[Discussion] Limit the voting power of the Agora

As a more casual user that has chosen ShitJustWorks as his new home instance, I don't feel inclined to participate daily in the internal politics of this instance. Yet (semi) daily, the Agora seems to vote on issues that will affect me directly, such as defederating from instances the thread-starters deem to be harmful, something I am fundamentally opposed to as long as the block functionailty is sufficient to filter content you really don't want to see.

I suspect that many more people on this instance feel the same way, not wanting to participate daily in internal politics that is, or aren't even aware of the voting power the Agora holds. After all, the fediverse explorer currently shows over 6000 users belonging to this instance, with over 2000 active monthly. Yet the most commented-on voting thread in here has merely 200 votes, so only 10% of users will change the rules for all users in this instance.

I fear a 'tyranny of the active few', to put it in hyperbolic terms, that has the potential to drive away the majority of people.

But I also recognize the usefulness of the Agora and as such, I would like to suggest some voting rules:

At any point in time, there will be just one voting thread open on the Agora where people get to decide on issues that will affect how the instance is run in the future, pinned at the very top.
In this thread, up to X number of top-level comments will represent the actual issues to vote on. I suggest 10 as the maximum number of different votes in such a voting thread.
Voting will run for a full month, to allow maximum participation.
Over the month, people can create discussion threads for issues and preliminary voting threads to include those issues in the main voting thread. The X most popular issues will be voted on in the next month's main voting thread.

By limiting the number of issues to vote on, bringing them together in one thread and giving ample time for users to participate in the voting, it will be easier for casual users to keep track on what is being voted on and foster a voting culture that is backed by the majoriry of this instance's users.

23 comments

Now that we have a mod team in place for The Agora, this is our next priority. We're working on some preliminary guidelines based on previous discussions/votes that we'll be discussing soon.
For now, just know that we share your concerns. We want everyone to feel represented here, not just a vocal minority.
- Imo, votes should be rare. So maybe do what legislatures often do and require a vote to get an issue on the docket, then a discussion period, then a final vote. Perhaps schedule them as well so users know when they should check in.
  I know everyone is excited, I just don't have time for all this nonsense and I'd prefer to be able to ignore it most of the time.
  
  Nice
- That is good to know. In the long term, something like a concise page with only the relevant votes, with links to the respective discussions, as well as instance-wide announcements would be great.

Thanks for posting this. You've summed my concerns well. I've been active on agora (though mostly I have been posting in the logo topic) - but I've been doing it out a sense of needing the balance out the more motivated 'HOA' type users, who seems to be brigading around to an extent.
I really like all of your ideas but especially the voting needs to be done by comment upvotes or polls, instead of a chain of 'ayes' and 'nays' - and the votes needs to have clear rules about how long they run.
I get the sense that these things may be set after agora mods are in place. Thats just my assumption.
I also really think the agora community SHOULD NOT be able to target specific communities for defederation. Instead we should articulate rules that federated communties must adhere to, and auto defederate from communinities that are shown to break them. People aren't going to want to wait a month to be defederated from a gore instance or something like that.
The process is way too witch hunty as it is. It got very toxic very fast.
- I think clear guidelines are a great idea.
  I think one of the biggest fears with any social media is that you will get involved in a network and the owners of that network will start leading things in a way that doesn't match your values (cough Twitter).
  Having clear, public guidelines helps people make a decision about joining the instance and prevents people from feeling bad about their decisions

I didn't even understand what this place was until now. The description makes no reference to the kind of power the community has over the instance, painting it as some sort of purely philosophical space. It's not even something you're subscribed to by default.
- Yeah, the community needs it's description completely changed or we need to do this somewhere else. Doesn't make any sense.

I agree. I don't want a small number of highly motivated individuals with grudges, vendettas, and ideological priors having that much power. Ban TheDonald type stuff, bots, etc. but otherwise be very careful
- Agreed that's how you ruin a community fast.

These are good ideas and I share the concern. The dynamic is similar to city government, where an active minority of usually wealthy retired homeowners has outsized power because they have more leisure time. It's undemocratic.
Another idea to ensure that decisions are not made by an unrepresentative minority is a minimal voting threshold. For example: Only threads with a minimum of x votes will be considered. (Where x might be a percentage of total users of the instance, so that it changes over time.) It would be silly to make important decisions based on a thread with just a handful of votes.

