The Agora
In the spirit of the Ancient Greek Agora, we invite you to join our vibrant community - a contemporary meeting place for the exchange of ideas, inspired by the practices of old. Just as the Agora served as the heart of public life in Ancient Athens, our platform is designed to be the epicenter of meaningful discussion and thought-provoking dialogue.
Here, you are encouraged to speak your mind, share your insights, and engage in stimulating discussions. This is your opportunity to shape and influence our collective journey, just like the free citizens of Athens who gathered at the Agora to make significant decisions that impacted their society.
You're not alone in your quest for knowledge and understanding. In this community, you'll find support from like-minded individuals who, like you, are eager to explore new perspectives, challenge their preconceptions, and grow intellectually.
Remember, every voice matters and your contribution can make a difference. We believe that through open dialogue, mutual respect, and a shared commitment to discovery, we can foster a community that embodies the democratic spirit of the Agora in our modern world.
Community guidelines
New posts should begin with one of the following:
- [Question]
- [Discussion]
- [Poll]
Only moderators may create a [Vote] post.
Voting History & Results
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I'm not certain all that is necessary but I agree there should be no more than one active vote at a time and it should be pinned to the top. It's quite easy to miss what's going on if you don't happen to log in every day.
Limiting the number of votes kind of has the same vulnerability though. Bad actors can flood the queue with dumb shit to push important votes to delay or create vote fatigue.
Personally, I kind of think there's a reason why direct democracy isn't used for this kind of stuff. If we really want a democratic forum we should have representatives, checks and balances, quorums, etc.
This is why only mods can create [Vote] posts.
Looking at the current state of the real world and real representative systems, i'm quite excited to see where this small direct democracy thing here is going.
--> Hey it works for the swiss, maybee it can work for us too. ;)
People are going to get a lesson on why democracy can be a messy business.
It's a fun thought experiment carrying the idea through. How would we district?
Lower house - comprised of randomly assigned "districts" of active users with a fixed size which reshuffle every so often. The purpose here is largely to create a class of "professional" administrative citizens who are required to register a vote for their district. Not voting would result in an immediate reelection in the district.
Middle house - every local community over some size, or gated by other criteria gets two representatives, plus bonus reps for size/activity/whatever up to some maximum.
Upper house - forum-wide vote by ranked choice. Admin gets some nominating spots, and the other legislative bodies do as well.
What are we, a community or a government simulator?
😁 ¿por qué no los dos?
Three houses! Interesting. Ok, now I want there to be a civics community to argue this out, lol.
Edit: Also, this instance is billed as bilingual... have we told the francophones about any of this? Je suis un croissant and all that.
In this case the upper house effectively acts as an executive proxy or "small council" since the admin is functionally a monarch, and always will be.
Couldn't we just point out that when it happens and just remove the bad faith votes? Direct democracy often encounters issues because the community isn't united in the goal of consensus-based decision making. Ideally, we should encourage this instance to shift towards consensus-making instead of simple y/n votes that might still result in large amounts of users feeling ignored or unwelcome.
The conversation should take place with the goal in mind being to reach decisions for the community that most people can abide by - this is why I've been supportive of making voting exclusive to accounts on this instance.