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.
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New posts should begin with one of the following:
- [Question]
- [Discussion]
- [Poll]
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Voting History & Results
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"Thank you for the respectful and meaningful responce. though I disagree I'm glad to have the conversation"
Name of the game, my friend. Screeching at each other is old hat, we're about productive discussions and community-building these days.
Edit: Jesus Christ, sorry for the novel here folks. Didn't realize how long this was
I do understand your concerns re: monetary influence, but in terms of it not being a trolling deterrent/being means of exercising power to the detriment of the instance writ large, I disagree. If there's counterpoints to the stuff below, sincerely let me know, I'm here to listen. I could be wildly offbase, I'm just your average internet enjoyer.
To my understanding, your average troll engages based on both incentive AND opportunity. There are 'power trolls' for sure, but in general even small barriers can narrow down the bad actors you have to deal with. Let's say someone invests $100 and multiple accounts. You still need to contend with your $5 voters - given the tenor of this place so far, I can't imagine power trolls would have more influence than the wider community*. Additionally, I find it difficult to believe that such an entity wouldn't eventually do something that results in a ban, if they're operating in bad faith generally. You get banned, your money is gone - no refunds, go fuck yourself. Want to try again? Pony up. Your average troll, at a certain point, will determine that the cost-benefit ratio isn't worth it when there are other instances/places on the net they can cause more disruption for less.
That said, even while I think this is something that could protect against bad actors, you're right that there are other means of determing who should have a voice (see: instance members of good standing) beyond whether they donated or not. Further, these are things that should be established EVEN IF donation is a factor (basic shit - how long have you been here? No evidence of fuckery? Maybe require an email for verification on top of membership to this instance [which is another voting point here], etc.). Just something to signal investment in the instance's community.
I'm happy for folks to try everything else before having donation be a qualifying factor for voting rights, but I do feel it shouldn't be taken off the table entirely. Direct democracy without checks and balances has typically failed to provide good outcomes.
*The other factor here is how interested in voting for community standards your average user will even be. Ex: I used reddit for years. So long as I was able to interact with the site using the client of my choosing and could engage meaningfully with the content, I didn't give a crap about larger concerns of governance. When decisions were made that I didn't like, I voted with my feet. I do wonder about what the ratio of folks with an actual interest in meta concerns like instance governance will be v. people who just want to talk about rom hacks on patientgamers.
(Now, of course, I find myself VERY interested, to the point of joining a local, membership-based, non-profit ISP that's been around since before the BBS days to see how they deal with these things. None of this is new.)
Ha, you think that's a novel, try this on for size.
To respond to your first point, I'd agree this would likely stop some trolls but those with such a low standard wouldn't likely be that much of a concern once banned once or twice. The power trolls are the real concern, the ones who will do lasting damage, and the ones more than willing to "find" $100. Power trolls are more common than you think, kiwi farms has alot of people using it even after their anti-DDOS service got taken away. Look at 4chan too, they can be absurdly dedicated and have quite a few participants when they do a troll campaign.
For your second though, a ban is against one account. With $100 over a good amount of time, that's 20 accounts. You won't get them all, it's impossible to sort between alts and people who simply agree. Also, to reiterate but more clearly, that $100 doesn't have to be theirs. You can buy credit cards, visa cards, and crypto wallets for cheap and they're not exactly hard to find, or to steal yourself. 5 people, $25, can swing the vote easily. Especially with a smaller voting pool.
to go off on a tangent:
All that is still a problem under other, non monetized systems but I'd like to re-iterate another point.
This makes power five dollars. My concern is that this filters out most of the common users and allows in only the most power hungry. People online are extremely unlikely to pay 5 dollars for a service they love to use. We're talking 5% of active users being an amazing turnover. What's it going to look like when we sort out from the 17 accounts who voted today those willing to send money? I will not not be one of them. This doesn't mean that only the most dedicated users get in, this simply means that those willing to spend money for power will have said power. This selects for the power hungry, and does nothing to stop the dedicated trolls who will slowly erode what they can towards their goal.
