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Author Topic: Is this sort of thing feasible?  (Read 2440 times)

KittyTac

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Is this sort of thing feasible?
« on: February 09, 2018, 04:43:26 am »

I want to create a forum where admins and moderators are democratically elected, and I can appoint and demote admins after the adminship changes hands, but I can't use any other admin features. Are democratically elected admins and mods a good idea? Oh, and any registered user, with the approval of at least 4 more users, can create their own subforum and be its moderator.
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wierd

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Re: Is this sort of thing feasible?
« Reply #1 on: February 09, 2018, 04:47:52 am »

Make sure it is not automated, if you do find a way.

That is just a few SQL injections away from malicious actors creating subforums for promoting spam in.

The only sane way to go about it is to have a (cyclical) polling period where you (the admin) create a poll for that purpose where each user can only vote once, then go through the admin console for whatever forum package you choose and tick the necessary boxes on people. 

I would also make it automatic to have the forum database get backed up the day before election, as some people are sure to be very sore losers, and even limited admin/mod power will be deadly in such hands.

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KittyTac

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Re: Is this sort of thing feasible?
« Reply #2 on: February 09, 2018, 04:50:25 am »

I suppose it'll be a fun experiment to see if it lasts or if it collapses 3 elections in. Also, are there any good forum packages for that? I'm using Windows, by the way.
« Last Edit: February 09, 2018, 04:54:48 am by KittyTac »
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wierd

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Re: Is this sort of thing feasible?
« Reply #3 on: February 09, 2018, 05:01:51 am »

I would not run an internet server on Windows. Certainly not their god awful sql server.

You would be much better off with a small linux server, running some other sql daemon under limited user credentials. The user-level security model is better under linux than under windows, meaning that should malicious actors manage to compromise the server daemon, the OS will cock-block their access. 

Most forum packages will demand PHP and SQL for their back end-- and the servers on Windows (like IIS server) are royal pains in the ass to get PHP working on. Apache has a windows port, and it CAN do PHP, but again, I would discourage that, due to the resource overhead and difficulties in properly locking down the daemon's system access level.

Here's a list of "popular forum software packages"
http://www.webbuildersguide.com/website-builder-categories/10-best-forum-software-and-forum-online-platforms/

How many users will you be expecting on this server, how will you be provisioning the bandwidth, and all that fun stuff?
« Last Edit: February 09, 2018, 05:08:02 am by wierd »
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KittyTac

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Re: Is this sort of thing feasible?
« Reply #4 on: February 09, 2018, 05:23:24 am »

I'm expecting to get slightly fewer users than Bay12. Maybe 50 registered users online at one point in time. Vanilla sounds nice, I heard Dashnet was built on it, and features kept building up, like badges and user levels. Poor, old, previously war-torn forum. Seems to be getting better.
« Last Edit: February 09, 2018, 05:30:31 am by KittyTac »
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wierd

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Re: Is this sort of thing feasible?
« Reply #5 on: February 09, 2018, 05:28:40 am »

Do you intend on self hosting?  Most isps hate that, and block certain ports. (80 being a major one.)
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KittyTac

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Re: Is this sort of thing feasible?
« Reply #6 on: February 09, 2018, 05:33:18 am »

I'm Russian, so... I don't know about the current stance of Russian ISPs on self-hosting.
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ChairmanPoo

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Re: Is this sort of thing feasible?
« Reply #7 on: February 09, 2018, 07:03:12 am »

Sounds like a bad idea. What if they start posting stuff that is illegal by your local laws and youŽre held liable? YouŽd have no way to control that.
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KittyTac

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Re: Is this sort of thing feasible?
« Reply #8 on: February 09, 2018, 07:06:44 am »

There's free speech (to a degree) in Russia, so I guess that's not a problem.
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wierd

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Re: Is this sort of thing feasible?
« Reply #9 on: February 09, 2018, 07:12:08 am »

I have heard all kinds of things about Russia and their unique stances on "Sexual deviancy"-- Make sure image posting is disabled.
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KittyTac

