Youāre describing elections, not the absence of hierarchy. That may make your server representative, but it doesnāt make it non-hierarchical. Someone still fits the role of admin, someone still has the keys to the machine, and someone can still pull the plug on the entire server at any moment.
Thatās not egalitarianismāthatās hierarchy with window dressing. Elections donāt erase the structure. They just decide who occupies it. And the structure itself carries the same asymmetries: technical control, federation policies, enforcement of rules, the ability to de-federate or delete outright.
Which is fineāserver administration is hierarchical by design. But it undercuts your attempt to paint my stance as authoritarian. Iām upfront about what the role entails: curating and enforcing standards in the space Iām responsible for. Youāre doing the same thing, just phrased differently.
And that flourish about āpointless debating pointsā is cowardice. Youāve been caught in your own contradictionāpreaching anarchism while holding the keys to a serverāand rather than face it, you try to wave it away. Thatās not an argument. Thatās an admission youāve got nothing left.
If I abused my position I would fully expect to be held accountable by one of our other admins. And Iāve also reversed mod decisions due to user feedback. But in order to do that youāve got to be open and responsive to feedback in the first place. But when you are the sole admin there is nobody to keep your ego in check. I still had that [left], I guess.
Thank you for describing it as a flourish, I liked that part.
You are making a ton of assumptions based total ignorance of how dbzer0 is operated and governed, even how many admins we have, or of the history of how it ended up under db0ās project domain. And itās not my job to educate you, especially because I can tell already that nothing I can say will disabuse you of your self-serving preconceptions.
It really doesnāt matter how many admins youāve got or how you divvy up the titles. Lemmy, by design, requires an admin for it to even function. That alone makes it hierarchical.
Any community can only be what the software allows it to be. And Lemmy hardcodes a structure: admin ā mods ā lowly āusers.ā (Isnāt it funny how both the software industry and drug dealers refer to people as āusersā?) Your ideals canāt undo the fact that this is a hierarchy baked into the system.
If you truly believed in the purity of your anarchism, no one would āownā the server. Hell, there wouldnāt even be a server. It would all be peer-to-peer nodes, something closer to Secure Scuttlebutt.
But instead youāre here, running software built from the ground up for hierarchy. And youāre an admin of it. How very anarchist of you.
You seem to hold a fundamentally different view of what an admin can/should be. Idk if thatās just a consequence of a turbolib brain or what, but it sounds incredibly foreign to me. In my experience on Blahaj and here on DB0, the understanding is that the admins are providing a service for us. Provider, protector, facilitator- these titles donāt represent an inherent hierarchy, and neither does administrator
The thing is, all communities on the Internet can only ever be what the system is designed to allow.
If a platform is built for hierarchy, then it is a hierarchyāregardless of the ideals people bring into it. No amount of goodwill or re-labelling (āprovider,ā āprotector,ā āfacilitatorā) changes the fact that the software has hard-coded roles with asymmetric power.
And this isnāt some quirky personal view of mine. People far more intelligent than me have been pointing this out for decades. Lawrence Lessig, in Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (1999), put it bluntly:
āCode is law. What people can and cannot do in cyberspace is regulated by the software and hardware that make cyberspace what it is.ā
Geert Lovink, in Networks Without a Cause (2011), made the same point about platforms and power:
āDesign decisions are power decisions. Interfaces, defaults, permissionsāthey do not merely āenableā interaction, they structure it, and in doing so they impose hierarchies.ā
Helen Nissenbaum, in Values in Design (2005), sharpened it further:
āThe architectures of systemsātheir technical frameworksāinevitably embed social and political values. Claims to neutrality obscure the ways in which they establish constraints and privileges.ā
History is full of examples where egalitarian ideals ran headlong into the hard wall of software architecture.
Wikipedia was envisioned as a flat, peer-produced projectāyet its reliance on admin powers and arbitration committees quickly created an entrenched hierarchy of āsuper-editors.ā Redditās early culture thrived on openness, but its karma system and centralized admins ultimately entrenched a ranking-and-punishment order that couldnāt be wished away. Even early Usenet communities, which imagined themselves as free-flowing conversations, were shaped by killfiles, moderators, and backbone hierarchies dictated by the protocol itself.
So when I point out that Lemmy is hierarchical, itās not some rhetorical trick. Itās simply recognizing that hierarchy is baked into the software.
You can call admins āfacilitators,ā you can hold elections, you can promise benevolenceābut the structure is still a pyramid, and it will always tilt power toward whoever holds the keys.
Thatās not a matter of interpretation. Itās a matter of design.
![[Update] AtomicPoet has deleted the piefed.social communities where he was the sole moderator ([email protected] being the exception). Content is still available, details in the linked post](https://lazysoci.al/pictrs/image/cb7c5a29-e297-41a8-bde5-698ba205c3fd.png){kind=link}
Youāre describing elections, not the absence of hierarchy. That may make your server representative, but it doesnāt make it non-hierarchical. Someone still fits the role of admin, someone still has the keys to the machine, and someone can still pull the plug on the entire server at any moment.
