Looks like this decision is decided already but I figured I'd put in my input. Given this instance has an open registration policy, nothing is stopping someone from another instance to create an alternative just for voting on this instance. This individual might align and contribute positively to the fediverse and have really great ideas and contributions to discussions here. However because they use their alt account here on sh.itjust.works only for voting, their vote might get dismissed due to poor account reputation (another issue that I believe was already brought up in another post). The fediverse is meant to be a decentralized community and by forcing people to need to join this community to vote promotes centralization which I believe is the opposite of what the fediverse is trying to accomplish. I guess for now I'll hold off on casting my vote until the community determines what criteria should be considered when counting a vote.
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I think another big thing to consider is that we need to have a discussion thread first before people can cast their vote. A lot of people in this thread have already voted before hearing any arguments other than the OP, which heavily skews the vote in favor of OP. If we have a discussion thread for a few days first and get all the discussion out of the way we can then have a vote after and people can go back and read all the arguments made before voting.
I like this idea a lot. I would have voted aye before reading TheDude's thoughtful (as always) commentary.
If they're willing to put in the bare minimum of making an account and voting then I think that's okay.
Was in the middle of posting the exact same thing when your post came in. Yes, it's open registration. So even if you make it so only local users can vote... anyone anywhere can instantly make an account here and vote. So there is no reason to enforce this. The reputation thing would just mean that people would have to "farm karma" before their alt can vote and then they just leave the alt sitting for votes. Im not sure you should be doing anything that promotes karma farming...
So if it's easier to set up the vote with it local only. Do that. If it's easier to set up by allowing voting for anywhere. Do that. Just do what takes the least effort because at the end of the day there is no way to prevent outside voting.
On the other hand, quite some people still need to grasp all intricacies of federation: we already have quite a few users over from kbin demanding defederation from a third party instance without realising it would not affect them at all.
Of course, it will be easy to sign up just for voting, but at least if you choose to do so, you know what you are doing...
It's an interesting question.
I think that, in general, it almost shouldn't matter which instance you're a part of. Ideally that choice doesn't affect how you view the fediverse. One of the largest reasons I'm against de-federation for anything but the worst offenders is that I think that we need to move away from centrally controlled social media to a more decentralized means of interacting.
I think if I had to design it myself I would ensure that there not any governance decisions that should be made on the instance level. Communities should have rules, instances should have rules about what communities they want to host and the communities should work with the people running the instance to ensure that their software needs are taken care of (maybe they need video hosting, or some software integration into a game or whatever).
Decisions about how to govern communities should be made at the community level and the community leaders should work with the instance administrators to ensure that everything runs correctly. The communities should determine their own means of setting rules. The instance owner is basically just running the hardware, keeping the software updated and ensuring the community moderators have the tools they need.
I get what you mean, but if this is the forum for discussing how this instance is run, then I think at the very least, the opinions and views of those with accounts based on this instance should weigh more than those from elsewhere. They have their own instances to take an active role in, and if they find the direct-democracy aspect of sh.itjust.works, they should have their "main" account here. There's been a long-requested feature to allow account instance migration a la Mastodon style, making such a weighting or restriction more equitable.
requiring an account on this instance is not going to stop everyone, and it doesn't need to. i think this is on par with adding captcha to the account creation. people who are determined to disrupt will still get through, but this minimizes the possibility of low effort trolling.
i agree that voting shouldn't be tied to account reputation or age. if someone's going to create an account just to vote here then so be it.
Nay
People from different instances visit communities on this one and must follow its rules, so they should have a say on them.
Moreover, having to create a separate account just to be able to vote here is impractical, but I doubt it will stop those who are in bad faith.
Nay, I thought half the point was that "the instance you join doesn't matter much." I'd generally like more cohesion, not walled communities that you need 5 different accounts for.
Edit: I want to add to this. Nowhere in the community description here does it say it's meant for sh.itjust.works community discussion/voting. I think there's value in a community closed to sh.itjust.works that ONLY discusses sh.itjust.works relevant topics/polls. But this isn't the community for it.
I'm still an Aye.
I already have 4 accounts on different instances, which is useful while Beehaw does their defederation thing. Part of this decentralized federation is that each instance gets to make it's own rules on how it operates. Why should members of one instance get to make all the rules for another one?
If someone wants to make an account and participate in the growth of this particular instance then they're already vested in this community.
This is exactly how I feel. Maybe I need to re-read theDude's OP about the direction of the instance but I thought this was a place to discuss the Administration of this instance, so why would people from other instances get the same say and input? You don't vote for other country's elections...
Aye--in at least some cases. (I am responding to the matter "Only those with an account on this instance should vote on the Agora." I am seeing a bug where if I scroll down then back up, I see the title and body of a different post, so if this goes to the wrong place, mods please move it to the correct place)
I can foresee some issues that might be open to vote by everyone on Lemmy, and those that should be open only to members of this instance. A vote to allow or ban certain types of content (say, porn or gore) should be restricted to the membership of the instance, with owner/admin having authority for absolute bans on grounds of "hosting that content is illegal where this instance is hosted" or similar grounds. Perhaps a vote to remove a moderator might be open to all users on the grounds that members of other instances may be active contributors and have a genuine stake.
