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FTA > The problem 10 years ago was that the electorate was far too picky and rejected candidates who should have been promoted. Today, every potential candidat
by Multicomp 3y ago
FTA
> The problem 10 years ago was that the electorate was far too picky and rejected candidates who should have been promoted. Today, every potential candidate knows this and self-selects themselves out of standing. There aren't enough outliers who do stand to make much statistical conclusion from there.
Yeah. Everybody got wise to the cliques and power struggles of WP and are put off trying to contribute to it as either an editor (changes instantly reverted) and therefore stops them in their tracks in eventually growing to be an admin.
Same deal as StackOverflow. Petty tiny power users wield that power like a maniac because that's the way they get their jollies, make the experience a chore for the normies, so no newcomers join, and on the site goes, in a wierd reversal of the eternal september effect.
In other cases in real life before the web, i might argue that motorcycles and buicks and HAM radio dealt with this, they got locked into a local culture maxima and have been trapped there ever since, growing stale / ever less appealing to newcomers.
- nyolfen 3y agobuicks? would you mind elaborating?
- Multicomp 3y agoSorry. Just the generation gap that for my generational cohort, Buicks were reputed to be 'rich old people cars' and therefore not even considered when we would go out shopping for cars. Whereas in their heyday of 19x0's American car culture, Buicks were right there in the race with Ford Mustangs and Chevrolet Corvettes and such.
- qingcharles 3y agoI used to run a torrent site with a very significant user population. I would promote great users to mod positions. On average they would last 6 months before they became Hitlerstalins and I would be forced to fire them. Power corrupts :(
- MichaelZuo 3y agoI wouldn't go as far as to say they are 'corrupted', just that they are extracting their payment in a non-monetary form. i.e. There are no 'unpaid mods', at least for any significant period of time. It's just that typically in real life we try to avoid setting up relationships were the only compensation is payment in social status, petty office maneuvers, etc..., since it's very visibly obvious in person. So we don't think about the different dynamics online. But this is the compensation model for a huge fraction of online communities.
- memefrog 3y agoThat's an interesting theory, actually. Maybe part of the reason that our current economic system has been so successful is that it manages, mostly by chance, to avoid this kind of compensation. People are largely compensated in money. Of course, "toxic" office politics does exist. But it tends (at least where I'm from) to be something people associate with working for the public service, rather than in the commercial world.
- qingcharles 3y agoThat's interesting. How about if I changed the model and paid the mods? I would seemingly be able to increase my control over them, insomuch as I could more easily tell them to "lighten up," but would that work? Paying them definitely balances out the power dynamic a bit, but I still feel that most people are inclined towards dictatorship when given power that is largely unchecked.
- paleotrope 3y agoThe conception of power is what corrupts. They feel like they have become protectors of thing they moderate and that's what leads to the downfall. I must protect/pet this thing that I love and I inadvertently kill it, see Lenny from Of Mice and Men.
- rtpg 3y agoThe adage is that you can either moderate a community or you can be a very active participant in the community, but really you shouldn't be both. Thank your local admins.
- dharmab 3y agoMotorcycling is probably the most diverse and welcoming the hobby has ever been, with women now the fastest growing demographic. Unless you specifically mean the Harley Bro subculture?
- Multicomp 3y agoyeah I more meant my vague intuition of Harley Bro stuff, I have lots more confidence talking about something online than I do have IRL experience to back it up.