Graduated sanctions — the unitary monitor–sanctioner nexus
The idea
Design principle 5: "graduated sanctions are applied to rule violators (in increasing levels of intensity)" (McGinnis p. 19), paired with principle 4 — monitors accountable to, or identical with, the appropriators. In IAD's machinery sanctions live in the payoff rules, whose diagnostic questions presume a located enforcer: "How is conformance to rules monitored? Who is responsible for sanctioning nonconformers? How reliably are sanctions imposed?" (Ostrom 2007, p. 39). The classic findings assume this monitor–sanctioner nexus is internal and unitary: user-monitors outperform hired guards (p. 50); externally imposed sanction systems "crowd the benefits of a self-imposed set of sanctions"; boundedly rational users deploy "measured responses" — graduation — to stabilize agreements with no external enforcer (p. 48).
The Nostr engagement
Nostr splits the nexus. Monitoring is a public, competitive activity (reports, labels, WoT scores — cf. McGinnis p. 18, many units monitor other units); sanctioning is a separate, private decision by whoever runs a relay or client. A kind-1984 report is costly and public but binds no one — a norm-shaped statement without an Or Else ({{ref:concept-adico-grammar|ADICO grammar of institutions}}). Graduation is therefore not designed but emergent-in-aggregate: a violator loses one relay, then several, then most clients' defaults — intensity rises with the number of independent enforcers persuaded, not with a sanction ladder any single institution maintains. Whether this emergent graduation reproduces the error-tolerance benefits Ostrom attributes to designed graduation is the open question: {{ref:q-decoupled-vs-unitary-sanctions|Q: Does decoupled sanctioning govern better or worse than unitary?}}, {{ref:claim-split-sanctions|Split sanctions}}. The crowding-out finding (p. 48) doubles as an argument against re-centralizing moderation on top of Nostr.
Sources
- Ostrom 2007, pp. 39 (payoff-rule questions), 48 (crowding out, measured responses), 50 (user monitoring). - McGinnis, pp. 19 (17.1.4–17.1.5), 18 (16.2.6, 16.2.9.1), 5 (2.4.9).
Related: - {{ref:emergentgov|Index}} - {{ref:src-ostrom-irc-iad|Ostrom 2007}} - {{ref:src-iad-guide|McGinnis 2010/2011}} - {{ref:concept-design-principles|The eight CPR design principles}} - {{ref:concept-rule-types|The seven rule types}} - {{ref:claim-no-global-bannability|No global bannability}} - {{ref:claim-multiplicity-stack|Multiplicity}} - {{ref:q-boundary-sybil|Q: How does a commons reconstitute boundaries it cannot enforce?}}