[Vote] Only those with an account on this instance should vote on the Agora.

Those in favor reply "Aye"

Those against reply "Nay"

85 comments

Nay because anyone can make an account here who has an account elsewhere. In practice it makes absolutely no difference unless we somehow restrict account creation here which I also say Nay to doing so.
- I think it matters. It's not about practical difficulty - it's a mental barrier
  If you make an account here, you're a member. Doesn't matter if you have 4 other accounts on other servers, the minute you sign up this becomes one of your servers
  It's a very low bar, and a very open community. But I think you should have to actually join it, so that you feel invested in it

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

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.

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.
- I don't want people who haven't agreed to follow the same set of rules deciding what the rules are that I must follow.
  It's like how much of the world decided it didn't enjoy colonial rule so much.
  
  Where are people getting the idea that this community is for discussing administration of this instance?

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

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.
- 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.
- 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...
- If they're willing to put in the bare minimum of making an account and voting then I think that's okay.
  
  I could see this being a vulnerability though, there are people out there who would want to game democratic systems - particularly for hot-button issues, from real-life politics to defederating Meta.

Nay.
Servers are an implementation detail that shouldn't matter to users in the first place.

Aye
I agree with @captain_aggravated

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

Aye
Edit: Wow how fascinating, someone already went through my profile and downvoted all my comments.

Nay.

Aye/Nay:
I think that non-sh.itjust.works users should have a say in what goes on here due to the fact that the whole fediverse is an interconnected web of users and servers (the whole decentralized thing).
That being said, I can totally see a scenario where other instances vote to change the rules of this instance because they don't agree with certain content and/or a rule that we have.
Though, to be frank, as long as the open signup remains, people could just make an account (or several) on here to get around the voting restrictions.

"Aye" (but I think anyone can sign up so it's mostly about making someone jump through an automated hoop).

Edit: changing to nay after reading The Dude's comment.

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.

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?