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1. Embed this notice
   Jzero (guerillaontologist@social.coop)'s status on Thursday, 05-Feb-2026 20:46:58 JST Jzero

   • Nathan Schneider

   @ntnsndr 95% prefer human management to rule-by-chatbot...who woulda thunk it? 🤯

   Personally, it feels like we're doing alright with our committees of humans approach - an option oddly not represented on your poll. I'm surprised even 5% would want a DAO or an LLM to get involved.

   • Embed this notice
     Nathan Schneider (ntnsndr@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 06-Feb-2026 06:50:09 JST Nathan Schneider

     in reply to

     Committees of humans FTW, but I think it is also telling that we are in a tiny minority, and control by founder or techie remains the norm.

   • Embed this notice
     Nathan Schneider (ntnsndr@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 06-Feb-2026 09:03:33 JST Nathan Schneider

     in reply to

     @GuerillaOntologist I just did a blog post trying to explain what I'm wrestling with, but I suspect it will still lean too heavily on the tech for your taste: https://nathanschneider.info/2026/02/constitutional-agents-for-online-governance/

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     Nathan Schneider (ntnsndr@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 06-Feb-2026 09:04:27 JST Nathan Schneider

     in reply to

     • Doug Webb

     @douginamug Yes, that's right! The idea there would be that a bot would manage voting systems, etc.

   • Embed this notice
     Doug Webb (douginamug@mastodon.xyz)'s status on Friday, 06-Feb-2026 09:04:28 JST Doug Webb

     in reply to

     • Nathan Schneider

     @ntnsndr point being: I read opt. 2 to mean _more_ human involvement than opt. 1.

   • Embed this notice
     Doug Webb (douginamug@mastodon.xyz)'s status on Friday, 06-Feb-2026 09:04:30 JST Doug Webb

     in reply to

     • Nathan Schneider

     @ntnsndr I took option 2 to mean something like: things of greater consequence could be formally signed off by more people, like defederating from a big instance, doing a system upgrade, appointing new admins/mods, etc. (Routine mod actions could still be done solo)

     Sure, as long as there is a single server, rogue sysadmin still a threat - but it does not happen often. Let's push sysadmin further toward "titular" power. (i.e. option 2 can be DAO-less)

   • Embed this notice
     Alex Rodríguez (arod@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 06-Feb-2026 11:09:34 JST Alex Rodríguez

     in reply to

     • Nathan Schneider

     @ntnsndr what do you think that is telling us?

   • Embed this notice
     Nathan Schneider (ntnsndr@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 06-Feb-2026 11:19:31 JST Nathan Schneider

     in reply to

     I think it is because setting up a system like Social.coop requires a lot of effort, technical prowess, and patience. It's great for people who are deeply aligned with democratic practice. But for people more focused on other things, it's a high price to pay for founders to have less control in the end.

     I think more widespread democratic practice online will require a) making starting up comparably easy to feudalism, and b) establishing norms that it is the right thing to do.

   • Embed this notice
     Jzero (guerillaontologist@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 06-Feb-2026 20:02:21 JST Jzero

     in reply to

     • Nathan Schneider

     @ntnsndr Mine and 95% of people's. We don't want DAOs, NFTs, or "AI Agents" in our tech, or in our orgs.

   • Embed this notice
     Nathan Schneider (ntnsndr@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 06-Feb-2026 23:04:56 JST Nathan Schneider

     in reply to

     I don't see these technologies as fundamentally different from using incorporation statutes and contracts enforced by cops and prisons. But we've had this exchange before, and no need to rehash it.

     Whatever the underlying technologies, I think we agree that our communities should seek to focus on the human skills and relationships, and let the underlying infrastructures only be an enabler of those.