We can’t see communities on LW because of federation choices, so that meant no 196 at all for us unless we swapped instances. The meme is saying that we’re helping build this new iteration of the community.

e: Shoot, can I even reply to this post properly with my instance blocked?? I’m not sure how it works.

I literally just made this account after lurking however-long-it’s-been-since-Reddit, partly for 196, and then that happened. 🙃

But then this happened instead! <3

I’m always wary of how such systems can be gamed and how they’ll influence user behavior, but the only downside to trying is your own efforts. Even if you fail miserably, I imagine the exercise itself would improve our understanding of what works, what doesn’t, and how to form better approaches in the future. To succeed in making a system which improves user interactions would be a truly wonderful thing, and may even translate to IRL applications. I would urge you to follow through with this for as long as you feel it’s something you’d like to do.

But it would still be possible for me and a number of trolls/bots to make accounts here and participate in voting, right?

I completely agree with the sentiment of involving the community, I just remember having problems with direct democracy on Reddit and question what the best implementation is.

People on other instances can be community members as well, which is an extra complication on top of Reddit’s problems in the “Who’s allowed to vote?” question.

“All decisions affecting the community and its members as a whole must be backed by a public vote.”

Is there a way on Lemmy to distinguish who is or isn’t a community member? Is there a way to prevent me from rigging votes with a bot army or a group of bad actors?

I think going forward it would be wise to have a rule that communities need to be actively moderated at some minimum interval by an account on the community’s home instance, or else face closure or the institution of new moderation. Sitting on an unused community is like owning unused private property. “I don’t want this, but I don’t want you to have it either.”

“I understand your mental health problems and your efforts to be your best self. The pros of spending time with you outweigh the cons; you have not lost my affection.”

vs

“This topic brings my discomfort with you to the fore. Join me in a mutual lie so that we can continue our suffering and never make progress.”