Questions for the FG about the organization of the election

[towforce]

The forum has become a bit like Communist China.
You can stand to become a moderator only if you're rubber-stamped by the supreme leader(s).

Yes. It's strange. The healthy response is to laugh it off.

[jefk]

not going through (reading) this ridiculous thread (had a
look for some two seconds and then had enough)
Apparently the well respected Ed (hopefully remaining as moderator is endorsing
such discussion but if i would be moderator (*) i would simply close/lock this
imo pointless- discussion. some democracy, fine with me, but not anarchy
(*) 300k / yr would be ok, maybe, negotiable

so good grief, what it's all about in the first place, wondering
who would have the guts to become moderator after hgm
(or CW) ? just wondering. except for some discord kiddies
maybe but they won't get enough vote i think, cv or not

So the youth gangs think it's not a place for old men anymore ?
(just wondering)

[mclane]

I M O

This thread is about founders group anwering questions. But some people misuse the thread to attack the founders.
Ed warned that the thread should NOT misused for doing this.

To my disappointment, people used it for exactly THIS intention.

I have no clue why.

If people misuse this thread for personal attacks, it throws no good light on these people.
Sad thing.

[jefk]

better progress to elections (for some one or two new moderators)

and imo close this thread

[Rebel]

As a general remark, we are quite tolerant, we don't ban folks who break the charter they signed up for one offence, or even twice. Most of the bans are the sum of previous bad behavior and then sooner or later the inevitable last drop of our patience has reached and to remain creditable as moderator you have to interfere, much to our dislike BTW.

[towforce]

So the youth gangs think it's not a place for old men anymore ?
(just wondering)

[Eelco de Groot]

The forum has become a bit like Communist China.
You can stand to become a moderator only if you're rubber-stamped by the supreme leader(s).

Yes. It's strange. The healthy response is to laugh it off.

(An alternative political analogy, not important)

I do not doubt the good intentions of the triumvirate which I would choose as an analogy more than Communist China. I think HGM was the first to name it that but I'm not sure. The 'first triumvirate' in Roman history is usually understood to be Julius Caesar, Pompeius and Crassus. It is actually a misnomer because in Roman times these three never were understood as an official triumvirate and it was only much later that this term was coined, 16th Century or so now being used less and less. (Well that's what I read)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Triumvirate

Naming

The term "First Triumvirate", while well-known, is a misleading one which is regularly avoided by modern scholars of the late republic. Boards of a certain number of men such as decemviri were a feature of Roman administration, but this alliance was not counted among them. The term appears nowhere in any ancient source, refers to no official position, and is "completely and obviously erroneous".[1] In the ancient world, the triple alliance was referred to with varying terms: Cicero, contemporaneously, wrote of "three men" (tris homines)[2] exercising a regnum; a satire by Marcus Terentius Varro called it a "three-headed monster"; later historians such as Suetonius and Livy referred to the three as a societas or conspiratio; the allies themselves "would presumably have referred to it simply as amicitia".[3]

The usage of the term "triumvirate" to describe this political alliance was unattested during the Renaissance. First attested in 1681,[4] the term emerged into widespread use only during the 18th century; for some time, knowledge that the term was a modern coinage was unknown, "revealed" only in 1807. By the 19th century, usage was somewhat regular – mostly in English and French sources, though not in German ones, – usually prefaced with clarifications that the term did not refer to any official position.[5

Imagine what would have happened if these three men had actually wanted to restore the republic. So much bloodshed would have been avoided all over Europe and elsewhere around the Mediterranean, all our history would have been changed, Caesar would have never written about the "Bello Gallico" and if Asterix and Obelix would have ever been created, their adventures would have been much different. So it is not a little thing even if this is only Kandor, miniaturized Kryptonians living in a bottled city protected by Superman in his headquarter unter the ice, somewhere in Greenland presumably, and not Europe.


What I wanted to say really, moderator elections could also be transformed in Administrator elections, so one or two persons, who may or may not have programmer skills, that could fill in if one of our administrators would like to have a break, for vacation or visting relatives overseas and what not. And with a limited term. It would be more democratic, in my opinion at least, and more in line with what Srdja said that we have to think about the continuity of the forum in the long term. But this is just my personal opinion. Having three more moderators, with our administrative team also doing their best to maintain order. Is maybe a step on the road to too much bureacracy even if in line with the original "Soviet" principles of organizing everything from the bottom up.

[Rebel]

The forum has become a bit like Communist China.
You can stand to become a moderator only if you're rubber-stamped by the supreme leader(s).

Care to explain yourself what you mean by that?

[chrisw]

The forum has become a bit like Communist China.
You can stand to become a moderator only if you're rubber-stamped by the supreme leader(s).

Yes. It's strange. The healthy response is to laugh it off.

