In fact I've seen the rules mutate, I've seen them applied in an ad hoc (and differing way) to different people, and I've seen directly how they are fundamentally social.

For instance there have always been social pressures against excessive profanity in chatter. It was "enforced" by people giving feedback. In the same way that the rule against 'l33t 5p33k' is discouraged to this day. Unfortunately we had a user (IIRC Alex the Serb) who decided to ignore ad hoc social feedback, and it was decided to create a group of "power users" who could enforce community ideas about behaviour in chatter. The rule mutated - rather than it being up to you after feedback, it became up to what a limited number of people thought. And the rule remained fundamentally something decided socially.

As one of the original power users (I was removed when I went on hiatus), originally the existence of power users was regarded as a secret and bragging about being one was grounds for being removed from the club. Over time people guessed that something was going on, the secret became more open, and now it is no big deal. The social rule mutated.

This evolution continues in many small ways. For instance Re^2: Distribution of Levels and Writeups (sig) prompts questions about whether long signatures are a good thing. If lots of people feel as tye does, then feedback may convince some to shorten (or remove) their signatures. Or it may remain the same. In any case the social standards are not fixed in stone.

However the fact that they are not fixed in stone does not mean that anyone can change them. I believe that you are complaining that you have been unable to change rules that you don't like. And you're dissatisfied by that. Well that's how life works. In a social group, individuals generally can't change the rules for the group very easily. Often there is a lot of inertia. Furthermore the mechanisms by which social rules remain agreed upon are often hard to see - it is easy to see the person saying bluntly, "This will not change." It is hard to see people who, by silent agreement or apathy, make it so that it actually doesn't change.

What I am saying here is simple. Your personal experience with being unable to mutate the rules does not mean that they are immutable. Your personal perception that many rules are laid down by gods misses the fact that gods gained and maintain their position through social mechanisms. And the arbitrariness that you've complained of in the past is a result of the fact that they really do arise in an ad hoc manner.

My further statement is even simpler. I do not know of a voluntary social grouping of humans that does not likewise have a lot of ad hoc, mutable, and social rules that it operates by. Given this knowledge, I can walk into any social group and quickly make that claim with confidence. Because I know that, even if I do not (yet) understand how that is true in this group, I am sure that this group will (like other groups that I've seen) turn out to fit this description.

• My voiced objections have nothing; zero; squat; zip; nada; to so with whether I can change rules.

  That is as irrelevant to the debate as one person's precise, chosen, somwhat ecclectic, understanding of the degrees of separation between the terms "moral" and "ethical" in the wider social context.

  I intend to make no further comment on that red herring.

• What I spoke of was an absence of a percievable "mechanism".

  I to have seen some, albeit minor, changes in PM's way of working. However, these have (from memory) usually come about (from my veiwpoint) as (apparently) capricious gestures on behalf of one or two gods.

  Rather than a mechanism for socially pressured change, that smacks of "The Queen's Perrogative".

  Better that the 'rules' be laid out in clear, unemotive terms.

  It has been decided that...

  This is how it is.

  Rulebreakers will be sanctioned in the following ways:...

• I have remarked on the absence of a clear definition of the "rules".

  Many of those I personally find most objectionable, and moreover, those that seem to come up most frequently for scruitiny, are (at best) "defined" in terms of one or two people expressing their likes and preferences. Their personal take on what should and should not be.

  Not only are these (probably rightly) couched in terms of personal preferences; they often incorporate derisory, insulting and antagonistic phraseology aimed at those that disagree with their point of view.

  If this is indeed a community, then the former is sadly lacking as a mechanism for laying out the communities preferences for it governance--which is bad enough--but the latter should have no part in such statements of policy; if that's what they are?

  A cynic might suggest that the derision and scorn poured on those having the temerity to question the status quo, is as much about trying to supress those questions, as it is about an unhelpful and unwarrented outflow of personal emotions.

Alternatively, if the rules are mutable according to social pressure, do away with the "poured scorn" social backpressure mechanism of supressing debate in favour of a statement along the lines of.

Currently, the status quo on this is ....

