An idea
Sometimes in designing discussion spaces, we would like to restrict the amount of threading. This is because people responding to a previous post can get too focussed on rebutting the details of a previous post, and lose track of what the discussion was supposed to be about. Or in worse cases they can just start attacking each other.
One approach is the wiki-way of letting everybody edit a single text, trusting that they will behave well enough to integrate their ideas into a single document. Sometimes this works.
Another approach (which I am too lazy to reference) is to segment the discussion into "rounds" to restrict the destructive positive feedback of replying to the most recent opposing post.
I think another interesting approach would be to give every user exactly one editable text space, where they can make their point and link directly to other posters, but not directly thread with them. In this space, what every poster has to say needs to mostly stand on its own. If you want to write more, you're only taking up space on your own area.
Indeed it strikes me that this is a bit how blogs work now: the reader *can* click through and discover what it is the blogger is responding to, but they don't necessarily have to, and by default they don't.
posted Mon 12 Jan 2004 in /software/social | link
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