Constructive Discussion - an essay

What's wrong with common previous discussion systems?

My guess is that most people reading this have some experience of Internet discussion groups, either the long-established list server type (such as Quaker-B up to the present, July 2002) or a threaded bulletin board of some kind, ("threads" being all the messages posted to the group under the same subject line) or one or more discussion groups run by several major portals: e.g. Yahoo groups, SmartGroups or Microsoft groups. I have experienced and looked at several different types, and they seem to share many problems.

You can't get to see just messages of particular interest to you. You have to look through a long, possibly intricate list and try to pick out the messages and threads that are relevant. If messages are sent to you by e-mail, either there is no filtering that you can apply automatically, or if there is, it is only to block messages from certain people, rather than on certain topics.
You can't change or withdraw your own messages once they have been posted, or if you can, no-one does it.
Threads often contain just one message, or perhaps two, where someone has started a topic, and hardly anyone has replied. Yet these isolated messages are never removed from the archive, so making it more difficult to find interesting topics by browsing through the archive.
The real subject, or concerns, of a message is often not clear from the topic or subject name.
You can't easily find messages which support or contradict another message, or relate to it in any other particular way. There is no way in which you can lead people between topics or threads other than by writing in words that something relevant is in another thread.
The way in which the messages are linked up (if at all) creates a tree structure, in which the only thing you can do on a branch is to create a new lower sub-branch. This is not the way people think, and loses all the vital power of the Web, where pages are cross-linked in any way that seems appropriate.
In any group of more than a dozen or two, progressively a greater and greater proportion of members "lurk", that is, read but never post messages.

While these problems are not intolerable for some applications - particularly single-issue discussions or groups where people are very involved and will reply to most things, and thus lurking is unlikely - it seems not to work as well as it could for a group where people have many diverse interests and various different levels of commitment. The evidence of this is the very widespread frustration with, and disengagement from, standard discussion systems (such as Yahoo Groups) even amongst the most experienced Internet users, and the continuing trail of people leaving lists because they don't like the feel of the discussion, even though they might be interested in many of the topics discussed.

Why Constructive Discussion is better

Because of the many differences between how a Constructive Discussion system works and how a normal message board works, the term message has been dropped, as it implies something which is sent out beyond possible later change. The term contribution is used instead.

Principle features

Communities of common interests

Central to the whole idea of this system is the assumption that discussion occurs within communities of common interests. A community is taken here to mean an identifiable group of people who maintain communication over time with each other. It is these communities of communication that are of interest here, not any other kind of community, and from here on the term community is used in this way.

Each community's culture involves a set of concepts which are core to that community. For example, Quaker communities tend to include concepts to do with Meeting for Worship, silent waiting for leadings, inner light, peace, and other testimonies. The core concepts of a community with a common interest in music might well include styles of music, composers, performers, bands...

However, there are many subtle differences even within a body like Quakers. Within some Quaker sub-communities, traditional Christian concepts are relevant to discussion, whereas within others they are not. There is no way in which anyone can decide a definitive list of core concepts for Quakers as a whole. Just as the membership of a community changes gradually with time, so also the concepts which are core to the community may shift gradually over time. In practice, the leaders of ideas in the community effectively determine which concepts are suitable for discussion and which are not.

This central assumption about the core concepts in any community of common interest leads to a central hypothesis, that representing a range of central concepts as part of the interface to a discussion system improves the effectiveness of the system. Such a discussion system also needs to have a mechanism for the review and change of the core concepts, so that they keep in step with the actually current core concepts of the community. In other electronic communities, this is done either through moderation, where the moderator is entrusted with complete control over deciding which contributions are relevant to the community, or by public opinion, where a contributor who steps out of line is eventually subjected to criticism from other members of the community.

The Constructive Discussion system gives a way of representing and using the facts, firstly that each community has its own set of core concepts, secondly that contributions to a discussion are made in the context of one particular community of common interests, and therefore, thirdly, whenever people contribute to a community discussion they decide, and mark, whichever of the core concepts of that community culture the contribution is relevant to.

