I Feel So Sad

[jimji]

I've been a member here for so many years and after about ten years of studying Online Communities, with meticulous documentation of those studies and research, I was saving this Online Community as the last place to ask some serious questions about the future of the Internet, but from careful reading of the charter, I see I won't be allowed to ask for opinions on my opinions about what the future of the Internet will be like for my children and grandchildren, and beyond.

I feel such sadness. And fear.

And I guess this post will be the last piece of documentation that goes into my research notes before I start my publishing of all my efforts.

So sad!

[phranque]

i've actually read the terms of service [webmasterworld.com] and most or all of the forum charters here as well as the WebmasterWorld Posting Guidelines [webmasterworld.com]
they haven't changed substantially if at all during your ten years of study.

i simply can't recall the clause that prevents "ask(ing) some serious questions about the future of the Internet" or "ask(ing) for opinions on my opinions about what the future of the Internet will be like for my children and grandchildren, and beyond".

[jimji]

It is very kind of you to so quickly respond, but I want to discuss human rights on the Internet and the way I read both the primary documentation for terms and the charter here, that topic is not allowed. It is political and it also covers a topic that is certainly not allowed, posting policy. If you are restricting what we can post, even if we are polite and not denigrating individuals, that is a violation of our human rights, as those rights are defined on the surface of the Earth in a majority of nations on the Earth.

Essentially, my research shows that as soon as any human joins one of these Online Communities they sign away their human rights and now I can prove that. In fact, with this post I am violating your site's terms for posting.

I hope that after being a reasonably decent member of this Online Community for a bit over 17 years I won't be banned for this post. Maybe you'll simply want to delete it.

But thank you for responding and offering me the opportunity to explain my dilemma.

[lucy24]

my research shows that as soon as any human joins one of these Online Communities they sign away their human rights and now I can prove that

Ooh, do you sell pillows too?

:: posting in the happy confidence that this thread is about to go bye-bye ::

[phranque]

iirc we both agreed, almost 18 years ago when we signed up here, to abide by the TOS when posting on WebmasterWorld.
i still reserve the right to publish whatever i feel is appropriate on my own web site.

[Brett_Tabke]

Wow, thank you jimji, in my 24 years running this forum, and 40 years (anniversary this year) of running bbs's, this is really the first time this type topic has come up.

>It is political

EVERYTHING is political any more. Even talking about Google is highly charged. We just don't want to get into any us/them talks that degradate into what we all know it can.

Our main thrust in the "no politics" discussion stemmed from 9/11 here where we had several massive threads that ran the gambit of political views. There are still people upset with us for allowing people to just say their peace twenty years ago in those days after 9/11.

> sign away their human rights

lol. When you enter a restaurant you have signed the same rights away. In fact, you have more rights here than most dinners (we don't require shoes or shirt for service). What we do require is that you don't stand up in the middle of the forum and scream fire.

However, if this is a thinly veiled attempt to jump into "Google is filtering my political emails" or some such nonsense, then grab a server exit near you.

We give everyone a wider berth here today than we ever have. Have a go at it...

[jimji]

If you had the choice whether to do so or not, would you live in a community on the Earth's surface where the governing body of that community asked you to sign an agreement, if you wished to be a resident of that community, that the governing body could do anything they wished?

I have not found any Online Community agreement that prospective members are required to agree to that doesn't have a clause that is essentially stating the owner can do anything she/he wishes to do.

I'd be absolutely thrilled if you could point me to an agreement for an Online Community that does not have such a clause.

I am very surprised I am being allowed to post that question here. Thank you.

[buckworks]

All the online communities I know were founded (and funded) as a labour of love by private individuals. It's both appropriate and necessary for founders to spell out requirements for participation, in part to make sure the forum functions as a positive and productive place, and also, sometimes, to protect themselves from legal tangles. For the rest of us, deciding to join (or not) is a matter of preference, not human rights.

[ronin]

If you are restricting what we can post, even if we are polite and not denigrating individuals, that is a violation of our human rights [...] Essentially, my research shows that as soon as any human joins one of these Online Communities they sign away their human rights

Joining a club with a Code of Conduct isn't signing away your human rights. It's merely agreeing to conduct oneself as a member of that club whenever present at that club.