Call me a pessimist, but I see this only going the way of a hive mind against whatever becomes unpopular at the moment. The good news is I already have another account elsewhere.
- This seems like it's going to be the real answer. Making accounts all over the place to be able to see what isn't part of a particular instance's taste will likely become normal. Defederating should really be more of an extreme answer to blocking a community of spam bots or actual criminals. Not "ding dong your opinion is wrong".
  
  Yeah, unlike the average person on FB I am here literally to be exposed to new and different ideas. Obviously, it's garbage in garbage brain so I'm not interested in reading BS but I don't want someone else deciding what I cannot even see from here. With the exception you mentioned - actual criminals, scams and spam bots but that's it.
- Well not actually the OP's main point is decisions are being made super fast so there is no time to even get the opinion of the hive mind but instead an active few get to pick the direction.

Definitely important that users should be able to fully participate in voting by checking in once, maybe twice a month. I don't like feeling like I have to check in once a day or more to feel like I'm participating. Discussions should run longer than just a day or two as well. Any active discussion threads, or discussions related to current voting issues should be pinned for easy reference.
- Man, new votes open and old close on friday. Weekly is OK as i think.

I agree with the direction you’re suggesting. I think it may also be helpful to identify a few key issues that would require more than a simple majority vote to overturn.
In particular, we’ve already gotten multiple posts on defederating from various instances, and on clearing our defederation list. My suggestion is that something like once per month we hold a vote on defederation issues. A 2/3 majority vote to defederate/refederate must be achieved to pass.

I don't like the whole thing at all. Thankfully I have accounts on other instances which whom I can browse the Fediverse. I do need this one here to moderate my community, though, since there seems to be a bug with moderating one on a remote server.
This whole mob-rules thing smells like High School drama.
- Yeah, I'd rather have a republic-type system. As in, we vote for mods, mods make most decisions, and we revote for mods periodically.
  It seems to work pretty well in most democracies. Keep an easy to track ledger of who voted for what and why and I'll vote every so often to replace bad mods. Maybe do a short tenure to start, like 1 month, and gradually expand it as people get used to the system.

Commented on something like this the other day. Official votes should be limited to its own community with only active votes. The slate of votes would run at standard times (i.e. Sunday to Sunday). The agora could be used for discussion and meeting a threshold for a topic to clear to be put on the voting slate.

At any point in time, there will be just one voting thread open on the Agora where people get to decide on issues that will affect how the instance is run in the future, pinned at the very top.
already done, "Changes to the Agora" post. Well pinning isn't but obviously these threads will get upvoted enough to get to the top of practically any sorting. I do agree that it would be better to pin these.
I suspect that many more people on this instance feel the same way, not wanting to participate daily in internal politics that is, or aren’t even aware of the voting power the Agora holds
I argue that it is very simple, if one is aware that the Agora exists. Read the rules, vote in the one-week period. Feel free to participate in discussions.
I fear a ‘tyranny of the active few’, to put it in hyperbolic terms, that has the potential to drive away the majority of people.
Again, it is easy in my eyes.
Yet (semi) daily, the Agora seems to vote on issues that will affect me directly [...]
This seems to be the problem here. According to the changes post, there is one [Vote] post, Friday-Friday.

~~Have voting procedures even been agreed upon yet?~~ (yep, by the mods, see below) I believe there has been no regular voting been done yet?
Yeah valid concerns. ATM it's unacceptably chaotic.
related discussion:
https://sh.itjust.works/post/311690 (types of voting)
https://sh.itjust.works/post/248271 (ballot example)
https://sh.itjust.works/post/219960 (vote mechanics -- fell asleep without decision)
So how can we make a decision on the general order?
I would suggest we put together a rudimentary thing here which should be made sticky (a ballot and agreeable time limits, simple majorities). The rudimentary order should give a guide on how to vote and count votes in principal, so that could then be applied to also extend the discussion and voting order if required.
Edit: The moderators have just installed such principal voting mechanics which are very similar to what i suggested above. A discussion thread on how to refine/extend those methods is here: https://sh.itjust.works/post/415764

23 comments