The other methods will help with these trolls, even the more dedicated, but selecting for willingness to pay does, in my opionion, nothing to stop the real damage. It would stop the most blatant but as I've stated those are the most likely to get banned and stop. Our current system does nothing too but I would like to see this improve. As you've stated, direct demovracy without guard rails fails. We've tried democracy for only those willing to pay before too, and we see similarly terrible outcomes. As for my comment on
even with a perfect outcome, no trolls come in due to the pay gate, the people voting will be selected for the most power hungry. I do think this should be off the table. I cannot see the people willing to pay for power being a good selection of the population to decide how it's run.
Luckily, lemmy allows users to decide their moseration. If we see this come into being, I will leave this instance, and lose very little. Our feet have a lot more power here my friend.
So, it's a novel fight you're after eh!? (Just kidding, this will probably be much shorter. Edit: Narrator: It wasn't)
These are all very good points, and for the record it's with our discussion in mind I cast my vote for nay with some reservations.
At the end of the day, what I'm after is some proof of investment in the community for voting rights. I agree that a paywall alone for enfranchisement is, at best, insufficient, and at worst can create a scenario like you describe here. Perhaps I very much am underestimating the capabilities of power trolls (particularly as things grow in scope).
Donation in tandem with other markers, though, can signal enhanced commitment to the instance. I'm going to be donating (@TheDude - even more if you can make a 'sh.it.head' t-shirt via CafePress or something happen!), though all that really says is I want to toss the instance admins a couple of bucks, admittedly nothing about my intentions or character. But doing that, and buying the tshirt, and posting often, and having conversations like the one we're having now, I hope would signal that I am indeed commited to this little experiment.
Re: dismal conversion rates for digital products/services with a 'free' option - you're not wrong. But there's another angle to this which I'll mention not because it's directly relevant to this discussion here but a broader consideration: if we're really going to embrace decentralized, user-focused and enthusiast-supported platforms, at a certain level people are going to need to move away from this "I want it to be free as in beer" mentality. This will be, to understate it, difficult. Internet users have been inculcated to expect free-as-in-beer services in exchange for their personal information being bartered for so long that it's now the standard MO of most popular services. But that's not what is happening here. Electricity and costs for server upkeep exist, and while sh.itjust.works seems well positioned from a resource perspective it's all currently based on these not being a burden to TheDude. At some stage, if you want nice stuff to still be there, you gotta chip in. If you can't, you can still participate, but someone's gotta foot the bill, and we can't rely on that being TheDude (or any admin) forever.
Giving some perks to encourage donation, including it being a factor re: rights to enfranchisement, could help keep the corporate shitheads away. "Naw, we the users are keeping it afloat, we don't need your enshitification payout". Edit: But, in keeping with my 'Nay' vote, let's try some other stuff first re: ability to vote, particularly while overhead isn't a pressing concern.
Edit: I think I may have reported your comment? I saw the "report submitted dialog twice while writting, I hope that was a client side error. I made no such report.
I can agree with the fact that we need money to continue this platform, and as long as voting remains free and I can do so without tying anything to my account or my person I will be donating (anonymously) too. My problem is with the quality of those willing to pay for power in this community. I see cosmetics in exchange for money as a better solution. I'm a developer, and will start to contribute to the project soon. If this is wanted, I can start to do the work needed to allow for cosmetic purchases. I've done similar work for other services before though never FOSS projects. Say, coloured names, gif banners, user flairs, or icons. Power in a community should not be a perk available to pay for. Money for power will not be beneficial to the long term survival of a platform.
I understand your position is to not dismiss money being involved, but not to try this yet. I do disagree but I'm glad someones making the argument. It looks like the only "aye" was me, which was of course entirely serious. Descent is needed.
For now there doesn't seem to be much issue. If, and when, more restrictions are needed my personal preference would be for those voting to be selected, or to apply. This will, of course, be less open.
My point is that money being a factor limits the amount of dedicated people involved, selects more towards the people willing to exchange money for power, and doesn't stop the more dangerous bad actors.
No worries, hopefully it's just a bug and if not, I imagine it will be seen as the mistake it was.
I think we'll need to agree to disagree on the donation component, and that's totally fine (though I think we do meet in the middle in that it should not be the deciding factor, and I'm happy to discard donation as a factor at all for at least the time being). Agreed that dissenting opinions are part of a healthy debate.
Good discussion!
Edit to add: If you're taking requests I'd like flair that says 'sh.it.head' with old-school HTML 'blink' tag behaviour, please :) (j/k - unless?)