And how the Internet, which started out as an endless frontier of perfect anonymity, has coalesced into something almost totally different: a galaxy of communities, in which people come together around shared interests and values and grope their way toward local standards for fairness and respect.
Beyond that, Ms Tompkins says, is the issue of fairness: local councils typically award prizes to girls for reaching certain levels of sales, and since all girls are limited to selling within their local areas, a campaign like Wild's can overwhelm opportunities for other girls in town.
The patterns and potential variations that in particular were searched for during the analysis phase were indications of the level of stakeholder participation in decision-making processes, the use of diverse communication and appeal processes, indications of the use of official guidelines for resource allocation and the emergence of local concepts of fairness.
Last year, local contractors questioned the fairness of bidding on two Harmony renovation jobs in the Austin area.
They say it's about fairness to local retailers competing against Amazon but with the added cost to consumers of sales tax.
There have been mixed verdicts on the fairness of local elections in the rest of Croatia, with Mr Tudjman's ruling party running neck and neck with the reform-minded opposition.
Out of fairness to local candidates, the commission has defined voter registration narrowly to cover only the actual act of registering voters and not to include, as some have proposed, activities meant to encourage people to vote in general.
David Gaskell, a retired executive director of the Office of Real Property Services in Albany, which promotes and supports fairness in local taxes, added: "There's no question that the quality of assessing in Westchester, if not the worst, is close to worst in the state".
