That's it, ita. Man, that article had a huge effect on my thinking about our community.

So there's this very complicated moment of a group coming together, where enough individuals, for whatever reason, sort of agree that something worthwhile is happening, and the decision they make at that moment is: This is good and must be protected. And at that moment, even if it's subconscious, you start getting group effects. And the effects that we've seen come up over and over and over again in online communities.

And what he finally came to, in analyzing this tension, is that group structure is necessary. Robert's Rules of Order are necessary. Constitutions are necessary. Norms, rituals, laws, the whole list of ways that we say, out of the universe of possible behaviors, we're going to draw a relatively small circle around the acceptable ones.

He said the group structure is necessary to defend the group from itself. Group structure exists to keep a group on target, on track, on message, on charter, whatever. To keep a group focused on its own sophisticated goals and to keep a group from sliding into these basic patterns. Group structure defends the group from the action of its own members.

Was I top poster back in the day?

You were too busy setting up Farscape fic archives, and running the quotes generator.

I repressed the memory of Rafmun. Who was he?

Megan E's husband. He showed up and told us that a noisy few (unnamed) were poisoning the waters and driving people away by bending the board to our whims. And then, as Bureaucracy churned like sharks after chum (as everyone took it personally, pretty much) he accused us of ignoring his point.

Except meaner. And WAY longer. All sorts of dirty laundry got hauled out, and people left over it.

Hec, it was very calming to see that people already did what we did, and that we pretty much had to do it to keep going.

And, painful as it was, it worked! Or we survived despite it. Either way. I like to think we're bigger people because of it.

This is the one that made me personally stick everything out in Bureau:

And the worst crisis is the first crisis, because it's not just "We need to have some rules." It's also "We need to have some rules for making some rules." And this is what we see over and over again in large and long-lived social software systems. Constitutions are a necessary component of large, long-lived, heterogenous groups.

Hec, it was very calming to see that people already did what we did, and that we pretty much had to do it to keep going.

Exactly! It was calming. Just a calm resolve knowing that this was the task in front of us if the community was going to survive. That it was necessary. Less hand wringing about whether we should vote at all and more about pushing through to find a way to vote that we could live with.

You were too busy setting up Farscape fic archives, and running the quotes generator.

Yeah, also I was either still on dial-up or getting yelled at for my internet usage at work prior to moving to Chicago.

BTW, I'm watching Archer and laughing my ass off at it.

Of course, Clay didn't mention the "makes sane people crazy on contact" part of it. I never ever guessed I could read that stuff for fun.

It's funny too but I forgot the main reason we were talking about voting was that we were tired/annoyed with trying to come to a bullshit consensus on the same issues.

We wanted a way to stop talking about certain things.

BTW, I'm watching Archer and laughing my ass off at it.

I could definitely see you working at ISIS.

Also it took a while for me to realize that the "Supreme Court Thread" I keep referring to is what became Lightbulbs.