me how? I can offer you our past vision:
http://kovach.web.srk.fer.hr/tiaktiv/index.php?mode=projekt_forum&m=forum&jezik=en
Yet, I believe we might go much simpler and more effective that it was
our first model we developed. I hope I gave you some more information
about what I believe we do really need.
It appears that in Tiaktiv, moderators serve, more or less, as
proxies. Members can directly read whatever they want, but they may
also routinely only see traffic that was approved by the moderator
they choose. This is exactly what we expect proxies to do.
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