@ShadowWizard I thought there was a way to see the linked questons on the site with some unlinked url? But it seems I got that wrong?

So the list of posts that are targetted by a specific post

"Not on the site, but with SEDE" seems to be the answer

Maybe I just misremember

I maybe be going out on a limb here, but it seems to me that really great private gardens vastly outnumber really great public ones because the owners have incentives - the gardens are a reflection on the owner, the owner "owns" any issues that may develop over time, and the owner has an incentive to invest in paying for or learning the expertise required to manage the garden.

Also, HOAs are brutal

My parents once got fined a stupid amount for their grass being 2 inches high instead of the regulation 1.5" or less

Ah, the HOA is like meta. :)

Apparently, they should have been ashamed, because 2-inch-tall-grass is a safety hazard?

@AaronHall What does this discussion about HOAs being [censored]s have to do with Meta?

You gotta have standards, give them a half-an-inch, and they'll take a mile.

HOA are the stakeholders that own and enforce the standards for the community.

Fun fact, that HOA got disbanded when it was discovered that the president was using revenue from fines to fuel a cocaine habit

@AaronHall Er, no. We owned our own house; no one else owned any part of it, except the bank.

Hey, just what are you implying about meta!

:)

@AaronHall That some people here like that green crack a little too much

cough definitely not me cough

HOA's are what they are. If people don't want to put up with their rules, they shouldn't buy houses in HOA neighborhoods.

That's like saying "Comcast is what it is. If people didn't want to put up with them, they shouldn't buy houses in Comcast areas."

Where I lived, everywhere that was for sale was in an HOA area.

And my dad's job would have been too far to live anywhere else.

@QPaysTaxes It's a bit easier to get competition on cable than government.

@AaronHall ...HOA isn't government.

@QPaysTaxes why do you think they wanted to sell?

@AaronHall Yeah, that's my point :P

I'll go out on a limb though, and argue that they are a type of government.

Uh, no.

They're not funded by the government, they have no mandated allegiance to the government beyond that of your average citizen, and they're awarded no special privileges except by contract between private citizens.

They're a type of bureaucracy, sure; a controlling one even

> Associations provide services, regulate activities, levy assessments, and may, if authorized by CC&Rs or a state legislature, impose fines.

@rene not sure what you mean? The "linked" section in the siderbar of question contains all question closed as duplicate of that question. There are more though, e.g. mentioned in comments, and this there is MSE feature request to distinguish the different types of linked questions.

...Which are privileges they get by making people agree that they can.

@ShadowWizard nvm ... I must have dreamed it ...

When you buy a house in an HOA area, you sign the HOA contract, which says "I agree to [stuff]", and they can do nothing outside of what's written in [stuff]

@QPaysTaxes how do you define government?

@AaronHall In general, it's a bureaucracy which has a military.

Is a municipal government a "government?"

That's not always accurate -- take Japan -- but it works well enough

@AaronHall It's a branch of government, yes

which branch?

:)

The local one :P

The only thing that really differentiates it from an HOA is the power to compel by physical force, but even that's a gray line because some HOA's pay for security officers that act like law enforcement.

Of course it does have force of law...

Do HOAs have a place in the chain of command of government?

Aside from the one occupied by your average citizen

They're explicitly provisioned for in state laws, as I understand it.

You're right that they're similar, but they're like a weird, disgusting appendage of government, if they're a part of it

@AaronHall ...Are they? I understood they weren't.

HOAs are not branches of the state.

Or at least not in the same way that a local government is provisioned for in state law.

This is contract law only.

I was originally comparing HOA's to StackOverflow's meta, where the stakeholders of SO can communicate with the governance of SO, and occassionally have some influence.

Wait, we were?

Oh, Meta in that metaphor would be the police.

Mods would be the police.

They're a service which helps keep the neighborhood clean, primarily drawn from community members, and anyone who wants to put in some effort can join

Mods are the sheriffs

Sure, it's just a meta phor.

Leave, please.

:D

Get off my lawn.

I don't have a lawn ;-;

"Don't walk on the grass" - condo association rules.

Good fences make good neighbors.

Don't walk while on grass -- NYPD rules

I gotta get working on this thing though so bye

:)

@rene so flowers dream? Good to know! ;)

:D

@QPaysTaxes Its completly asinine and unknown to me, and entirely uncommon in germany though

If I have a house and want to fill my lawn with literal trash and paint it neon pink I can unless I violate city laws

@Magisch That probably would.

Well maybe

But you get the point. No authority other then the city and city council has a say or means of enforcing what I do on my home property

State, too, building and criminal codes and whatnot usually determined at the State level.

Well thats usually by proxy

But there is nobody fining me for having a slightly unacceptable hue of door paint

or grass clippings on my lawn

I think a lot of people buy into HOA's not realizing what rules they are binding themselves to, but they probably decide it's worth it for a beautiful and safe neighborhood.

also, painting your house neon pink is not explicitly against any laws here

Sounds like fun, let us know how it works out.

:D

Source: Some guy decided to paint his house neon pink and despite upset neighbours nobody could do anything about it

Its why I used that example

That's just what you want as a homeowner - neighbors who hate your guts.

Some old people with too much disposable retirement money and no further hobbies really enjoy neighbourhood feuds

Yeah.

Personally I never had unreasonable neighbors

When I last asked them to turn party music down they did without an argument and were mindful of it on weekdays ever since

Getting along with your neighbors is like getting along with fellow posters on the site, I guess. Sometimes I'm annoyed, but I don't hold grudges, and I remember that no-one gets up in the morning planning how evil they're going to be today. And the more experience on the site I get, the bigger the perspective I have.

@Magisch That comment you replied to was me describing police

HOAs are stupid, though, I agree.

Police don't enforce HOA laws, but the HOA people do.

@AaronHall Dr. No One?

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