Thatās not egalitarianismāthatās hierarchy with window dressing. Elections donāt erase the structure. They just decide who occupies it. And the structure itself carries the same asymmetries: technical control, federation policies, enforcement of rules, the ability to de-federate or delete outright.
Which is fineāserver administration is hierarchical by design. But it undercuts your attempt to paint my stance as authoritarian. Iām upfront about what the role entails: curating and enforcing standards in the space Iām responsible for. Youāre doing the same thing, just phrased differently.
And that flourish about āpointless debating pointsā is cowardice. Youāve been caught in your own contradictionāpreaching anarchism while holding the keys to a serverāand rather than face it, you try to wave it away. Thatās not an argument. Thatās an admission youāve got nothing left.
If I abused my position I would fully expect to be held accountable by one of our other admins. And Iāve also reversed mod decisions due to user feedback. But in order to do that youāve got to be open and responsive to feedback in the first place. But when you are the sole admin there is nobody to keep your ego in check. I still had that [left], I guess.
Thank you for describing it as a flourish, I liked that part.
So if you ever abuse your power, youāll be held accountableā¦ by the other admin.
The other guy sitting at the top of the hierarchy.
The same guy who named the whole server after himself.
Yeah, no hierarchies or egos here. Just pure, uncut anarchism.
You are making a ton of assumptions based total ignorance of how dbzer0 is operated and governed, even how many admins we have, or of the history of how it ended up under db0ās project domain. And itās not my job to educate you, especially because I can tell already that nothing I can say will disabuse you of your self-serving preconceptions.
It really doesnāt matter how many admins youāve got or how you divvy up the titles. Lemmy, by design, requires an admin for it to even function. That alone makes it hierarchical.
Any community can only be what the software allows it to be. And Lemmy hardcodes a structure: admin ā mods ā lowly āusers.ā (Isnāt it funny how both the software industry and drug dealers refer to people as āusersā?) Your ideals canāt undo the fact that this is a hierarchy baked into the system.
If you truly believed in the purity of your anarchism, no one would āownā the server. Hell, there wouldnāt even be a server. It would all be peer-to-peer nodes, something closer to Secure Scuttlebutt.
But instead youāre here, running software built from the ground up for hierarchy. And youāre an admin of it. How very anarchist of you.
Lmao you are the very worst example of a reddit-style debate bro Iāve ever seen on Lemmy. No wonder everything is going so well for you.
Thanks, thoughāour back-and-forth did get me thinking about the feasibility of true peer-to-peer software that offers Reddit-like topical functions.
Something where there arenāt admins, mods, or āusers.ā Something anarchist by design, not just by branding.
Appreciate the inspiration.
You seem to hold a fundamentally different view of what an admin can/should be. Idk if thatās just a consequence of a turbolib brain or what, but it sounds incredibly foreign to me. In my experience on Blahaj and here on DB0, the understanding is that the admins are providing a service for us. Provider, protector, facilitator- these titles donāt represent an inherent hierarchy, and neither does administrator
The thing is, all communities on the Internet can only ever be what the system is designed to allow.
If a platform is built for hierarchy, then it is a hierarchyāregardless of the ideals people bring into it. No amount of goodwill or re-labelling (āprovider,ā āprotector,ā āfacilitatorā) changes the fact that the software has hard-coded roles with asymmetric power.
And this isnāt some quirky personal view of mine. People far more intelligent than me have been pointing this out for decades. Lawrence Lessig, in Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (1999), put it bluntly:
Geert Lovink, in Networks Without a Cause (2011), made the same point about platforms and power:
Helen Nissenbaum, in Values in Design (2005), sharpened it further:
History is full of examples where egalitarian ideals ran headlong into the hard wall of software architecture.
Wikipedia was envisioned as a flat, peer-produced projectāyet its reliance on admin powers and arbitration committees quickly created an entrenched hierarchy of āsuper-editors.ā Redditās early culture thrived on openness, but its karma system and centralized admins ultimately entrenched a ranking-and-punishment order that couldnāt be wished away. Even early Usenet communities, which imagined themselves as free-flowing conversations, were shaped by killfiles, moderators, and backbone hierarchies dictated by the protocol itself.
So when I point out that Lemmy is hierarchical, itās not some rhetorical trick. Itās simply recognizing that hierarchy is baked into the software.
You can call admins āfacilitators,ā you can hold elections, you can promise benevolenceābut the structure is still a pyramid, and it will always tilt power toward whoever holds the keys.
Thatās not a matter of interpretation. Itās a matter of design.
I think the problem is that youāre just being a nerd about this tbh