So I vote Aye to restrict instance policy votes to members of this instance at least some of the time. I would also vote that anyone from anywhere can share discussion and opinion on any topic even if they may not cast a vote.
Nay.
It's kinda pointless.
Nay. I feel this suggestion is based in the old centralized platform mentality. That isn't to say it is wrong, but it seems based in a premise that does not apply to a federated platform. If you start thinking about how a federated platform actually works, I could join this community...and others on this instance...from an account on another server. Why would we treat someone as second class citizens for using the Fediverse in the way it was intended?
For those thinking "they can just make an account here if they want to vote", you are right. They could. But that also goes back to centralist mentality. We want to be able to interact with people and communities regardless of which instance houses the data object that is my account. From that perspective, I feel voting should be more inclusive than just those who have a user object stored on this instance.
My question back to you would be, what problem are you trying to solve by this limitation? I'm sure there are any number of hurdles we will need to address with open voting, but we have to identify those problems first.
Aye
Of course their input should always be welcomed, but the final decision should be ours.
Aye
Don't want to get brigaded, so requiring minimal effort to vote seems appropriate.
Nay.
Servers are an implementation detail that shouldn't matter to users in the first place.
Aye
Edit to acknowledge that I have read The Dude's comment, but given that it is open registration someone who wants a vote can register easily (right now). Vote remains aye, but this alone may not be sufficient re: enfranchisement. It is a necessary, if insufficient, qualifier I agree with.
Nay (Even though I'm on sh.itjust.works)
There is no point to have a Federated community not allowing federated users
Lemmy is not made to create an account on every instances either, don't create a myriad of accounts on every instances, this defies the point why Federation principle was made, to dispatch the content and the load
Aye, but people outside the instance should be encouraged to participate in discussions.
Still staying with that opinion, despite the current discussion started by The Dude.
On third thought, reading some of the comments here, maybe a universal answer is wrong here. We should distinguish between instance-only questions (signing up, defederation,...) and community relevant ones (re communities,...?) I keep the vote in case we don't distinguish.
Aye, it is better to start with being more restrictive; especially with an influx of new accounts. If in practice it is not achieving the desired goal of hindering bad actors we can try something else. that being said the only way to see the actual benefit is to try. Perhaps try it for a month with a vote at the end to make the rule permanent?
Aye, but with the caveat that people outside the instance should be allowed/encouraged to make comments if they feel it has value.
The problem I've got with that (at the moment and hopefully that will be fixed) is that those of us on Jerboa can't see where users come from. Heck even on the website it can be easy to miss...
Aye
I know I'm too late to really weigh in on this, but this community is still vastly smaller than others and could get overwhelmed by votes that reflect what's best for lemmy.world and not sh.itjust.works. (I know it's an over-used example, but I'm okay with other instances restricting CCP criticism as long as this one allows it)
My understanding of the federated vs centralized argument is that we actually want different servers to be run independently and then bring different things to Lemmy as a whole. If we had the same rules across all of the instances, then we might as well be one big centralized instance again
Nay
We have open registration anyway, so there wouldn't be much friction if an outsider wanted to create an account to vote. We're large enough that we can rely on our numbers, we just need to make sure everyone knows about the Agora.
After creating an account and agreeing to follow the rules they aren't an outsider anymore.
Nay, I agree with TheDude
Nay
Nay
Nay
Nay
But honestly I'm kinda divided, I think people who are part of other instances but post and interact with the communities here should have a say, but I'm afraid of other communities brigading and flooding votes to get an outcome here they want. In general I think people from other instances should be able to vote but there's a lot of nuance here
Aye.
Not sure if that is a feature of Lemmy but it seems pretty simple to script an automod to do mod things to people who post here without being on the instance.
Aye
Nay.
I changed my vote because I have been using the federated functionality and it's awesome.
Aye
Nay
edit: changed to nay after reading thedude
I think discussion should be open to anyone, but voting should only be by those who will be bound by the changed rules.
People with accounts on other instances have their own sets of rules to be concerned with and are not obligated to follow the rules decided on and implemented by this instance.
Nay
Aye
Edit: Wow how fascinating, someone already went through my profile and downvoted all my comments.
First vote, first big mistake.
This vote should be taken as invalid because arguments must be heared before an informed decision can be made. Valid arguments have been brought in after people had already voted.
[removed wrong user mention]
Edit: and there exist methods of not only doing a polarising yes/no vote but more nuanced ones when there is more than just one option. Systemic consensing is one that i know of.
Edit 2: we should first make sure that we agree on the modus operandi, anyway. For example, also the open "yes/no" reply vote might not be acceptable to everyone (there would have been up/down-voting available,why not use that?)