[Foundation-l] Moderate this list

[Eugene Eric Kim]

On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 12:42 PM, Yaroslav M. Blanter <putevod at mccme.ru> wrote:
> Isn't temporarily blocking such a user a way to calm him/her down? I
> admit, it might be not the nicest or even not the most efficient way, but
> still?

A bit of an aside: One of the best ideas I've seen in a collaborative
tool in the past 10 years was in a project called H2O that came out of
the Berkman Center in its early days. The idea? People could only post
once a day. It's built-in, self-moderation that encourages cleaner
discourse and fewer flame wars. It's reminiscent of letter writing
back when instantaneous communication wasn't an option.

Simple constraints encourage useful behavior. Wikis are great examples
of this (a single, largely anonymized common space that helps
depoliticize conversation and encourages convergence). Microblogging
is another (140 character limit, plus the ability to see who's
listening).

In general, I don't think tool developers have experimented enough
with these types of constraints. Facilitators use tricks like this all
the time. Impose time constraints. Use only three words. Put people in
a circle. When you pay careful attention to space and time, moderation
(or active facilitation) is less necessary.

Just some additional food for thought for folks thinking about
developing other alternative discussion tools. :-) In the meantime, I
think what Andrew is doing with LiquidThreads is pretty cool, and
we're planning on testbedding it on strategy.wikimedia.org when it's
ready.

=Eugene

-- 
======================================================================
Eugene Eric Kim ................................ http://xri.net/=eekim
Blue Oxen Associates ........................ http://www.blueoxen.com/
======================================================================