[Darth-Apple]

So I've long had an idea (for years, as a matter of fact). One that I would never be able to pull off, but I'm going to share the idea here. Maybe someone can make it happen some day. 

It's called the anarchy forum, but believe me, it's not without order. Rather, the order, structure, and heirarchy come entirely from the members/community. It is self organized, self staffed, and self managed. 

It's self managed.

It would be built entirely around the reputation system. Users with a large amount of reputation would gain extra powers on the forum for moderation, etc. Users with the most reputation out of all members would become the administrators. There would be policies and restrictions in place, of course. New users would not be able to down-rep, and there would be people responsible for making sure that clone accounts, etc. were banned. 

The site ownership would be almost non-existant and anonymous. Administation would be done almost entirely by members who have gained the most reputation. Likewise, they could be overthrown if, by community vote, someone else is put in charge. In other words, the community would be entirely managed ONLY by the most respected members of the community at any given time. 

That being said, there would be a global admin account that would be managed by a few people (and certainly the person managing the server as well), and that admin account would (anonymously) deal with any situations where illegal content gets posted or policies are violated. This account would never post, but would act anonymously to moderate the forum against anything that the community doesn't self-moderate.

The concern is that it would probably wind up along the lines of the 2B2T minecraft server (a server where there are no rules). Ideally, the goal would be to absolutely establish normal rules and order, but to have it self-established. Instead of the administration running everything, the community runs it. In practice, there would have to be restrictions and policies in place, and there would have to be at least some administration outside of the community-centered model. It would never work otherwise.

Nevertheless, it's a unique idea. I've never seen this done in practice before. Maybe someday, it will become a reality.

[tc4me]

HY Darth-Apple, the idea is basically great, but as has been shown for centuries, I do not humanity suitable for anarchy. At some point there will be a situation where one should / has to take responsibility for a mistake made and nobody will admit it.
My opinion
As an idea, this current is wonderful, but not really feasible, not really worth striving for. This idea is represented by people who are outside of anarchy, but also within the movement. The fact that there is a minority movement within the anarchist movement speaks for the acceptance of this trend, against the fact that this direction creates reluctance to understand pure anarchism.

Anarchists imagine a society without prisoners, guards, courts and police officers. But won't that be the fight against everyone? How should a free society defend itself against anti-social and destructive behavior? To stimulate debate on these and other questions, a look will be taken at anarchist and radical perspectives on law, dissent and punishment, and the role of prison in modern society.

and so on :-)

[Guardian]

That's basically Reddit right?

I've wanted to do something like this, just getting the userbase there in the first place is the hard part. Take Aeowulf, in the intro post I state it will be flexible to the community, so its kinda along those lines. That's why I went intentionally away from a name that makes you think of any major topics.

The problem: Users.

When we can get past that, then it could be possible.

[Darth-Apple]

That’s the issue with a decentralized administration in a lot of ways. If there isn’t any clear leadership and it’s reddit-style community driven, somebody is going to have to really push activity during the early days. Getting the users won’t be easy as you say.

As TC said anarchy just doesn’t quite work in practice. There would have to be some sort of structure. But reddit does a good job mostly decentralizing it.

I had a plan here to have active, high REP members of the community manage featured content and decide what gets posted on the portal, etc. we have plugins installed already for that here, but it’s built on top of the super moderator system, so it’s all or nothing on those tools. That would never work for us.

Eventually that’s the goal. To have featured content be managed by high rep members of the community, but we gotta do a lot of custom coding before that’s possible.

[tc4me]

how I see it, anarchism is what people do when you let them do what they want to do, and when they interact with equally free people who are aware of the mutual responsibility that such freedom brings. This leads us to another crucial point: while people can be sensitive and considerate when they meet others at eye level, it is human nature that this no longer applies once one has power over the other. If people are endowed with such power, they will almost certainly abuse it in one way or another. What is it really like? It is stronger and weaker, and man is unfortunately doomed to exercise his power when he is stronger. Look at the history of mankind ... the same would be in a forum, as soon as someone has the power and makes decisions, eg in conversations in conversation, which as everyone knows, then abuse and insults end, it takes a " strong "who has the" power to regulate this ...

[Darth-Apple]

I agree completely. That’s the sort of thing that happens unfortunately. As soon as someone is in power, they have to maintain it.

Power corrupts. It’s hard to find leaders who have a good moral foundation anymore. The ones who do usually end up getting overtaken by those who play it dirty to win.

I’m a firm believer that the best leaders are usually the ones who didn’t want to become leaders, but who were chosen by those around them. They usually aren’t in it for the power, but have a much stronger moral foundation in general.

[tc4me]

think anarchy only works if everyone can do everything and that equally well. that means everyone should be able to do everything, everyone should be bakers, technicians, car mechanics, politicians, etc. and also have the same view, because only then would everyone be on the same level. none would be richer or poorereveryone would make the same amount, SO WE ARE SPIRIT AND LEBLESS CLONES

[SpookyZalost]

You know rather than anarchy, wouldn't a meritocracy be more effective since those with the most ability rise to the top?

maybe a democratic meritocracy where the people elect their leaders from a list of the best of the best?

[Darth-Apple]

I totally forgot about this thread.

Really, anarchy just leads someone to become powerful no matter what. Someone is always seen as a leader sooner or later, and even if it's controlled (or deliberate) chaos, someone still ends up with the reigns.

But the idea of having a structured way for which the rules are always the same, a way that is democratic, that's always been interesting to me. Done right, it's certainly plausible. It'd take the right person to lead it though.

[Kyng]

Yeah, that sounds like it wouldn't work at all.

I mean, if the entire member base acted in good faith, then it'd be awesome. However, it'd only take one rogue member to completely screw it up - especially if they had access to the admin account (sure, this is a risk on any forum, but the more people have access to the ACP, the greater a risk it is). And, even if that doesn't happen... building everything around the 'reputation' mechanic just means it's bound to end up like most subreddits do: as an echo chamber where the only opinion you're allowed on any given topic is the popular opinion (as in, popular within the community).

[SpookyZalost]

or worse...

if you've seen that one episode of the orville you can quickly tell exactly how a society based on how reddit works can go horribly horribly wrong.

[Darth-Apple]

That would be... a disaster.

Stack Overflow sort of is community managed like that, but it's governed by the norms needed to survive. In a sense, every society is. Anarchies are societies that have just not yet established those norms.

[Kyng]

Anarchies are societies that have just not yet established those norms.

You know, this looks like something I'm going to have to steal, when it becomes relevant to another discussion at some point in the future .