[council] Designing a Discussion Space for Deliberative Discourse

["Ben Edelman" <edelman@law.harvard.edu>]

Yesterday's teleconference, and recent traffic on the council list (not to
mention on ga), has focused in large part on ways to structure discussion
fora for more effective discourse.

This is a topic Berkman Center staff have also been thinking about recently
as part of our continuing Open Governance project.  (This project is in part
funded by a grant from Markle -- see
<http://www.markle.org/news/Release.199911021044.1219.html>: "The Berkman
Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School ... will explore
mechanisms for open governance and deliberation online.")

Our work has only just begun, but in the spirit of openness I thought I'd
post my own notes re how to design a web-based discussion forum for more
effective online deliberative discourse.  At this stage, I'm primarily
brainstorming -- trying to get into an outline all the features that I think
might prove, at least in certain circumstances, to be helpful in such a
discussion forum, and trying to figure out in what contexts each feature
would be most helpful.

My work in progress is on the web at
<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projects/deliberativediscourse> -- *VERY MUCH
A WORK IN PROGRESS*, not as easy a read as it might be.  But that document
reflects substantive issues that I at least have found quite interesting to
think about and that I think are relevant to the questions the NC is
currently considering.  I'd very much appreciate comments from any of you
that might be able to spare the time -- and, if our work should prove
helpful in your plans for software development, selection, or configuration,
so much the better!


Ben Edelman