The following alternatives have been considered, and currently rejected on the basis of a lack of sufficient social pressure to warrent the change.

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I'd like to see it go further and have a mechanism that was transparent enough that it clearly allowed the community to register their opinion in a tangible way. I even think that the technical means for this is already in place for the most part.

I think it would be a mucher better use of the Voting booth than most of the polls I've noticed over the last year or so.

It might be necessary to restrict the voting to members--or not.

Some restriction on how often a particular issue could be the subject would probably be in order.

As now, the voted themselves would (as far as practicable) be anonymous, but those that felt the need to outline their reasoning could post subordinate to the vote node.

One benefit of this would be that subsequent posts calling for change could be easily and breifly referred to the last poll on the subject, where all the considered options, expressed opinions and weighted decision would be clearly laid out.

That would be a mechanism.

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Examine what is said, not who speaks.

"Efficiency is intelligent laziness." -David Dunham
"Think for yourself!" - Abigail
"Memory, processor, disk in that order on the hardware side. Algorithm, algorithm, algorithm on the code side." - tachyon

I submit that you're confusing "formal mechanism" and/or "transparent mechanism" with "mechanism".

Things happen. Things happen for reasons that are not always obvious or explained to everyone. The Monastery as a whole accepts or does not accept those things for reasons that are likewise opaque. I expect nothing else from an ad hoc system. Part of being ad hoc is that there aren't clearly defined and explained rules by which important things happen. The reasoning is inherent in the group dynamics (which are largely social).

You obviously would prefer that things happen for reasons that are obvious and clear, and likewise would prefer it if the community had an obvious way of providing tangible feedback. Clearly this would be a different state of affairs than the current one. However this doesn't mean that what exists right now is not a de facto mechanism.

They appear to me to be predefined and for the most part immutable. I've seen good argument after good argument be squashed on the basis that this place "is not a democracy", summarially dismissed on the basis of one or other gods personal preference, or simply ignored.

Update: Ive commented out my original text in this node. View source if you want to read it.

BrowserUk, lots of folks here talk the talk. Very few walk the walk. When these great ideas are backed up by viable patches then the gods will consider them very seriously. Until then its all hot air. And Personally I take exception to the implication of you comment. I work damn hard for PM, and I dont think anyone can fault me for what I've done or not done. The same goes for the other active gods here.

There is no reason to take exception to my comments, but if you choose to, you will. That is beyond my control, save for my saying nothing when I think I see something wrong for fear that my comments should be taken out of context and cause offense.

For the context of my words you quoted, please (re)read both my original post and Old_Grey_Bear's OP. Both are concerned community policy, not physical layout or code the code used to display it.

What type of patch is required to allow a monk to choose to remove his or her content?

I applaud your recent efforts, along with all those of the other active PMDevers, and all those that have gone before too. I have bever found fault with you for what you have done, nor anyone else for that matter.

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Examine what is said, not who speaks.

"Efficiency is intelligent laziness." -David Dunham
"Think for yourself!" - Abigail
"Memory, processor, disk in that order on the hardware side. Algorithm, algorithm, algorithm on the code side." - tachyon

There is no reason to take exception to my comments, but if you choose to, you will.

If theres no reason to then I won't, but also realize that my interpretation was not wholly unlikely.

What type of patch is required to allow a monk to choose to remove his or her content?

A reasonable amount of work would have to occur. First off there is the impact on existing threads, second off there is the means of handling it. Do we nuke them? Do we update them? Or what? There a lot of types of node here, handling them all is not super-difficult, but nor is it trivial. Overall I'd say that if someone solved the technical problems (which implies answering the questions i pose) then wed have a good basis for a debate as to how it would/should work. But until then I suspect its a debate wed prefer to avoid as we dont really want to write that code as there are more important things to do. But if it were presented to us outright I doubt we'd just ignore it.

I applaud your recent efforts, along with all those of the other active PMDevers, and all those that have gone before too. I have bever found fault with you for what you have done, nor anyone else for that matter.

Ok, fine. Just remember we have feelings too and that harmless words sometimes arent. :-)

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demerphq