Individual profiles

The fundamental motive for marking the concepts relevant to each contributions is so that people can read, reply to, and engage with contributions that are of interest to them, and not to be troubled with having to wade through material that is of lesser interest. This is a crucial principle in this age where there is always more information than can be taken in, and attention is the limiting factor. Readers and contributors (or to use a catch-all term, users) will each maintain a profile of the concepts of concern to them, or that they are willing to be involved with.

Users can belong to more than one community. To make the system most effective for users, if one sets an interest in one community, it should automaticaly be set as of interest in other communities as well. This means that the individual profile of interests is separate from, and independent of, any one particular set of community core concepts.

Interaction is in the context of communities, and communities need to manage their membership. If a user belongs to a community, he or she can go to that community discussion, and the matters of interest to that particular user in that particular community will be the overlap of their personal profile of interests with the core concepts of that community.

Marking the core concepts relevant to contributions

Despite the fact that one's individual profile of interests is independent of any particular community, all contributions to discussion still have to take place in the context of a community of common interests, otherwise it would be just like one person talking out loud to nobody. So, as introduced above, when a user makes a contribution to a particular community, he or she will mark which of the core concepts of that community (to which the contribution is being made) are relevant to the contribution.

Ability to edit contributions

If people can edit their contributions, many mistakes of various kinds will be put right, as people will not want to leave inappropriate things around that are not seen to contribute to any discussion. Subject lines can be changed so that they better reflect the evolving focus of what has been written. And perhaps most importantly, contributions can be deleted by their authors, meaning that a whole lot of noise will disappear and readers will get better returns in terms of interest for their time.

The ability to delete is particularly important bearing in mind most people's ability to send a message without fully considering the consequences. Indeed, it may be practically impossible to consider all the consequences of writing something, particularly so when some of the people reading the contribution are unknown to the writer. Toes may be trodden on, feelings unintentionally hurt. And when a mistake is revealed, the natural response of a caring contributor may be to remove the offending material. This is much preferable to the community being "policed" by moderators whose job it would be to delete offending material.

Sometimes, though, deletion is not what is wanted, as a contribution may be valuable were it to be changed slightly to remove offence. It is even less of a good idea to allow moderators actually to change other people's contributions, so users must be allowed to do this themselves.

Richer cross-linking

If contributors can indicate what other contributions their contribution supports, contradicts, or relates to in some other way, the system can provide suitable links for other readers to follow. This is a far richer system than normal message boards, in which the only internal link type supported is that a message is in reply to another message, or following up another message. This impoverished message board practice may be a hangover from plain e-mail, when it is useful to know which message is being replied to. In contrast, when there are many contributions that might interrelate in several ways, the Constructive Discussion system allows people to build up links from their own contributions, and those links are visible to other people reading the contributions.

People's views on contributions

Part of providing a richer context to contributions is to allow people to record their view on other contributions in the system. A view can be one of agreement or disagreement. Also, independently, the importance of the contribution can be rated. This enables a pattern to be built up of reactions to any particular contribution, which can both help the original contributor assess response (and so guide or prompt revision) and also contribute to the overall profile of a participant.

There are various options for the display of these views. Certainly, when a contribution has been read, it makes sense for the reader to be able to record his or her own views on that contribution, and then perhaps the contributions can be sorted in order either of importance or of agreement. What is more debateable is how to display this to other users. It may be better not to let other people see what different people think, as if this happened it might deter people from contributing. On the other hand, displaying reactions might help people feel their way towards contributing more effectively in the community.

What currently happens in this system is that a user's own ratings are displayed to that user, to act as an aide-memoire, while the average of other people's ratings is displayed only privately to the author. One nice consequence of the ability to edit contributions is that when a contributor sees a contribution as being badly rated, the contributor can have a go at editing the contribution, at which point the ratings are flagged as being out of date, and the contribution comes up as newly revised, similarly but differently displayed to new contributions.