Once you have spent some time moderating a platform you discover that everything can quickly descend - with unbelievable rapidity - into a chaotic maelstrom if you don't have a basic standard of conduct that you can point users to.

Very quickly you don't have much of a community worth having anymore - or possibly even a website worth visiting.

Given this, it's entirely reasonable for a shared-space website where people meet and exchange views to have Terms of Service.

Plenty of venues have a dress code, if you want to enter the venue, you abide by the dress code; otherwise you choose another venue.

Correspondingly, plenty of community-based websites have a ToS. If you want to participate in the community conversations on the website, you abide by the ToS, otherwise you choose another website community to participate in.

The ToS isn't there to restrict personal freedom of expression.

It's there to enable positive, cross-pollenating, dynamic community interaction to escape being repeatedly sabotaged by persistent ill-intentioned, anti-social, or uncomprehending* actors.

* My apologies to @Lawman, who, 17 years ago - when I had too much to say on politics and too little outlet in which to say it - had to moderate my political comments on WebmasterWorld time and again. And again. And again. Sorry Lawman.

[edited by: ronin at 10:04 am (utc) on Jul 12, 2022]

[ronin]

I have not found any Online Community agreement that prospective members are required to agree to that doesn't have a clause that is essentially stating the owner can do anything she/he wishes to do.

This raises a very good question:

Are there online communities which are democratically accountable to their own community as primary constituency / electorate?

Certainly there are attempts - StackOverflow is a bold attempt to create a democratically accountable community.

I really don't like the result though.

As a collaborative educational resource, I have a huge amount of time for Stack Overflow.

But I find the prevailing atmosphere in StackOverflow Meta so odious and so... utterly... intolerable that I had to actually install a Firefox plugin to render that site inaccessible to me (without jumping through hoops) so that I wouldn't be drawn into conversations there anymore.

Consensually authoritarian is how it comes across.

I have a theory that Stack Overflow Meta is largely populated by Stack Overflow employees, tasked with consistently reinforcing the authoritarian pro-platform, anti-user, top-down party line whilst pretending to be public users with diverse organic views (which just happen to all coincide with each other).

[jimji]

I don't disagree with the idea of outlining rules, just as there are laws in a community on the surface.

But the concept of being able to choose is not something I have yet to find viable, because every Online Community I have studied had the same clause somewhere in the agreement that the owner could do as she/he pleased.

In fact, many Online Communities don't even show the members the rules.

But back to that first sentence I wrote. About 20 something years ago I was an admin for a media company's forum that had a very large membership that was very active and included four distinct cultures in that area of the planet and the feelings between those four groups ran very hot so many, many times. In fact, the owner of that media company wanted to completely ban two of those cultural groups and I talked him out of it and it was tough, tough, tough. Moderators were so busy. Of course, myself and my co-admin were very busy.

But one thing we did very quickly was set up a set of rules that were very clear and, most importantly, we set up a system of temporary bans for certain offences and then allow an offender to return to posting and if they were breaking the rules again the ban might be longer, and there were eventually situations where a member could be permanently banned. BUT there was always an appeals process, too.

In other words, we wrote those rules very, very carefully and covered just about any possible situation. Yes, a lot of work, but we were probably one of the busiest Online Communities at that time. I am sure I have the archives on one of my storage devices around here someplace.

The thing is, I don't see Online Communities these days going to such lengths to outline the rules and to allow for an open appeals process or to even have a warning style system, or any of that stuff. These days it is simply "You're banned." and most Online Community managers don't even bother to inform the member why they were banned.

I've watched the situation evolve in that direction and it scares the heck out of me, to be frank.

And if every Online Community is using the same system for whatever reason they want to offer, there are no choices.

Now I am a citizen of the United States and I do not know of any community in the United States where a governing body is allowed to do whatever they want using whatever law they write. I think there might have been some cases like that in the 18th and 19th centuries, but in the 20th century I think citizens finally had enough and simply put a stop to that style of governing being allowed. And surface communities are also many times founded for good causes, even being able to be described as a labour of love and so on. But if every community in the United States was run in a manner that citizens had no say at all in how things were being run, the laws and such, they would have to actually leave the country to maybe find a place where they had some minimum rights.

