What kind of 'government system' do most internet forums resemble?

[Memnoch]

Time for another poll.

What do you reckon? If an internet forum (such as this one, for example) was a country/society (which it is, it just happens to be online) what kind of government system/structure would it be? Democracy? Republic? What would it be? Vigilante system?

Some examples of governments in history:

Anarchy
Democracy
Autocracy
Dictatorship
Fascism
Authoritarianism
Totalitarianism
Monarchy
Feudalist Monarchy
Absolute Monarchy
Duchy
Grand Duchy
Principality
Viceroyalty
Emirate
Theocracy
Federation
Empire
Confederation
Oligarchy
Kleptocracy
Aristocracy
Plutocracy
Technocracy

Obviously all forums are different...what do you reckon Ironworks is?

I have my own ideas, of course, but I'm genuinely curious as to what you all think.

[ 07-18-2004, 12:07 PM: Message edited by: Memnoch ]

[Gabrielles blades]

monarchy, because we all know the choc was ordained by god to lead us...

[Paladin2000]

IMO it is sort of like medieval feudal system. The board owner is the king whereas the moderators are his/her knights, and we are the peasants. The king can choose to "promote" any peasant whom is loyal to become knight and the unruly ones are usually send to jail (suspension) or beheaded (permanently banned).

As usual, knights will have some power to control the peasants but the ultimate power comes from the king.

I have yet to encounter any board system that practice absolute democracy where every member is given choice to vote an action. This wouldn't be practical because we the ordinary members do not own the board and it is not right for us to meddle with the owner's decision. Or his chosen police, a.k.a the moderators or administrators.

As such, good and well controlled board tends to attract more members whereas a chaotic board tend to drive members away.

[ 07-18-2004, 12:06 PM: Message edited by: Paladin2000 ]

[Memnoch]

Some interesting ideas already. Another thing to think about with respect to what you think - what are the advantages/disadvantages of such a system and why would they/would they not be appropriate to an ONLINE society as opposed to an OFFLINE (ie real-life) society?

[Memnoch]

Originally posted by Paladin2000: IMO it is sort of like medieval feudal system. The board owner is the king whereas the moderators are his/her knights, and we are the peasants. The king can choose to "promote" any peasant whom is loyal to become knight and the unruly ones are usually send to jail (suspension) or beheaded (permanently banned).

Hmmm. I prefer to think of a permanent ban as "exile" rather than a beheading. Unregistering someone is of course another story.

[Paladin2000]

Advantage:
- A well controlled board tends to attract more members.
- No dispute over rules. The owner sets it and everyone follows.
- Easy decision making. "Yes" means yes and "No" means no.

Disadvantage:
- Badly maintained board drive members away.
- Some moderators might abuse his/her power because he/she is realated (or good friend) of the board owner.
- Funds. Since the board is solely belong to the board owner, he/she have to come up with the funds to maintain the board. Not to mention hardware and software updates, which is rather time consuming.
- Some quirky (or overly strict) board rules might not be popular with the members, thus over the time, older members might simply decide to go elsewhere.

[ 07-18-2004, 12:22 PM: Message edited by: Paladin2000 ]

[Paladin2000]

LOL, someone exiled might find a way to return but those that are beheaded are not expected to be back anytime soon.

[Added]Second part:

Such a system is not practical in "real life" because no single country is 100% owned by the ruler, and the same goes for companies because each share holders would exercise their rights to vote on decisions so that they could protect their interest.

And we as the citizens of our country would exercise our rights to make sure that some crazy loon wouldn't take control of the country and turn it upside down. But of course, sometimes such things happens too... sadly.

[ 07-18-2004, 12:31 PM: Message edited by: Paladin2000 ]

[Dirty Meg]

Forums work well if they are well moderated. It has been said that the ideal form of government would be a benevolent dictatorship. The only problem is keeping them benevolent once they become dictators. This forum is good because the mods are good. I've been on forums with the same kind of rules but with mods who block posts merely because they don't like what is being said and ban people who they don't like. Incidently, why don't the mods ever delete posts? Some of the posts that a 'certain someone' got banned for should really not be there.

[Paladin2000]

Some offending posts are locked instead of being deleted outright because it has the effect or warning members that similiar fate could happen to people who take little regards over the rules and regulations.

Sometimes a good topic gets locked up because someone posted something bad and spoiled the thread, as such, it is much more effective to lock to the thread rather than to delete it because people might ask "what happen to this topic...".

Once I was a moderator of a certain board and one of the "bad" topic got locked up. Unfortunately one of my fellow moderator decided to delete it instead. Ironically the offending member complained to the board owner and accused the moderators of abusing power and deleted his post. It took some explaining but the board owner finally accepted our (the moderators') explaination and resolve the whole situation.

Such situation is especially true to EzBoard because global members can easily hop from one board to the other where each board have its own respective rules. Some don't allow sigs, where as some allow minor use of profanity. You could have easily broken the rules on certain board without realising it.

[ 07-18-2004, 01:39 PM: Message edited by: Paladin2000 ]

[Vaskez]

Dictatorship, since as far as our behaviour on here is concerned, we have no rights, we do what the rules say without any leeway, or get banned.