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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   3553 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 5, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Jump in the discussion.

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Wheeeeeeeeee. (details).

How does a project stop these people from getting a toehold and leveraging that into a takeover?

Take their names away. You could try enforcing uniqueness across the public-facing Internet (it won't stop organization in private channels, but because visible attention-whoring is the driver of this damage, this will make it inconvenient).
For owners and higher-ups, use a unique username that's divorced from your other identities.
Off-topic chat is banned from the project's mailing list.

This is 4chan 101 stuff. The problem with it is that it requires foresight and isn't obvious to people who don't understand why those measures are necessary, which people who tend to post about more interesting things clearly underestimate.

No clue. Attempts to formalize and distribute governance haven't even been great at stopping progressive organizations from being skin-suited from the inside; in neutral ones, they've been largely been explicit targets.

In terms of success stories, you've basically got SQLite. Which probably has had some effect -- it operates in a nexus of spaces where both liberal and leftist interests often drive focus. But I'm not sure it would work for many other projects.

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