If NITESHDW Was a Government

[synexo]

Thought this might be a provoking discussion.

 

If this website here, NITESHDW'S SCI-FI Fansite and Forum had to be described as a form of government, would form of government would it be, based on it's past and current policies and hierarchy.

 

A few thoughts:

 

The site is owned by one man alone, so it may be a monarchy, or even a sort of private city/state. For terms of this discussion, some elements of the actual copyright and ownership that Nite has over the site may need to be disregarded in order to access how that would translate into the 'government' version of the site.

 

While the site is owned by one man alone, much of the content on the site is/was the work and/or property of other individuals. I.E. The BSG Logo was not created by Nite and is not his property. Also much labor is done by the users of the site in regards to finding and uploading the torrents, describing the torrents, moderating the forums, and subsequently utilizing our home PCs to seed and transfer the torrents. None of the labor is bought or sold, so there definately seems to be an element of being a 'collective' economy. Recently however a capitalist aspect was introduced, that being Nite's exclusive collection of advertising revenue. (although it is certainly in the spirit of a sort of treasury to fund the operations of the website)

 

As regards to the forums themselves, there seems to be a great deal of tolerance in the discussions, although they are not a free-for-all. Absolute free speech does not seem to be the rule of thumb, as posts have been deleted for contect, and some users have had their accounts suspended for repeated infractions.

 

In regards to voting rights, Nite often asks the users their opinions on how to run the site, sometimes using official polls. The results of such polls are however non-binding. Also any user can create a poll at anytime on almost any subject, but those too can do little more than stimulate discussion.

 

Regarding property rights, there seem to be no agreements with other entities regarding the users of the site concerning copyright legislation. The site itself however, does claim it's own copyright status under US law. I imagine certain images/torrents also if thought to be property, would be considered illegal, i.e. sci-fi child porn. There also is no way for a particular user to claim exclusive rights to a .torrent he has uploaded, for example to allow other users only to download the .torrent if they paid him a fee. I also don't believe that we own any of our posts or avatars. It seems that all property here belongs to the state, but is shared among all. That could mean that we are socialist/communist.

 

So, it's not Anarchy. (like the bittorrent network itself is)

 

If it is a Monarchy of Dictatorship, it would seem to be an extremely liberal, and benign one.

 

It would seem to me that it is certainly NOT a democracy, although the citizens do seem to have some 'voice'.

 

I could think it might be described as a 'rogue' communist website/state, ruled under the velvet-thumb of Niteshdw.

 

Or maybe something more like the Netherlands, a benign monarchy practicing liberal-socialism as it's government.

 

I'm not smart enough to figure it out, so please help me work this one out!

 

LONG LIVE CHAIRMAN NITE!

[TetsuoShima]

Yeah, it's probably a mix of quite a few different philosophies: 'real' communism (not like USSR/China/N-Korea/...), democracy, republic, Monarchy,.... They all have some representation here... I really don't think there is anything truely comparable in 'real life' politics... :)

[StitchInTime]

I think it would be an anarchy. :cyclops:

[Guest c4evap]

I think it would be an anarchy. :cyclops:

 

If not for us MODS!

 

c4 :cyclops:

[Kiznik]

I think it would be a "Just Monarchy". I think monarchies are underrated. Monarchies ruled the world for thousands of years and now it's like "if you're not a democracy then you're not a real country / organization" but I think that's silly. I say Niteshdw is a Monarchy.

[bbbb]

I say Nite is the almighty ruler of the site. I offer my services as member of his parliament. I could be in cabinet and run for minister of finance. Or maybe defence.

[Mav]

Monarchy maybe. It wouldn't be a democracy obviously, since Nite gets the final say in all things his. Some how I think if it was a government all us poor American fans would be forced to menial labor while the rest of the world's fans get to sit back and watch trek 24/7 >_

[StitchInTime]

I think it would be an anarchy. :cyclops:

 

If not for us MODS!

Ah, yes! Where would we be, without the MODS' squad? :cyclops:

[mateya]

Monarchy maybe. It wouldn't be a democracy obviously' date=' since Nite gets the final say in all things his. Some how I think if it was a government all us poor American fans would be forced to menial labor while the rest of the world's fans get to sit back and watch trek 24/7 >_<[/quote']

 

Liberal monarchy where you watch trek 24/7? Im in ;)

 

About the mods - If they are not necessary, than we would still be without them, now wouldnt we? But obviously this is not tha case..

[StitchInTime]

About the mods - If they are not necessary' date=' than we would still be without them, now wouldnt we? But obviously this is not tha case..[/quote']

This is circular reasoning. You are concluding that the reason we have them is that they are necessary, and the reason they must be necessary is that we have them.

 

A lot of us have an appendix, too, but nobody is quite sure what those are for either, and those who don't have them seem to get along quite well without them. ;)

 

I sometimes wonder if this moderator thing is an American invention, because I don't think that any of the other forums I am on have moderators, and they are all based in the UK, where it seems people don't need official referees or perhaps don't feel they need them.

 

At the site where I spend most of my time, we police ourselves quite well. Anybody who behaves really badly gets told off quite firmly and directly, and trolls are usually ignored.

[quosego]

I don't know, the mod's have provided us with enough freedom, allthough there have been incidents were people weren't happy with mod actions but this provoked enough action to set everything straight. So the mod's are willing to listen to (highranking) users and will most of the time adapt there actions accordingly.

 

So I would put this community down as an dictatorial democracy. There is absolute power by only one person who doesn't answere to noone, but doesn't use this to often and also doesn't abuse it. But there are also lower parts of the government who don't have all the power but some part of it. Those lower parts respond and adapt/listen to the community.