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Re: Is this sort of thing feasible?
« Reply #10 on: February 09, 2018, 07:23:21 am »

Or I'll put this in the election thread: YOU WILL BE TAKEN RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS DURING YOUR ADMINSHIP. BEWARE.
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ChairmanPoo

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Re: Is this sort of thing feasible?
« Reply #11 on: February 09, 2018, 11:42:28 am »

Or I'll put this in the election thread: YOU WILL BE TAKEN RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS DURING YOUR ADMINSHIP. BEWARE.
you can put whatever you want. you might still be held liable as owner. Do you really want to take that risk?

besides it matters little where you are though I'm guessing that Russia is more dangerous than say, Denmark; some things can be dangerous anywhere  eg:  what if your admins start discussing drug  dealing? or the forum is hijacked by white supremacists and start planning violent actions?
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KittyTac

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Re: Is this sort of thing feasible?
« Reply #12 on: February 09, 2018, 08:49:32 pm »

Hmmmm... I could appoint a permanent "backup admin" who I can activate with the press of a button, and who can demote admins and delete posts. Guess that'll work to contain bad stuff.
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mifki

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Re: Is this sort of thing feasible?
« Reply #13 on: February 11, 2018, 03:09:54 am »

I'm Russian, so... I don't know about the current stance of Russian ISPs on self-hosting.

I'm not sure about similar English communities (reddit?), but if you're Russian, you should know about D3 and to lesser extent Habrahabr.

Works more or less well, however at some point it all comes to money (where to get them to pay for hosting/development). At that point owners want more control in order to achieve monetary goals, avoid possible problems with law and so on.

Reelya

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Re: Is this sort of thing feasible?
« Reply #14 on: February 11, 2018, 04:54:20 am »

I'd suspect that adding "forum politics" might be a bad idea in general. Too many ways it can go off the rails, whereas too few ways it's going to make a positive difference to the experience. Whatever you do, manual or automated, someone is going to game the system if that system gives them power over other users.

I think the best way to avoid toxic spillover is if the forum has a clear mission statement, then it's much easier to label stuff that goes against the rules. e.g. Stackoverflow has a bunch of automated moderating going on, and it works pretty well, generally, though some of them still misuse the system to be self-righteous assholes about particular coding conventions. With stackoverflow you earn points, call them karma, for being perceived as helpful, then, you can spend your karma, award people karma or earn more karma for doing things that improve the forum experience.

e.g. Stackoverflow has systems such as once you're at a high enough level, you can invest karma to edit someone else's post, and if two other moderators who have even higher karma agree that the edit is worthwhile, it gets permanently edited, with a message sent to the original user who posted that message. The original user is still able to respond or reject the edit, however the whole system rewards people who fix typos etc. Obviously, there's a complaint mechanism, e.g. if a user gains karma then starts to maliciously edit posts, their karma will be revoked and the edits will be reversed, and any other editors who ok'd the edits will be under scrutiny too. So, you can have a level of automated community self-policing, but you need a "buck stops here" mechanism of trusted users who check the checkers.

Personally, I don't think that elections are going to be any better than a system of upvoting/downvoting specific posts. On a board, you're going to attract a group of like-minded people, and someone coming into that with a contrary point of view will likely get downvoted to hell. If the alternative is to elect moderators, then you're probably going to get the same kind of thing happening, where someone gets control who mirrors the group biases, then non-conforming posts get marked for deletion.

Possibly, another way to filter complaints is to score each account user with a "credibility" rating. Let users mark various posts as troll/spam/illegal etc, then have a manual verdict. Accounts that repeatedly misuse the reporting system would drop in "credibility" for each complaint that they make. Also, allow users to +1 a post, then if the post turns out to be a questionable one that needs moderation, any users who +1'd that post would lose a little credibility. So if some spammer is spamming accounts to mod up their spam, there's an automatic system to filter them out as relevant accounts.
« Last Edit: February 11, 2018, 05:13:36 am by Reelya »
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