(An alternative political analogy, not important)

I do not doubt the good intentions of the triumvirate which I would choose as an analogy more than Communist China. I think HGM was the first to name it that but I'm not sure. The 'first triumvirate' in Roman history is usually understood to be Julius Caesar, Pompeius and Crassus. It is actually a misnomer because in Roman times these three never were understood as an official triumvirate and it was only much later that this term was coined, 16th Century or so now being used less and less. (Well that's what I read)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Triumvirate

Naming

The term "First Triumvirate", while well-known, is a misleading one which is regularly avoided by modern scholars of the late republic. Boards of a certain number of men such as decemviri were a feature of Roman administration, but this alliance was not counted among them. The term appears nowhere in any ancient source, refers to no official position, and is "completely and obviously erroneous".[1] In the ancient world, the triple alliance was referred to with varying terms: Cicero, contemporaneously, wrote of "three men" (tris homines)[2] exercising a regnum; a satire by Marcus Terentius Varro called it a "three-headed monster"; later historians such as Suetonius and Livy referred to the three as a societas or conspiratio; the allies themselves "would presumably have referred to it simply as amicitia".[3]

The usage of the term "triumvirate" to describe this political alliance was unattested during the Renaissance. First attested in 1681,[4] the term emerged into widespread use only during the 18th century; for some time, knowledge that the term was a modern coinage was unknown, "revealed" only in 1807. By the 19th century, usage was somewhat regular – mostly in English and French sources, though not in German ones, – usually prefaced with clarifications that the term did not refer to any official position.[5

Imagine what would have happened if these three men had actually wanted to restore the republic. So much bloodshed would have been avoided all over Europe and elsewhere around the Mediterranean, all our history would have been changed, Caesar would have never written about the "Bello Gallico" and if Asterix and Obelix would have ever been created, their adventures would have been much different. So it is not a little thing even if this is only Kandor, miniaturized Kryptonians living in a bottled city protected by Superman in his headquarter unter the ice, somewhere in Greenland presumably, and not Europe.


What I wanted to say really, moderator elections could also be transformed in Administrator elections, so one or two persons, who may or may not have programmer skills, that could fill in if one of our administrators would like to have a break, for vacation or visting relatives overseas and what not. And with a limited term. It would be more democratic, in my opinion at least, and more in line with what Srdja said that we have to think about the continuity of the forum in the long term. But this is just my personal opinion. Having three more moderators, with our administrative team also doing their best to maintain order. Is maybe a step on the road to too much bureacracy even if in line with the original "Soviet" principles of organizing everything from the bottom up.

Triumvirate is a known mechanism to avoid the dictatorship of one. Three having a mutual and natural opposing balance.

Maybe you conflate a little the admin/founder role? Founders have an ownership role, there has to be somebody(s) to organise the forum hosting, its software and external contracts, and with this ownership role come some legal responsibilities/obligations.
Admins have ultimate power (he who controls the software switches), so we designed things to prevent any one of us (or anyone else) from becoming either sole dictator (by seizing the switches) or destroying the forum (by erasing the data eg) - thus we each separately have equal admin rights and work to an FG democracy of balance of three.
FG is not up for voting in or out, the only way to change things is for one FG member to voluntarily transfer ownership (eg the shop sold its de facto ownership rights several months ago) to another, the other then taking on the rights and obligations of the leaving Founder.

As to voting for Admin role. This is way too powerful a position (destructive or coup d’etat) to make it subject to member voting. Not only that, but admins answer to the FG, not to members. Capitalist legal system and FG has ultimate legal responsibility.

If we could design an anarcho-syndicalist forum system which ran itself on goodwill, we would. Unfortunately though, computer chess seems way too dysfunctional a space.

Moderation? Well that would/should work if there was common goal, common interest and common politic. Only there isn’t, there’s another body politic which seems determined to impose its own idea of who and who doesn’t have existence rights (driving people off and bullying has been a major theme of this last period) and, when resisted by moderation, then turns its bile onto the moderators, treating elections as just another form of warfare and elimination.
Have a nice day, folks.

[Viren]

not going through (reading) this ridiculous thread (had a
look for some two seconds and then had enough)
Apparently the well respected Ed (hopefully remaining as moderator is endorsing
such discussion but if i would be moderator (*) i would simply close/lock this
imo pointless- discussion. some democracy, fine with me, but not anarchy
(*) 300k / yr would be ok, maybe, negotiable

so good grief, what it's all about in the first place, wondering
who would have the guts to become moderator after hgm
(or CW) ? just wondering. except for some discord kiddies
maybe but they won't get enough vote i think, cv or not

So the youth gangs think it's not a place for old men anymore ?
(just wondering)

This post initially called us "psychopathic kiddies". Somehow there is 0 consequences for this. Meanwhile someone else gets a week ban for "Old men never learn their lesson.". Why is there such a bias, is the dementia already starting to kick in or is it something more sinister?