>It's ironic that pg calls for openness in government but governs HN behind closed doors.
It may be ironic, but it's not hypocritical. Rules that apply to governments need not, and should not, apply to private citizens or corporations. Government can't endorse a religion, but people are free to. Similarly, it would be bizarre if CEOs were voted for by employees.
Government needs to be transparent in order to live up to the maxim that government should operate with the informed consent of the governed. Private entities have no such moral compulsion.
Every social website (I include forums in this category) is, at its core, someone's experiment in autocracy. There's no escaping this, however much power users might appear to have, the admin will do what the admin wants and mods are gods.
Whether this implies anything by extension about the nature of governments or militaries I leave as a futile thought exercise for others.
You are right, but I am not sure which social model would fit to everybody as comforting. Many people are offended by Anarchy and it remains a question to me if communities would actually be able to manage themselves or not. Do you have some more food of thought to share, that's quite interesting? :)
I don't have any real insight. If any user at all could ban or unban anyone else then it might be chaos. The autocratic nature of it comes from the fact that someone and not everyone controls the code and the server. How could you have true equality on a social site without giving users a dangerous level of privilege?
It may be ironic, but it's not hypocritical. Rules that apply to governments need not, and should not, apply to private citizens or corporations. Government can't endorse a religion, but people are free to. Similarly, it would be bizarre if CEOs were voted for by employees.
Government needs to be transparent in order to live up to the maxim that government should operate with the informed consent of the governed. Private entities have no such moral compulsion.