The Noctambus association, a network of night buses in Geneva, was a project originally created by the community. Since the last 20 years, it has become an institution that should be analyzed, in our view, from a state's perspective (Parazelli 2004). This questions the role of the passengers and of their participation in this association. Noctambus employs moderators and we analyzed their know-how. We show that, although the passengers do not participate directly in the decisions taken by the association, in practice, their participation is a requirement for the moderators to achieve their professional goal.