I can't find any community on the Net where any rights are allowed the humans that want to be a part of the Internet. It is not a matter of preference, because that sort of Online Community doesn't exist.

Well, as I think I wrote above, I'd be thrilled to be taught about such a community. I'd even be happy to be informed of a community that had a really good system for how they "punish" community citizens for breaking rules.

There was a scholar that wrote many years ago that any sort of Community Citizen input into the governing of a given community was not needed because if one community was badly governed, meaning the governing body made all decisions and did anything it wanted, then the citizens would just leave and go to another community where things were a bit better. I can dig up the papers on that, if you wish for me to do so. But that has not happened because now everywhere is being run the same way, and that "way" is I own this community and I do as I want. In other words the scholar didn't anticipate that ALL communities would end up in that way.

I think maybe I should find those papers. In fact, there are many papers written on this topic by many very smart folks and I don't think any of them so many years ago saw the Internet evolving in the manner it is.

Truth is, folks really do not have this new world figured out, yet. The super smart folks that teach at universities and the average folks like me --- nobody really has a handle on this most unbelievable development in the short time humans have been around. This Internet is one very, very powerful entity. It's a world unto itself and nobody has a handle on what to do with it, except make money. The richest folks on the Net in about 50 or so years will be making the Net laws and if Net Citizens don't start getting a handle on that concept those Net Citizens are going to be in a very bad situation.

Truth is, most people don't even believe in the concept of there being a Net Citizen. I write things like that and others start asking me if I sell pillows.

Before I die I hope I can get some humans to realize what we have here and maybe do something good with it. I actually had to rush my research because of something that is going to shorten my time with the living. I wanted two more years of research, but I can't have that.

Anyway, buckworks, I wish there were preferences. And thank you for not asking me about pillows.

[jimji]

I'll confess that I am not familiar with StackOverflow and I thank you very much for bringing that up. Yes, I've heard the name come up from time-to-time, but am not presently remembering in what context. But certainly not in the context of how that community is managed.

Also, I am not at all comfortable with a straight democratic style of governing an Online Community. In fact, I think whatever form of governing could work is going to have to be something that is in itself very new, to match the newness of this strange new world we have here.

But I am aiming here to thank you for the input about that site, ronin.

[ronin]

I don't see Online Communities these days going to such lengths to outline the rules and to allow for an open appeals process or to even have a warning style system, or any of that stuff. These days it is simply "You're banned."

You're right about this, but that's why I feel the better analogy for an online community is not a post-Enlightenment, democratically accountable, rule-of-law-based public society (which is closer to what Stack Overflow aspires to be), but something more like... a pub.

If, in a pub, the landlady decides for whatever reason that someone present is not (or no longer) welcome, she is completely within her rights to bar that individual from the pub. It is, after all, her public house. A public house is named such because it's open to the public, not because it's owned by and accountable to the public.

[lucy24]

To refresh my memory I looked up the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [un.org] (thanks, Eleanor!) because that's the phrase consistently used in this thread: not merely “civil rights” but “human rights”.

Uh ... Which rights, exactly, are being signed away? Article 12, maybe? Article 19?

[ronin]

Which rights, exactly, are being signed away? Article 12, maybe? Article 19?

Possibly Article 19 (?)

Article 19

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Though my layperson's interpretation of that is: you can think what you like and you can share your thoughts on the web

Where on the web clearly isn't equal to: on absolutely any website you like, anywhere on the web

[jimji]

With all due respect to those fine folks that worked so hard to write that UN document, and that Article 19, I don't think enforcing Article 19 on somebody's Online Community is a good thing.

Just like you are not allowed to do certain things in a surface community that might cause injury to other folks, there should be certain types of things that an Online Community Citizen isn't allowed to post. The governing body of an Online Community must have some control and stating that Article 19 should be fully enforced in an Online Community is going to be a very big problem for an Online Community governing body. Anarchy is a word that scares me as much as totalitarianism.

And while I have the time to post, I would like to squeeze in that before we even get into defining this-or-that related to any rights, we need to define what we view as a community and the best that I found for a short study is the Wikipedia's entry on community. It took me about 7 hours to properly study the downloaded pdf. It takes about 2 months, if you study the references in a summary manner. Obviously, much longer if you go into depth with all the references. Oh, that is only the studying of the definition of community as it relates to humans.

