If I abused my position I would fully expect to be held accountable by one of our other admins. And I’ve also reversed mod decisions due to user feedback. But in order to do that you’ve got to be open and responsive to feedback in the first place. But when you are the sole admin there is nobody to keep your ego in check. I still had that [left], I guess.
Thank you for describing it as a flourish, I liked that part.
You are making a ton of assumptions based total ignorance of how dbzer0 is operated and governed, even how many admins we have, or of the history of how it ended up under db0’s project domain. And it’s not my job to educate you, especially because I can tell already that nothing I can say will disabuse you of your self-serving preconceptions.
It really doesn’t matter how many admins you’ve got or how you divvy up the titles. Lemmy, by design, requires an admin for it to even function. That alone makes it hierarchical.
Any community can only be what the software allows it to be. And Lemmy hardcodes a structure: admin → mods → lowly “users.” (Isn’t it funny how both the software industry and drug dealers refer to people as “users”?) Your ideals can’t undo the fact that this is a hierarchy baked into the system.
If you truly believed in the purity of your anarchism, no one would “own” the server. Hell, there wouldn’t even be a server. It would all be peer-to-peer nodes, something closer to Secure Scuttlebutt.
But instead you’re here, running software built from the ground up for hierarchy. And you’re an admin of it. How very anarchist of you.
You seem to hold a fundamentally different view of what an admin can/should be. Idk if that’s just a consequence of a turbolib brain or what, but it sounds incredibly foreign to me. In my experience on Blahaj and here on DB0, the understanding is that the admins are providing a service for us. Provider, protector, facilitator- these titles don’t represent an inherent hierarchy, and neither does administrator
The thing is, all communities on the Internet can only ever be what the system is designed to allow.
If a platform is built for hierarchy, then it is a hierarchy—regardless of the ideals people bring into it. No amount of goodwill or re-labelling (“provider,” “protector,” “facilitator”) changes the fact that the software has hard-coded roles with asymmetric power.
And this isn’t some quirky personal view of mine. People far more intelligent than me have been pointing this out for decades. Lawrence Lessig, in Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (1999), put it bluntly:
“Code is law. What people can and cannot do in cyberspace is regulated by the software and hardware that make cyberspace what it is.”
Geert Lovink, in Networks Without a Cause (2011), made the same point about platforms and power:
”Design decisions are power decisions. Interfaces, defaults, permissions—they do not merely ‘enable’ interaction, they structure it, and in doing so they impose hierarchies.”
Helen Nissenbaum, in Values in Design (2005), sharpened it further:
”The architectures of systems—their technical frameworks—inevitably embed social and political values. Claims to neutrality obscure the ways in which they establish constraints and privileges.”
History is full of examples where egalitarian ideals ran headlong into the hard wall of software architecture.
Wikipedia was envisioned as a flat, peer-produced project—yet its reliance on admin powers and arbitration committees quickly created an entrenched hierarchy of “super-editors.” Reddit’s early culture thrived on openness, but its karma system and centralized admins ultimately entrenched a ranking-and-punishment order that couldn’t be wished away. Even early Usenet communities, which imagined themselves as free-flowing conversations, were shaped by killfiles, moderators, and backbone hierarchies dictated by the protocol itself.
So when I point out that Lemmy is hierarchical, it’s not some rhetorical trick. It’s simply recognizing that hierarchy is baked into the software.
You can call admins “facilitators,” you can hold elections, you can promise benevolence—but the structure is still a pyramid, and it will always tilt power toward whoever holds the keys.
That’s not a matter of interpretation. It’s a matter of design.
![[Update] AtomicPoet has deleted the piefed.social communities where he was the sole moderator (!movies@piefed.social being the exception). Content is still available, details in the linked post](https://lazysoci.al/pictrs/image/cb7c5a29-e297-41a8-bde5-698ba205c3fd.png){kind=link}
If I abused my position I would fully expect to be held accountable by one of our other admins. And I’ve also reversed mod decisions due to user feedback. But in order to do that you’ve got to be open and responsive to feedback in the first place. But when you are the sole admin there is nobody to keep your ego in check. I still had that [left], I guess.
Thank you for describing it as a flourish, I liked that part.
So if you ever abuse your power, you’ll be held accountable… by the other admin.
The other guy sitting at the top of the hierarchy.
The same guy who named the whole server after himself.
Yeah, no hierarchies or egos here. Just pure, uncut anarchism.
You are making a ton of assumptions based total ignorance of how dbzer0 is operated and governed, even how many admins we have, or of the history of how it ended up under db0’s project domain. And it’s not my job to educate you, especially because I can tell already that nothing I can say will disabuse you of your self-serving preconceptions.
It really doesn’t matter how many admins you’ve got or how you divvy up the titles. Lemmy, by design, requires an admin for it to even function. That alone makes it hierarchical.
Any community can only be what the software allows it to be. And Lemmy hardcodes a structure: admin → mods → lowly “users.” (Isn’t it funny how both the software industry and drug dealers refer to people as “users”?) Your ideals can’t undo the fact that this is a hierarchy baked into the system.
If you truly believed in the purity of your anarchism, no one would “own” the server. Hell, there wouldn’t even be a server. It would all be peer-to-peer nodes, something closer to Secure Scuttlebutt.
But instead you’re here, running software built from the ground up for hierarchy. And you’re an admin of it. How very anarchist of you.
Lmao you are the very worst example of a reddit-style debate bro I’ve ever seen on Lemmy. No wonder everything is going so well for you.
Thanks, though—our back-and-forth did get me thinking about the feasibility of true peer-to-peer software that offers Reddit-like topical functions.
Something where there aren’t admins, mods, or “users.” Something anarchist by design, not just by branding.
Appreciate the inspiration.
You seem to hold a fundamentally different view of what an admin can/should be. Idk if that’s just a consequence of a turbolib brain or what, but it sounds incredibly foreign to me. In my experience on Blahaj and here on DB0, the understanding is that the admins are providing a service for us. Provider, protector, facilitator- these titles don’t represent an inherent hierarchy, and neither does administrator
The thing is, all communities on the Internet can only ever be what the system is designed to allow.
If a platform is built for hierarchy, then it is a hierarchy—regardless of the ideals people bring into it. No amount of goodwill or re-labelling (“provider,” “protector,” “facilitator”) changes the fact that the software has hard-coded roles with asymmetric power.
And this isn’t some quirky personal view of mine. People far more intelligent than me have been pointing this out for decades. Lawrence Lessig, in Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (1999), put it bluntly:
Geert Lovink, in Networks Without a Cause (2011), made the same point about platforms and power:
Helen Nissenbaum, in Values in Design (2005), sharpened it further:
History is full of examples where egalitarian ideals ran headlong into the hard wall of software architecture.
Wikipedia was envisioned as a flat, peer-produced project—yet its reliance on admin powers and arbitration committees quickly created an entrenched hierarchy of “super-editors.” Reddit’s early culture thrived on openness, but its karma system and centralized admins ultimately entrenched a ranking-and-punishment order that couldn’t be wished away. Even early Usenet communities, which imagined themselves as free-flowing conversations, were shaped by killfiles, moderators, and backbone hierarchies dictated by the protocol itself.
So when I point out that Lemmy is hierarchical, it’s not some rhetorical trick. It’s simply recognizing that hierarchy is baked into the software.
You can call admins “facilitators,” you can hold elections, you can promise benevolence—but the structure is still a pyramid, and it will always tilt power toward whoever holds the keys.
That’s not a matter of interpretation. It’s a matter of design.
I think the problem is that you’re just being a nerd about this tbh