Dimensions and core concepts in the communities culture

So what are likely to be the core concepts which frame a community's discussion? These can be seen as the dimensions of the space in which the community discussion takes place. They could be topical issues of interest to the community, they could be the actions that community members would collaborate on, or support. They could be particular places, people, times, attitudes, etc. Because the word "concept" is rather broad by itself, and the phrase "core concepts of the community's culture" is rather long, they are referred to here as "dimensions".

There are many dimensions that matter to people. At a global level they could be ideals such as peace, justice, sustainability; or they could be problems such as pollution, torture, war. Equally, at a neighbourhood level, dimensions could range from a local drug problem, through care of a playground, to welcoming asylum seekers. As the Constructive Discussion system is used, some dimensions may be found to more or less relevant to people and to the contributions they make. Whatever the means of agreeing changes to the dimensions, once done, the person managing the discussion can quickly and easily add or delete the things agreed.

Most people who are concerned with dimensions relating to worthy causes are aware that they cannot actively participate in righting all the world's wrongs at once. With the massive expansion of electronic information and discussion, people are now aware that they cannot even keep up with information on many different dimensions. They have to focus their attention in order to be effective.

Dimensions of action can directly or indirectly address issues of concern to the community. For example, the issue of neighbourhood tidiness can be addressed by people actively picking up rubbish. Indirectly, on the other hand, contacting the local authority would be a different kind of reasonable positive action. Or, thinking about matters at a national level, the issue of the plight of asylum seekers could be acted on indirectly by lobbying MPs. More directly, support networks could be set up, or particular charitable bodies supported, whether by voluntary work or by fund-raising. Globally, actions are more difficult to discern, but one indirect option is to seek to influence decision-makers in international agencies and transnational corporations - or wherever the power is.

Focus may be a good thing, but a one-dimension discussion (which is the current norm) might not be right for many people either. It allows little or no experimentation with the different possible dimensions of interest. And it is typically all-or-nothing in more than one way. Firstly, one either accesses all the contributions or none. Secondly, there is a tendency to treat people as insiders or outsiders. Insiders are meant to be committed, and this commitment is enough to deter people. Hence the very strong effect of "lurking" which is probably found in just about every open electronic discussion system up to the present.

Expected results

Many Internet users have either never used discussion systems, or feel they are unsuited to their needs. All the capabilities of Constructive Discussion can be expected to change this in several ways.

A better way in: The prospect of using Constructive Discussion is much less daunting than other discussion systems. Users can expect to get just what they are interested in, not a barrage of unwelcome information of no interest. New users can remain effectively anonymous until they feel so comfortable that they positively want to be recognised.
Easy steps for greater or lesser involvement in the group: Even the most shy user can participate constructively by rating other people's contributions, without the need to identify themselves in any way. Feeling this sense of involvment from the beginning, it will be a shorter step to writing a reply. Lurking is expected to be a much shorter stage. Conversely, many people unsubscribe from groups when they are too busy. With Constructive Discussion they can restrict their interests so that they still play a valued part in the community in a way that suits the time they have available. This could be particularly useful for busy decision-makers.
Targeting relevance means less anxiety: Because every contributor puts the dimensions of relevance to each new contribution, they can expect more positive and constructive replies, and less risk of being misunderstood or taken out of context. That will contribute towards the ease people feel towards contributing.
Revisability lowers anxiety further: In most systems, once you have hit the send or submit button, your words are fixed. in Constructive Discussion mistakes are easily put right, and, once put right, other people's views based on mistakes are shown as outdated. This means that contributors will be much less anxious again.
Cooling the flames: Everyone who has participated in Internet discussion will have seen times when misunderstandings grow and tempers get heated. With Constructive Discussion those heated reactions can be withdrawn. If they are not straight away, readers will be able to indicate their distaste and disapproval in a way that helps build co-operation and cohesiveness within the discussing community without those "flame wars".

All in all, Constructive Discussion can be expected to involve a more complete range of computer users, not just computer buffs, and that more positively than other widely-used discussion systems. As the experience will be more pleasant, the discussion can be more constructive, leading easily both to a greater sense among contributors of being valued, and to greater involvement in appropriate action, whether in the corporate or voluntary arenas.

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