As for Online Rule of Law and the other scholars I made a reference to a few posts up, I'll dig up the links for their works, and make sure the links are still viable and post them a bit later in this thread. Even though some of those scholars missed the mark they are still worth the effort to study, if one has the time and inclination. Truthfully, some of those scholars still have me with notes not fully finished. That one judge fella that caused quite a shift in scholarly thinking on Rule of Law on the Net is one I wish I had more time to study. Sorry, his name isn't at the front of my brain at this typing session.

And "time and inclination" reminds me of that Web3 thread/discussion where I saw a comment that was most appropriate for this discussion/thread; most Net Citizens could give a hoot about any of this. That thought/observation is worth considerable consideration.

Oh yes, and thank you, lucy24, for that reference to the UN.

[tangor]

The problem seems to be that the "net" is NOT a country with government, laws, rules, etc. It ain't. It's a communication medium. The "communities" that are on the net are points of destination, choice of assembly, and generally privately owned (somewhere in the chain) and are an OFFER OF SERVICE, not a RIGHT TO ... whatever.

I use WW for webmastering info, tools, and conversation. As a citizen of the world I do realize that politics of some kind might have an influence on how it might affect webmasters but I do not come here to chat or debate politics OTHER THAN HOW POLITICS might affect webmastering.

What the OP appears to be talking about is HUMAN COMMUNICATION and what can be said, where, when, and how. This is an old conversation that started with the postal service, telephone, later radio, then tv... While Webmasterworld is not "my house", it is a house I visit because the proprietors welcome me, as long as I abide by the house rules. :)

THANKS! (Brett et. al.)

As for the future of the web, it is not the web at fault, it is the folks who run it, use it, suck up all the biz/commerce/chat in ways that are NOT "human rights" but that enabling the constant urge for control, profit, or---heh---politics that can be obtained.

[jimji]

With your reference to communications mediums, tangor, might I ask if you feel the regulations applied to said communications mediums should also be applied to communications on the Internet?

That was my first thought as I read your post the second time.

The next thought that came to me was that a snail mail letter is usually not a public communications medium. But there are, in fact, some regulations related to the use of the snail mail system for commercial purposes, I think.

The telephone after that party system was done away with is not a public communications medium. I think there are regulations related to bad folks making bad calls to others. Wait, I just remembered some funny round thing at a conference many years ago that people were able to talk to us at the meeting, so I guess there are/were other telephone communications systems I am not properly remembering. But that was a private conference.

Radio broadcasting and television are one-way communications, unless that telephone system is added and there are call-in situations set up by someone.

My point, you might ask?

What goes on in an Online Community like right here is a very public situation. It is not a VFW meeting where we usually do not have guests. It is not a private church meeting. And there are a number of other organizations that have "private" meetings for various reasons. This site has a private room for those with subscriptions.

But out here where we are right at this moment is a public venue. I think surface communities have certain freedoms outlined in laws that are specifically related to public venues where public communications are allowed to take place.

So why wouldn't those same freedoms that are written into surface community laws also not apply to Internet Communities?

By the way, I commend you for an excellent misdirection and would vote for you if you ran for mayor here. You clearly have a politician's flare. But those four communications mediums are nothing like the Internet, BUT, if you insist on stating they are all one-and-the-same, fine by me. Then I will ask, as I did, where are the appropriate regulations for your fifth communications medium?

Personally, I think the Internet is a world unto itself, but I think I may have already posted that thought.

And I actually wonder if it could end up being an independent entity once all hardware is no longer on the surface of the Earth. But the Sun would then require some consideration if it were to do the same thing that happened to all those satellites that company sent into lower orbit a bit ago and then lost them all. But modern technology is moving along at an amazing pace and someday the whole Internet may no longer be on the surface where flooding and earthquakes and twisters and all sorts of troubles break communications lines and so on.

[tangor]

But out here where we are right at this moment is a public venue. I think surface communities have certain freedoms outlined in laws that are specifically related to public venues where public communications are allowed to take place.

