a consumer group that stands up to powerful interests whenever they threaten our health and safety, our financial security, or our right to fully participate in our democratic society.
a nonpartisan, nonprofit advocacy organization founded in 1970 by John Gardner as a vehicle for citizens to make their voices heard in the political process and to hold their elected leaders accountable to the public interest.
Traditional methods for protecting community from the effects of scale and poor behavior are now manifestly unfeasible. Raising barriers to entry, relying on the assumption that users will maintain only one registered account, and placing faith in the ability of admins and user moderation to reproduce a forum's organic culture are all easily circumvented, gamed, and/or ineffective when faced with the problems of scale. Moreover, they tend to reinforce self-destructive behaviors, by increasing returns to the most persistent rather than the most constructive, reinforcing groupthink, and providing ample targets for trolling and griefing. This article attempts to fundamentally rethink what constitutes community and society on the web, and what possibilities exist for their maintenance and reconstruction in the face of scale and malicious users. The recommendations reached, after analyzing the weaknesses of the web forums we all know and love