One of our administrators posted once somewhere at Abandonia Forums: it is not democracy!
OK. I could agree. German wise saying is: democracy is to choose between plague and cholera!
So I was hoping he means that this forum has better shape than democracy.
Be incident to last events here I have a suggestion to our administrators and moderators.
Before closing particular topic it would be nice to open poll for no more than 24 hours with a simple question: Should I close this topic?
Nobody could make to much damage to Abandonia Forums in so short time, and we will have no more here abhorrent democracy, but more attractive direct democracy.

Please do not close this topic before making poll about it!

Forums aren't democrasy - simple :)

Agree! I am trying to get something better then democracy :D

I don't want this forum to be democracy. Because if it would, i would've banned long ago. <_<

The problem is that people would just continue arguing in the poll topic.

It is better to arguing 24 hours (and got public decision to stop) then arguing forever (after admin or mod decision) :whistling:

If a poll is what it takes to decide, then I think if a person comes under attack, and the poll is concerning that issue, then the offended person should at least get a double vote. Sorry, but I simply don't trust that we humans ever left the dark ages with its need for a good burning for recreational purposes.

Another question is what would happen on a forum visited by every sort of people (and the occational bot) if the rules were allowed to be liberalized? I think that with so many types here, it would be a wonder if loosely enforced rules didn't result in intentional or unintentional insults. All it takes is for one person to misunderstand, and then the moderators would be busy the following month trying to set things back straight. Trouble can occur in no time, and democracy is rather slow with all the polls and referendums.

Just something to think about.

I'm sorry I must repeat. I'm not pledge here FOR democracy! I'm against it :hypocrite:
Democracy is based on delegation of authority, and I'm speaking about powerless administration here :max:

It would not work. End of story.

So instead of closing a topic where flaming or other bad things are happening, we open a second topic to find out if the first should be closed?

And in the meantime flames continue to happen in the first topic? And most likely also in the new topic?

Do you realize how many topics we would end up creating each week? And would this "rule" apply to every single topic? Would there be exceptions? Where do you draw the line? Which topics could we close immediately, and which ones would we need to wait for approval for?

I'm sorry, but this idea will never work.


The reason this isn't a democracy is simple. It's not the user's site, it is Kosta's. He decides the future of the site, and the admins/moderators decide the future of topics.

This is a Dictatorship, pure and simple.

You are welcome to share your views, both positive and negative ones (as long as they are constructive), and by doing that influence the way we control the site and forum. That is the reason we have the Suggestions/Comments forum.

The whole forum system is based upon the principle of a few admins being in charge. Direct democracy doesn't really work within the coding framework of any forum system. Sure, you could have polls upon all decisions made within the forum, but that would still require a "puppet admin" that would carry these things out. Also, this principle is fine for the larger decisions but having a poll for every tiny little action that mods and admins carry out (the Admin CP keeps a log, every mod/admin here has logged up hundreds) is completely impractical.
Also, who would start the polls? Leaving it to the admins would still give them power (they could not create polls for things they don't want), allowing everyone to make them would just result in lots of threads voting to ban various members. In any case, the system is open to abuse by peopel creating multiple accounts in order to vote (entirely possible if a big issue such as the banning of a member comes up for vote).

While it would be possible to make large decisions by referendum, it is impossible to avoid the focusing of power in the hands of a few in a forum enviroment. And like David said, many knee-jerk, reactionary decisions would pass if this system were put in place.

Direct democray is a noble principle, but the fact is that forums, as they stand, are inherently hierarchical.