The site (and most of the content) is publicly visible to both humans and robots.

However, WRITING on this site requires registration of some kind ... and includes a TOS as well. IN that regard it is NOT "public", merely "open to the public". The public can't post willy nilly, but a MEMBER can post.

[jimji]

My goodness, you have made me realize I have been missing something that is maybe important. Guests.

The thing about this business of being able to politely post ideas that are maybe radical in some sort of way, but not criminal also extends to what the guests are able to read. So now we are not just taking note of the members, but the entire Internet public.

I must have that one in my notes and have simply forgotten that it was there. That is too important for me to have missed that. I definitely have some memory problems because of another trouble, but it isn't too bad. If I did miss that general Internet public aspect of this I sure did screw up badly.

You see, tangor, your "open to the public" would apply on the surface if I am walking down the street and some nutcase like me is standing on a box and giving a speech about some weird idea that the feline population wants the right to vote. That nutcase (me) isn't inciting a riot or calling for a criminal act or causing harm in any way, so I think those freedom to express those thoughts would apply, even though no cat actually asked me speak on its behalf.

So that "open to the public" should apply here on the Net, no?

[jimji]

Okay, now I see where this can get me in trouble and that is because I haven't posted enough about my thinking.

Here's the deal, to my mind.

Let us take this tech site. I have no problem with the owner stating that feline rights are not a topic for this community. That this community is for tech stuff and so if you want to post you stay within certain parameters of topics. Fine. I got that. No sweat.

Where I have a problem is if I am staying within the parameters agreed to but I am posting possibly radical but not criminal ideas and the owner is so angry at my ideas the owner simply says bye-bye, take that nonsense some place else. I followed all the rules, but one unwritten rule; don't make the owner angry.

And that was my reason for my research that took so much time and work. I have exactly those situations documented. I stayed within the rules and still got banned. And most of the time, never told why I was banned. A few cases I was told certain things and saw what posts were deleted and it was easy to see what made an admin angry. Admin, mind you, not an owner. The latest case involves three owners and that hasn't been easy with regards to communications as a courtesy to ask if they agreed with the admin's actions. A couple of cases it was the owner that did the kick-in-the-pants thing and no explanations given, even when attempts were made to find out the why of it.

And in most of those cases it was either about others being allowed to break the rules and asking why or about this very topic --- freedom of certain forms of expression.

So, I am not trying to state that every Online Community should allow any sort of topic be discussed. I am advocating that rules be clear and rules be followed. Or, that rulers follow the rules. "Rulers" being the owners, in most cases.

I'm looking for freedom of expression if I am staying within the rules agreed to. And that one clause is the kicker, as I already posted --- I can do anything I want on my site, because I am the owner.

And that doesn't just apply to freedom of expression. If I sign that agreement I think that owner can actually state in a court of law that I signed away all my rights, to include the owner can't sell my information in her/his site that could be useful to some other company/person.

I'm only covering freedom of expression, though. That other stuff is way too deep for my old brain. That stuff is for them legal law type professionals. But freedom of expression, within certain parameters, is the one that isn't so hard to get a handle on. I think.

[ronin]

Where I have a problem is if I am staying within the parameters agreed to but I am posting possibly radical but not criminal ideas and the owner is so angry at my ideas the owner simply says bye-bye, take that nonsense some place else. I followed all the rules, but one unwritten rule; don't make the owner angry.

This is why I refer to the Pub (or Sports Bar etc.) analogy.

Anywhere in the world there might be a venue where a hands-on owner / landlady has a particular dislike of / enthusiasm for... the latter-day, social-media-inspired, kind of governance embraced by (I don't know) Bolsonaro, Johnson, Modhi, Trump, Erdogan, Orban, Putin etc.

And in such a venue, you might find that sounding off enthusiastically in favour of (when the landlady dislikes) or against (when the landlady enthuses about) such a style of governance earns you a "no longer welcome here" ticket.

If you prefer the venue you hang out in to be more of an echo-chamber of like-minded views you might gravitate towards such a venue, where the landlady actively includes some patrons and excludes others.

If, OTOH, you prefer the venue you hang out in to be more of a Speakers' Corner style marketplace of views and perspectives where the landlady has a more hands-off approach, you might gravitate towards that sort of venue.

