20(ish) questions and problems in bringing about real democracy

1. why previous attempts at communes or intentional communities fail / succeed
   
2. how do we make real democracy something useful to groups working on local campaigns
3. how do we move from democratic single issue campaigns where everyone essentially agrees, to geographically based democratic communities (DCs).
   
4. should DCs be geographically based at all, what are the alternatives
   
5. what size should DCs be
   
6. how can DCs claim legitimacy when only a small proportion of people in an area are involved
7. what can DCs do to try and be representative of people that are not yet involved
   
8. how do DCs encourage people to get involved.
   
9. how do DCs interact with existing structures (especially those that call themselves 'democratic')
10. what can DCs actually do for their members and wider society rather than being talking shops
    
11. how can we answer the critics who see small communities as backward looking, tribal, inefficient etc
12. wont people be spending their whole life doing meetings and administration - leaving no time for productive work?
    
13. should DCs aim for complete self sufficiency
    
14. how do we prevent DCs coming into conflict with neighbouring communities
15. what structures can we build to help democratic communities work together, without these larger scale structures becoming like current hierachies
16. when we have truly DCs what's to stop them doing the things we criticise current states for (aggression, repression etc)
17. who is a member of a community - residents, visitors, family/friends of residents - what rights should they have (IE should visitiors be welcome but denied the right to block) how do we define that?
18. do all members have instant involvement (should people who move in have equal rights straight away, can new born babies block motions !?)
    
19. how should DCs deal with dissent - should they exclude people (from processes or in extreme cases completely exile them) what alternatives might there be to this
20. should decisions be binding
21. how can people be 'accountable'
    
22. how should communities deal with immigration, when more people might impede or eventually prevent consensus decision making)
23. should democratic communities allow themselves to divide / combine - (surely combining could lead to building state or large corporation type structures)