Bozon Detection for Communities

Every community has some amount of bozo behavior.

Past a certain point, the number of bozos in a community exceed a healthy carrying capacity, and will crowd out or drive away sane and healthy members. No community is without some amount of bozos but it’s easy to find yourself at a circus without realizing it until the clown car pulls up.

Here are some questions to help score your community of choice, each worth one point.

1. Are there consistent attempts to frame things as zero-sum or negative-sum games?
2. Are requests for “civil” and “polite” behavior constantly dismissed?
3. Are personal communications used to win arguments without the consent of both parties?
4. Are large-scale philosophical/political problems given space over technical issues?
5. Is there an excessive fracturing of official spaces?
6. Is it common to bring in off-space behavior to attempt to win arguments?
7. Are there actors that self-exile loudly only to return?
8. …does (7) happen more than once?
9. Do new users tend to acculturate, or do they immediately request big changes?
10. …if (9) is true, do they start drama if the changes don’t occur quickly enough?
11. Is labeling things as “drama” attacked as unfair/unreasonable/discriminatory?
12. Is it common practice to complain about community disagreements on the Fediverse/Twitter/social media?
13. Is it common practice to organize sides about community disagreements on the Fediverse/Twitter/social media?
14. Is it obvious what the politics of users are?
15. …if (14) is yes, is it obvious that distribution of politics expressed is significantly different than expected?
16. …if (14) is yes, is discussion continually derailed by discussions of politics?
17. Is “everything is political” a common refrain/point made?
18. Are there factions that will unconditionally back their members, regardless of their behavior?
19. Is there no code of conduct/values?
20. Will straightforward application and citing of the code of conduct/values be flagged/moderated?
21. Do disagreements frequently get reframed as accusations of harms/safety issues?
22. Do discussions about norms frequently devolve into debating about who gets to decide norms?
23. Is there a pattern of rules-lawyering?
24. Do the same conflicts come up over and over again (e.g., vim vs emacs)?
25. Do the same factions fight over and over again (e.g., last time it was A and B arguing over deployment, this week it’s A and B arguing over tariff policy)?
26. Is faction membership used to dismiss arguments or points?
27. Do old arguments/complaints continually get brought up?
28. Are disagreements frequently reframed from the practical/technical to the moral/ethical?
29. Are there frequent bad-faith arguments?
30. …if (29) is true, does this include uncharitable characterization of the opponent?
31. …if (29) is true, does this include outright lying?
32. Are moderators not doing their job?
33. …if (32) is true, is it that they take too long?
34. …if (32) is true, is it that they are not perpetuating a useful theory of mind for shared norms (e.g., the community can’t reasonably infer coherent norms based on what is and isn’t moderated)?
35. …if (32) is true, is it that they show clear favoritism?
36. …if (32) is true, is it that they do not have a clear record of action and deliberation?
37. …if (32) is true, is it that they don’t have a clear and narrowly-defined job?
38. Are newcomers not encouraged?
39. Is creative and productive activity not encouraged?
40. Does drama get more attention than making things?
41. Do discussions seem to keep increasing in scope beyond what the community is putatively about?
42. Do disagreements frequently result on “piling-on” individual members?
43. …if (42) is true, is it the same folks piling on?
44. …if (42) is true, does anybody do anything about it?
45. Are “open letters” airing grievances in the public fora a recognized way of expressing disapproval?
46. …if (45) is true, do the letters override or influence leadership/moderation?
47. …if (45) is true, do signatories sometimes or often express regret having joined an earlier letter?
48. Is there a designated sideshow area for the bozos (e.g., off-topic rooms, politics channels, etc.)
49. …if (48) is true, does it leak often?
50. …if (48) is true, do moderators actively enforcement containment?

I can’t tell you what the proper breakpoints for you are: you need to decide for yourself on your thresholds.

If you spend enough time with bozos, at some point you’re gonna find yourself in the Big Top whether you want to or not.