If, thirdly, you prefer the sports bar you hang out in to have an established culture of "we chat about sport here, but please leave the current events outside" you might gravitate towards that sort of venue.

If, fourthly, you can't find the sort of venue that you would like to hang out in, you can (admittedly tougher in real life, but definitely possible on the web) get together with some friends and build it yourself.

[jimji]

But you seem to be pointing to places owned by some entity and what I am sort of stating is the Internet isn't owned by anyone, like that street corner where a speaker is standing on the box and yakking about feline voting rights. Nobody really owns that corner, but there could be laws against public speaking like that, I suppose. Maybe I need a permit. But let us say I get the permit, then there shouldn't be any "owner" that can say I am talking nonsense and go back to the brain hospital where you've obviously escaped from. Well, this Internet is one giant park owned by nobody, if you allow guests to view your site's contents. Sure, you can lock out the guests and then you have that pub owner and her right to do as she pleases, but I am referring to an open place, like right here. I think guests are allowed to read this that I am typing right now.

Just exploring notions and hoping you folks help me get my act together. This is my last stop for getting more education and then I have to start putting it all together and hope I can find some university that is interested in some strange research AND might help humans on this Net down the road when I will be long gone. Like I wrote at the beginning, this is for my kids and their kids and other humans way into the future. And you folks are the professionals and this is the best place to get that needed education. Or new ideas. Or help, if you are so inclined.

[ronin]

I'm happy to concede my analogy isn't perfect - and I certainly don't want to get carried away with it - but I think it serves reasonably well in this conversation. ;-)

the Internet isn't owned by anyone

Springfield isn't owned by anyone but Moe's Tavern is owned and run by Moe.

this Internet is one giant park owned by nobody

It's not inaccurate to say the web (as a set of protocols) is owned by nobody - or, as Tim Berners-Lee says, "for everyone" but properties on the web are owned.

like that street corner [...] Nobody really owns that corner

Sure. Or, alternatively, all taxpayers (past, present and future) own it, if it's maintained via public taxes.

But... I can't think of anywhere on the web which is like that street corner.

Everything on the web is either a property or an asset, isn't it?

HTML documents are the main sort of property. and you could (conceivably) argue that, if you squint, SVG files seem like they maybe represent an alternative kind of property and, after that, almost everything else is an asset:

1) CSS files
2) JS files
3) JSON feeds
4) XML feeds (including RSS)
5) image files (GIF, PNG, JPG, SVG, WEBP etc.)
6) Audio files
7) Video files

But where's the street corner in all of this?

As I look around the web as it currently exists, there are no street corners.

There are properties and there are standalone assets, but there are no streets and no corners.

I am referring to an open place, like right here. I think guests are allowed to read this that I am typing right now

Sure. And you can stand outside a bar and see everything that's going on inside, by looking through the window.

I think this does raise a fascinating prospect - will some of the newer protocols emerging under the web3 umbrella (SOLID, IPFS, Hypercore etc.) be able to enable "the street corner" in a way that WWW and Web 2.0 have been unable to (?)

But that's probably a question for another thread...

[tangor]

@jimji ... Utopia is a fantasy. It does not exist.

Every destination on the web is OWNED by someone. The servers on which you travel are OWNED by someone. The search engines you use are OWNED by someone...

Yeah, the "Internet Highway of Information" sounds cool, but as in the real world, that infrastructure is owned OR created by someone.

Some have rules to play in their sandbox. In fact, most have rules to play in their sandbox. Even if no rules at that IP, the COUNTRY in which they reside has rules. It's a quagmire out there!

That said, still trying to figure out the SPECIFIC question, the SPECIFIC concern, you seek to address (which is becoming apparent that it is NOT related to webmastering!).

While webmastering is a human activity, it is NOT humanitarian, it's just a job, or a hobby.

There are, however, all kinds of political websites where other topics are not only freely allowed, but encouraged. Just pick the right venue!

(Note: I am a very political animal, and one not normally of like mind to the majority members of this forum---yet, we get along great! They don't do politics, and I try like hell to avoid it!)

[ronin]

The closest thing I can think of to the "street corner" you refer to would be something like IRC - though, it's worth noting, IRC is of the internet, not of the web.

IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is an open application layer protocol, originally developed in summer 1988.

I remember using it (a lot) in late 1994 and then, pretty much, never again.

Today, the proprietary (of course) Web 2.0 descendant of IRC is Slack, launched in 2013, 25 years younger than IRC but clearly still owes a lot of its conceptual DNA to its great-great-grandmother. (Until 2018, Slack was actually compatible with IRC.)

Unlike IRC, you can embed Slack into webpages, consequently Slack is, by extension, also of the web.

Entirely unexpectedly, however - I certainly wasn't aware of this - IRC has survived all the way through from the late 1980s and still exists today. IRC is now, in it's most contemporary and sophisticated form, IRCv3:

[ircv3.net...]

IRCv3 remains backwards-compatible and focuses (apparently) on advancing client features like instant notifications, better history support and improved security.

Too early to say but perhaps the IRCv3 open protocol will evolve as the decentralized web3 champion to topple the proprietary, centralized platforms like Slack (?)

[jimji]

I stated in an earlier post in this thread that I would offer some background related to my own research, but it ought to be made clear that these documents I have studied were not the foundation upon which I based my conclusions. In fact, I had started my research with certain determinations already in mind and then went looking for the works of scholars to see how far off I was in my own thoughts and this gentleman's writings are frequently cited by other scholars and are of note in any study of this subject; Nicolas Suzor's, (Lecturer, QUT School of Law) 2010 publication in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Vol. 25:1817.

In case you have some trouble with links JSTOR offers the following for perusal, if you don't want a link straight to the document itself:

[jstor.org ]

The following link at Berkeley should allow you access directly to the pdf, but I'm not so sure how it will load on your computer/device:

[lawcat.berkeley.edu ]

And I am posting the final paragraph of the 'Introduction' from Mr. Suzor's paper:

..... < < < < < Copy Starts > > > > >
This Article concludes that the rule of law discourse highlights important tensions in virtual communities that standard legal liberal contractual doctrine is unable to adequately address. As the role of private virtual community governance becomes greater in the lives of its participants, reliance on standard contractual doctrine risks marginalizing public governance values. In evaluating responses to disputes between participants and providers of virtual communities, it is desirable to read governance principles into the private law that bounds cyberspace self-rule. In doing so, significant care must be taken to ensure that no harm is unduly done to the autonomy of virtual communities. Any legal framework must be sensitive to the real needs of the participants and providers of virtual communities and should avoid regulatory solutions that diminish the value and potential of the community. As these governance issues are contextually sensitive, a significant degree of flexibility is required in determining appropriate legal responses. States should not, however, allow private governance to override core governance values in ways that are detrimental to the interests of their citizens.
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Another document I should include here was published in 2012 and can be found as:

Mercer Law Review
Volume 63 / Number 2 Articles Edition Article 3
3-2012
"Order Supported by Law: The Enforcement of Rules in Online Communities"
Nicolas Suzor

Link: [digitalcommons.law.mercer.edu ]

I again offer just a few lines from Mr. Suzor's thoughts:

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When theorists have addressed the need for the rules of virtual communities to be enforced, a dichotomy has generally emerged between the appropriate role of criminal law for "real" crimes, and the private, internal resolution of "virtual" or "fantasy" crimes. In this structure, the punitive effect of internal measures is downplayed, and the harm that can be caused to participants by internal sanctions is systemically undervalued. At the same time, because the contractual framework does not adequately address punishment, providers are struggling to use various private law doctrines to achieve punitive ends when internal sanctions prove ineffective. This Article addresses this conceptual gap and provides a normative ...
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Frankly, I don't suppose most of you have the time necessary to study all that has been written over the years by the teachers at universities and others, but I offer these as a show that I am not playing games with my own fantasies here in this thread, and elsewhere on the Net where I have posted on this topic.

I think a very appropriate summary for my thoughts in this Online Community and in this thread is simple: "Who will guard the guards?"

[ronin]

Another thought regarding your "street corner" - I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me before.

I referenced the IRC protocol above, but an even better candidate is... NNTP (the Network News Transfer Protocol).

NNTP dates back to March 1986.

