Hey hows everyone doing? I just wanted to drop by and make a kinda quick post about a new web designer forum that just opened, the forums name is Digital Designer Forum.com, whats so unique about the new forum is that its completely controlled by the users of the forum, so theres no evil admin controlling everything look after the break for some more info and quotes from the site!

Heres a direct quote of the forum from there, What Makes This Forum Different? section take a look…

What Makes Us Different?

This forum is run by you! The members!

The Background Story

I’ve been a part of a lot of forums over the years, I’ve been a member, a moderator, an administrator, and a site owner. I’ve learnt a lot about the type of people who use forums, stereotypes of which have been posted across various parts of the internet to great comic effect. But more importantly I’ve learnt that the typical political model for a forum doesn’t work, and yes, that’s right you read correctly - politics!

Every forum by its very nature is a dictatorship - one clever saussage with a bit of knowhow sets up a website, installs some forum software, and off they go. Anyone who joins the forum is governed (moderated) at the sole discretion of said clever saussage. Later moderators are appointed to aid in governing and upholding ‘rules’ that have been predetermined.

But then something happens, and you’ll see it across any forum anywhere - usually around the 2.5 year marker (around 5,000 members) groups start to segregate and turn on eachother. Moderators try to control the matter too strongly and end up being the target of everyone’s frustration, then it’s all pretty much downhill from there. Of the 6 forums that I used to frequent in 2005, only 1 remains. The rest, which were by all means thriving little communities - are all dead, not so much as an active domain left.

So Here’s The Solution

Democracy for the most part works very well (with notable exceptions) and there isn’t really any reason that it can’t be implemented on something like a forum. Though I’ve searched high and low and haven’t found any using my proposed plan, which is as follows…

Everything is suggested by members, and voted on by the entire community.

The closest that I’ve seen any forum come to this is a vague ’suggestions forum’ where you can come up with whatever idea you want for the forum, if the site administrator doesn’t like it or can’t be bothered to implement it - then it won’t happen!

This is different:

If you’ve decided that you hate the logo on the forum, start a pole and pass a vote for an alternative.
Polls should be set for 7 days to be voted upon (though you could always start a poll to change that number if you wanted) after which the poll is closed and the results assessed.
If you were successful in passing your bid for a new logo, then the responsibility would fall down to YOU (the poll-starter) to legally create, source, buy, or license a new logo, and submit it for approval to the community once again to be voted on.
Should a new logo be approved by a majority of users, then it will be put in place.

This extends site wide - everything is open to be changed by the members and that includes adding new sections, banning people, and the moderators - who will be elected by you, not chosen by me!
I’ll set an inital interval of 3 months for general elections with NO ONE being guaranteed to ’stay in office’ - everyone has an equal chance.

The idea behind this entire system is to hand the power back to you, the members, to control every aspect of this community and mold it into how you want it to look, feel, sound, and smell. Everyone has a voice, everyone matters, and anyone has the opportunity to become a moderator, administrator, or make a big change to the site.

What About Me?

So where does that leave me, the lowly site-builder / former dictator?
Well consider me somewhat of a foreign diplomat, I don’t have any real swing other than to make changes as and when is necassary and approved by the community, and I can’t be arrested on home soil. Wouldn’t be very nice to turf out the guy who put everything together in the first place now would it? (Poor old Steve Jobs)

I personally won’t be moderating anyone, and I won’t be telling anyone off - I’ll leave that to the moderators.

The one perk of my job will be that in any tied polls I cast the deciding vote, but to keep things fair this will have to be a joint decision between myself and the other global administrator / foreign diplomat: Seth - who will be both the American liason for this UK based site, and help out with the maintenance and running of the site.

Anyway

That’s enough for now - more specific threads regarding individual areas to follow.

So check them out, and I cant wait to see what this little site will turn into, so until l8ter, Jake