The rise and fall of online civilizations

Last year, I signed up for a subscription to Ping! Zine. It’s a magazine geared toward web hosting providers. I don’t do web hosting but I signed up because 1) the first issue had interesting articles and 2) it was free. The latest issue arrived a couple of days ago and one of the articles really got my attention.

The article title is The Civics & Sociology of Community Driven Content Websites (page 12). You can download the issue here (PDF). The main point of the article was comparing the governing style of Slashdot (representative democracy) and Digg (direct democracy).

If you want to know more, you have to read the article. What I took away from the article was a new way of looking at message boards. There are many where the admins and moderators rule with an iron fist. Say anything “out of line” and it’s an automatic ban. There are also many boards where it seems there is no moderation at all. Board members are free to say what they want without any rules of use at all (or they are simply ignored).

Is one right and the other wrong? What about the middle where everything appears to run smooth? Think of a message board as a country and you see the great thing about the Internet. Talk about open borders. Citizens (members) are free to move from one country (board) to another and it doesn’t matter.

The members will ultimately decide the fate of a site. I’ve seen members get tired of the moderators, or other members, of a board (Site 1) and so they start their own board (Site 2). Pretty soon, other members of Site 1 decide they like Site 2 better so they migrate there. Site 1 slows down and eventually just fades away. Of course, I’ve also seen a Site 2 start up but it’s gone not long afterward due to lack of interest.

Build your country and run it the way you want to run it. The members, whether many or just a few, will either drive it to success or over a cliff. Enjoy the ride while it last, Ceasar.

Let the people think they govern, and they will be governed. - William Penn

30.Oct.07 Internet

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5 Responses to “The rise and fall of online civilizations”

fullmetalashamam | October 31st, 2007 at 2:57 am
Come one man, the first hit is always free!

You want to be one of the cool kids dontcha?

Hmm, an interesting article. The magic word for websites, I think, is content. Similarly with messageboards. Only on the message boards its sort of a chicken and egg thing.

Regarding the whole members thing, it’s a tough call. And I can see people making good arguements for both cases. For me personally I prefer the method that slashdot impliments.

The problem with the “diggmocracy” (nyuk nyuk )is that it gives an equal footing to EVERYONE. You can guess the inherent problems of this by the age old saying. Just look at the average IQ of the population, and then cringe in fear as you realise that half of the people are dumber than that.

Although slashdot isn’t without its faults here; I will say that their user (or whatever you call it) is a good way of telling which comments are good and which ain’t.

I’ll be very happy when they make it so that I can view the comments (all of them) in the discussion thingy. Whenever I click it goes to another page and that makes me angry. >:-| Just how hard is it to do the whole, Javascript enabled click to show comments?

It’s a pity the article ended without a good conclusion.

“Let them hate me, as long as they fear me.”
–Josef Stalin

On an unrelated note, is it normal for a new wireless router to drop its connection thrice or twice a day? The drop time is about 15 seconds. I bought this about 2 weeks ago (hence the change in IP) and was just wondering.
Rollie | October 31st, 2007 at 4:56 am
Glad to hear you enjoyed the article. There are certainly some zingers in there.

I’ve written a lot of articles in the past about message boards. Much of it was on Lockergnome so I’m not sure if it’s even there… actually, I’m pretty sure it’s there but my name is no longer credited.

With the message boards I’ve been involved with, I’ve been accused of being a Nazi, commie, and fascist… never was accused of being a Caesar, which probably would have been an improvement. In my case, it was never so much because I banned quickly (even though I gave lots of second/third/nth chances) but rather because I banned AT ALL.

Ironically, in the case of my last board (I’ve been involved with these things since the early 90s), I guess I essentially banned myself. After seeing how quickly it died in my absence, I’m not sure whether to take it as a compliment that it couldn’t live without me or an insult because it couldn’t live without me, though I’m siding with the latter because it was never meant to be about me in the first place.

People have kind of a funny relationship with “leaders” in that way. Deep down, people are instinctively attracted to those who are willing to make a judgment call (just look at all the judge shows on TV) and will gladly defer to them most of the time. But at the same time, we always think we know better.

