Modpol, short for "modular politics," enables diverse governance processes on multi-user platforms. It offers a library with which users can choose, modify, and create modules that add specific governance functionalities.
This implementation is a mod for Minetest, a free/open-source voxel game. It is designed to be adapted to other multi-user platforms that also employ Lua as an extension language.
Modpol is built around groups called orgs. At the base is an org with all users in it, called Root
by default. Modules enable people to do things within orgs, such as decide on membership, grant powers to the org, and much more. To get started in Minetest:
/mp
Root
Modules can be nested in each other, so one module can rely on another module to accomplish a process. Users might use a module to unilaterally carry out actions in the game, or the module might require a group decision to do so. Users can also change the modules available to users of a given org. There are currently two ways of doing this:
modpol_core/api.lua
and modpol_minetest/api.lua
. This will make those modules no longer available to any user.Change modules
module. Removed modules can be re-added in any org by using Change modules
again.Modpol should give you the ability to do whatever kind of politics you want with your modules. If there is something you would like to do that is not available, develop a module for it (or ask us for help!).
To use this in Minetest, simply install it in your mods/
or worldmods/
folder. Minetest will load init.lua
.
In the game, open the Modpol dashboard with the command /mp
.
For testing purposes, players with the privs
privilege (generally admins) can use the /mp
command, which resets all the orgs and opens a dashboard.
Modpol can also be used independently of Minetest as a command-line tool. Currently command-line use of modpol requires a Unix-style system, but it is intended to become more fully platform independent.
The command-line version is in the modpol
subdirectory. To run the program on Unix systems in CLI mode, install lua or luajit and execute the following in this directory:
$ lua[jit] login.lua
Alternatively, to test arbitrary functions in the interpreter outside of the interactive dashboards, load Modpol's library with:
$ lua[jit]
> dofile("modpol_core/modpol.lua")
In the interpreter, for a list of global functions and tables, use modpol.menu()
.
The persistent storage method may be chosen in modpol.lua
. If available, Modpol uses Minetest's built-in StorageRef system for Minetest 5.*. If that is not available, or in CLI mode, data will be stored in a data directory at modpol_core/data/
. This will contain a log file and serialized program data files.
Modpol seeks to implement a theoretical framework called "modular politics," which proposes these design goals:
Additionally, Modpol seeks to counteract the tendency for "implicit feudalism," according to which rigid, top-down power structures are the norm in online spaces. To this end, some design patterns include:
It is certainly possible to use Modpol to replicate practices of implicit feudalism, such as all-powerful admins, but doing so requires extra work to overcome these defaults.
Various guides are available at the GitLab wiki.
Read documentation of functions and modules at docs/doc/index.html
. Documentation was generated using LDoc. To generate basic documentation for every page, download ldoc
and use the following command:
$ cd docs/
$ ldoc ..
This will not generate the same index page and sidebar as the documentation provided; the appropriate structure needs to be added manually.
This project is led by Nathan Schneider of the Media Enterprise Design Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder, as part of the Metagovernance Project.
Contributors include:
We are grateful for initial support for this project from a residency with The Bentway Conservancy. Read about us in The Field Guide to Digital and/as Public Space.
We'd love to welcome more contributors. Please join the conversation in the Issues, the #modpol channel at the Metagovernance Project Slack, and the Minetest.net forum.
Learn more about the project and how to develop your own modules in the wiki.