Here's the spec for it:

RFC977: [datatracker.ietf.org...]

NNTP is the protocol which carries messages on the internet from a distinct network called Usenet.

Usenet itself dates back to 1979. It predates the web by more than a decade and it even predates the NNTP protocol by nearly a decade. It still exists today in 2022.

From the Wikipedia article on Usenet:

Usenet is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers [...]

A major difference between a BBS or web message board and Usenet is the absence of a central server and dedicated administrator or hosting provider. Usenet is distributed [...] posts will automatically be forwarded to any other news servers peered with the local one, while the local server will receive any news its peers have that it currently lacks. This results in the automatic proliferation of content posted by any user on any server to any other user subscribed to the same newsgroups on other servers. [...]

When a user posts an article [...] the article is copied from server to server and should eventually reach every server in the network. [...]

A minority of newsgroups are moderated [...] Unmoderated newsgroups form the majority of Usenet newsgroups, and messages submitted by readers for unmoderated newsgroups are immediately propagated for everyone to see.

Source: [en.wikipedia.org...]

What intrigues me is the idea that if NNTP can enable a largely moderator-less Usenet on the internet, whether the NNTP protocol might not also have the capacity to enable decentralised, distributed, moderator-less forums etc., separate from Usenet?

That would be a manifestation of your "street corner".

[jimji]

ronin, this very thread is a street corner. I am not sure what your posts about all that stuff is about. Very sorry, but I really don't understand what you are going for.

A member, a guest, a bot all can read these very words I am typing right now and that is a "street corner".

Very likely this is all my fault for making some sort of stupid comment about a street corner in a previous post. Maybe I was trying to emphasize some sort of "public" setting for a surface world situation where I might be speaking about that feline voting rights issue, but here in this community as soon as I hit that "Submit" button, this post is public - - - it is that street corner. It is public.

Actually, I think I remember making a point about a non-street corner situation in this community and that is where the elite folks with subscriptions go and communicate in private.

Very, very simple to my simple mind - - - if you and I and the other Net Citizens and the bots can read this sentence, it is that street corner. I honestly don't get all that other stuff you are writing about as being some sort of special street corner thingy. But I think I am the one to blame for that. My fault. That's the only reason I'm posting is to take the blame and apologize.

Thank you. Take care.

[ronin]

No, it's okay - I think that clarity is always important when discussing topics where there is a risk of ambiguity, so please allow me to clarify how I have interpreted your notion of the street corner and why I don't think forums like this qualify and then you can put me straight if I have misinterpreted the metaphor as you originally intended it.

To my mind, a street corner in real life is a place commonly owned by society. It's paid for and maintained via general taxation, it belongs to no-one specifically and to everyone generally. As such, it may be regarded as part of the commons. So, yes, anyone may stand on that street corner and set out their public speaking stall and address passing members of the public and attempt to engage them in conversation or persuade them of a certain point of view.

The protocols I've referenced above - IRC and NNTP - are the closest parallels I can come up with which enable a peer-to-peer common space on the internet and / or the web, which no-one owns, no-one moderates and where an individual may set out their public speaking stall and address passing members of the public etc.

By contrast, this forum (and all forums) are owned and moderated - which is why I used the analogy of a pub higher up.

Yes, they are social meeting spaces, but they are, crucially, not common spaces. They have owners who decide the rules for access and ongoing participation and who (in terms of humans, bots etc.) may be allowed to access and participate.

Of course, there are different levels of access:

1) You may have an active account - but that account may be suspended and / or shadowbanned and / or banned.

2) Alternatively, you may simply read the forum (if you're a human) or spider it (if you're a bot), without actively participating - the equivalent of looking through the pub window from the outside and see what's going on, on the other side of the window . But, even then, the owner who makes the rules may decide to block your IP address etc. Which would be the equivalent - if I'm not stretching the analogy to breaking point - of drawing the curtains so the person outside the window can no longer see inside.

The distinction I want to make is that, while all places where people gather and meet and converse are, by definition, social spaces, it doesn't follow that all social spaces represent part of the commons.

Certainly it is the case, that all social spaces which are privately owned will always be subject to the enlightened (or, occasionally, less enlightened) whims of their owners.