To anyone else out there getting into running boards, here’s about the best advice I can give. To quote Neal Boortz (radio guy… not sure if he originated this quote), “never mistake your FANS with FOLLOWERS.” They will turn on you as quickly as anyone, so don’t believe your own good press. At the same time, don’t ever cave to them and even if you do don’t let them know you did. Look at the boards that put every freaking thing to a vote and how chaotic they get before long.

The bottom line is, the people in charge have to stay in the drivers seat. That’s because the truth is the members will ALWAYS drive it over a cliff if allowed (just like with all democratic governments), though they may very well drive it to success along the way. That said, part of the fun is letting yourself forget that from time to time.

In regards to wireless routers, I wouldn’t say it’s *normal* to drop at all. It could have something to do with a DHCP lease running out. You didn’t mention whether you meant inside or outside but if the problem is your internal network dropping, you might want to either extend the DHCP lease time or go with static IP addressing.
wyckedone | November 4th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
FMS: What kind of wireless router is it? If your computer worked fine on the old one but it losing connection all the time on the new one, I’d look for either a firmware upgrade that fixes the problem or the receipt to take it back (exchange for same or different).
fullmetalashaman | November 6th, 2007 at 2:11 am
I have come to a conclusion. The whole field of computing was created by a sadistic maniac who enjoys making me suffer.

How else would you explain the fact that my router stopped dropping connections about after a day or so?

I didn’t have to touch a thing, it just started working on it’s own. How very suspicious. >_>;;;

@lineman: Yeah, I was thinking that there may be something to do with what you said. I flipped though the manual when I set it up, and there was a couple of pages about that.

@wyckedone: That’s the thing, I didn’t have a router before. I only connected wirelessly to other peoples/friends/the school network, so I didn’t have much to compare it to.

If the connection drops start up again, I think I’ll go for broke. I’ll exchange it for one that works. Fortunately it’s underwarrenty.

Sorry about not commenting right away. I wanted to see if the behavior continued before taking any further action.

Regarding the original topic:

As far as I am concerned (I mean, I don’t know if you ever done this or not) putting things to a members vote is a stupid idea. It’s YOUR site and you should be able to say if something is right or wrong. They don’t like it? Too Bad. Your investment, your time, your money and therefore YOUR rules.

I am not saying that asking what people think is a bad thing, just that doing things after reaching a general consensus isn’t the most beneficial thing.It’s the age old saying, A camel is a horse designed by commitee.

You’ll also get people who are either too worked up about an issue or those that are too meek and apathetic to even CARE! The second group is the most annonying, especially if you care about what you are doing.

About it “not being about you”, I can dig it. You wanted a place where people can have a discussion, where idea-bouncer-of-ers and newbies and intelligent people can frequent and help each other. (ie, an idea-place. NOT the adventures of Rollie Hawk and friends) Kinda like Macgyver, except without the mullet.

I don’t know enough about online communities to say with any confidence how much or how little you have to fuxor up to be banned, but i am surpried that people actually complained when you(or anyone else for that matter) bans at all. I thought the standerd procedure was to ban and never (re)allow posting privelidges again.

I can count on one hand the number of guys I recall you banning. So it must have taken some major stupidity to be given up on.

On a COMPLETELY UNRELATED question, do you think I should install BSD on my laptop? I feel that I am ready to HAX !+ 2 da Ma>< !!! I also feel that I am ready to make snide and discouraging comments on other peoples blogs and get involved in things that don’t concern me.

All hail SATAN!!

…errm Caesar. (That’s what I meant, I swear)

Speaking of sadistic maniacs who create computers, I feel compelled to inform anyone who is reading this to update your core laptop software. Most of the stuff that comes with the comp is TEN FIGGIN VERSIONS behind what is up to date. Following this advice will stop you from having to curse at inanimate objects when your machine freezes up while loading a game.

This guideline applies especially for audio and video driver updates. (I knew about windows update and the like, but I stumbled upon this little tidbit of information purely by chance).
Rollie | November 6th, 2007 at 4:54 am
The conventional wisdom is that unless you have a very standardized laptop (e.g. a Mac) then you will probably have trouble with any BSD. Drivers will be an issue.