 

This means we have an dictator/absolute monarch (niteshdw sorry :)) who has absolute and total power. The monarch has chosen several valuable citizens to govern parts of his empire with democracy. (allthough this democracy most of the time only responds to the elite consensus in the society)

 

Our economy is based on an pure form of communism, you gain only what you give. Most mod's and high ranking users who helped lot's of people and made this site to what it is have also recieved the most stuff. If not on this site made trough connections made here. But because of the lack of communism in the real world this government is outlawed and we are forced to "steal" labor from the evil capitalistic MPAA and share this in our own empire.

 

This sounds like an utopia. :)

 

BTW synexo nice thread.... ;)

 

 

 

[bbbb]

Right, you're right!

 

EDIT: Please only use QUOTE to quote a post other than the last post. Assume that a post is reponding to the post just above it or to the topic in general.

[mateya]

About the mods - If they are not necessary' date=' than we would still be without them, now wouldnt we? But obviously this is not tha case..[/quote']

This is circular reasoning. You are concluding that the reason we have them is that they are necessary, and the reason they must be necessary is that we have them.

 

Not at all. I was referring that there was a time when they were not present and when the situation progressed that moding was needed, it was introduced. If everything would be peachy all the time, we would still be without them, belive me. But alas.. We dont have mods around becose someone thought it was "cute" to have them :p

[GorunNova]

I can't see it as anything other than a benevolent tyranny, where Nite is the one with ultimate power, delegated in lesser degrees to the moderators. It's the closest model that fits, as far as I can see. It can't be a monarchy, as Nite didn't form this place by divine decree, and it isn't communism since we don't all own small and equal chunks of this site.

 

Nite's the guy with the power and the bandwidth, and we're all here on his sufferance... so give the good tyrant some credit! ^^ (And I mean that in a good way... I did say he was a benevolent tyrant ;))

 

Edit: Historically, tyrannies were necessary for the rise of Greek democracy... so they're not -bad-, as long as the tyrant's a good one. ^^

[S0V13T]

The forum is not a democracy, becuase no one elected NiteShdw as the guy in charge. Although from time to time he does ask for the either the moderator, or everyone's opinions on changes / policy. So there are some aspects of democracy, and congress.

 

The forum is not a monarchy, becuase I don't think that Nite has any kind of Devine Right from God to lead his people.

 

Not really a 'Police State' as some people are suggesting. If it were, instead of 2 people being banned in the entire history of the forum, there would more likely be 2 people banned per hour for even the smallest hint of an infraction.

 

The forum is not socialist / communist, becuase everybody is not equal, and there is no illusion of it. But at the same time everybody has a right to express an opinion or point of view.

 

I would say that the closest hiarchy the forum resembles is that of a miletary orginization. We have Niteshdw as the Commander in Chief, a couple of Chiefs of Operations that oversee forum wide operations acting as Generals, a hand full of other officers that lead their own batallions / forums (TimeLords, Pegasus, Security, etc), and a good amount of rank and file soldiers, who bring their own personal experience, and outlook to 'The Service'.

[mateya]

I can't see it as anything other than a benevolent tyranny' date=' where Nite is the one with ultimate power, delegated in lesser degrees to the moderators. [/quote']

 

Does the tyranny still apply if you can freely go if you dont like it here? This place is truly a tyrants place, who he created and we are all guests here so to speak - so can this be called tyranny afterall (and is it as much improper as monarchy)?

I always thought that the word tyranny is used when the land/place is forcefully taken and people cant escape the tyrant but this is not the case here..

[GorunNova]

The thing about tyrannies is that it's ALL up to the tyrant. Given that this is the net, there's no way to control our presence or absence, leaving it out of the consideraton. Everything that involves this site, is there by Nite's choice or design, meaning he has all the possible power there can be.

 

Even a tyrant can choose to let people leave his state... and if he's a good tyrant, they'll come back. The important part is that all the available power is in the tyrant's lap to do with as he/she wishes, and on the net the power to stop people from coming and going isn't available in a broad sense.

 

That reminds me... is there any technical difference between a dictatorship and a tyranny?

 

Edit: If this does match a military hierarchy, it's an incredibly poor one. Minimal discipline, and a 'private' is perfectly free to talk to a 'general' with no chain-of-command issues coming into play. I still think a tyranny fits best; we're free to do what we want as long as Nite doesn't have a problem with it, and the moment he does, he's got the power to do something about it quite decisively.

 

Also, the moderators only have the power he grants them (in the form of moderation rights).

[S0V13T]

You gyus really need to get your defination of tyrant right.

 

tyrant

# a cruel and oppressive dictator

# in ancient Greece, a ruler who had seized power without legal right to it

# any person who exercises power in a cruel way; "his father was a tyrant"

wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

 

Suggested reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrant

 

 

 

 

[GorunNova]

You're right... I was just looking it up after I posted that ^^'... and dictator's out of the question too, as it means absolute rule through instigation of martial law or some other means.

 

Ah, well... those two are out, and so are communism, military hierarchy, democracy, monarchy, and so on.

 

What IS the term for someone who has absolute power in a governmental system right from the get go?

 

Edit: Found it! "Despotism!" Rule by a single person or group who wield absolute power with no illegitimacy (as tyrannies have) or instigation through trickery or charisma (like dictatorships).

 

Edit 2: Scratch that. It also is considered a form of tyrrany. What IS the term for an absolute ruler that isn't a tyrant, despot, or dictator?

[S0V13T]

That dosent work either, bacuase NiteShdw DOES have the legitimate right to wield absolute power. he owns the domain, and the server afterall.

 

Edit: I still say that the miletary terms apply. There IS a chain of command, and orders being distributed among the officers, but it's done all in private in the moderator only areas.