Developing a framework to enable constructive discussions

I've been part of countless discussions in multiple forums and email threads. They are in general futile, since the type of forked discussion these media tend to foster suffers from a few problems:
- They tend to fork indefinitely. People will address specific parts of each post and derive a new discussion for each. Threads are never closed and even if at one point one thread ends the conclusion is never rolled back to the main discussion.
- People can choose to ignore parts of posts that are inconvenient to their claims. It is just too simple.
- People can repeat claims that have been refuted indefinitely.
- It is impossible to get a clear view of the discussion and where it is at, other than at a thread by thread level.
- It is impossible to keep a discussion on topic (yes, I'm the worst offender here with this post).
- Et cetera.

Both email, web forums and other mechanisms have the same weaknesses.
In fact, free flowing language discussions tend to follow a chaotic structure. Sometimes a response addresses the claims made in a previous post, sometimes it seems to do but it isn't evident and sometimes it´s just babble. Sometimes a response brings new debatable points which fork out and sometimes get addressed, sometimes they do not. Most of the time discussions get extended until people get bored and it is not very frequent that a conclusion is reached.
In verbal discussions, forking is contained by the ability to interrupt and our limited memory to track nested conversations. In written discussions they tend to be limited by lack of structure (inline responses at some point get unreadable, and sequential accumulative responses get meaningless to the reader) among other things.
I would almost claim that no productive conclusion was ever reached in this sort of activity. OK, maybe someone, at some point in the past reached one conclusion. But over a billion such discussions that doesn't seem like a high hit rate.
So I've been thinking on the possibility of building a more structured discussion mechanism that allows for constructively building a conclusion by different parties each contributing their own facts and reasoning. I haven't yet formed the perfect system (if I had, we would all be posting there, not here) but I've modeled many alternatives and the best I've found is as follows:
- Someone begins a discussion by making a statement. In this case the statement would be something like "Evolution has been falsified by Lenski's experiment with e.coli, so ID is the true explanation for life on earth".
- Other parties cannot edit that statement, but they can annotate it with comments addressing different parts of the statement. The different comments can in turn be annotated by other parties. For example someone could annotate the first claim as "I do not agree with this claim. Lenski's experiment was done over too few generations to show evolution at a large scale", which could be in turn annotated by someone else with "lenski did 40.000 generations" and so on until that particular fork is resolved.
- Additionally, statements can be flagged with things like "non sequitur", "citation needed", or other useful tags (especially for different types of well defined fallacies) that would make it possible for the poster to edit the statement to make it accepted by the others.
- When a note about a statement in the original claim or in any annotation becomes addressed and agreed on, it can be closed by the originator of that statement or comment by editing the original statement to a version that satisfies all parties. A statement can be closed when all parties that participated in it agree to close it.
- Annotations get thus rolled up to the original statement.
- In the end, a statement that is agreed by all parties is reached.

I know it sounds a little bit optimistic, but I've done simulations and it seems to work as long as the parties are few (building "teams" might be a way to scale the process to larger discussions) and all the parties have good will and the intention to reach a valid logical conclusion (and vandalism or lack of good will are extremely obvious in this format, so it is unlikely that someone will use it to "win" a discussion.

Such a process would obviously be much more complex than as described, but I'm convinced that such a discussion mechanism should be possible and that the benefits would be huge. I've seen some things that are somewhat aligned to what I'm proposing (some types of wikis and Google's Wave, for example) but they aim more at collaboratively building something than at resolving differences.
Having a practical means to have controlled discussions would be incredibly important, as most of our human conflicts seem to hinge on our inability to reach agreements through ordered conversations. Would it be the end of all wars? Maybe not, but it definitely would help finishing many endless arguments were parties have no vested interests and are exclusively interested in reaching a valid conclusion. And I think that would be worth something.
What do you think? Can anyone suggest an improvement to the proposed framework? Do you think something like this could work?

I'm not saying anything before I get the green flag from my team leader.

[Deleted by the author on Nov 7, 2009 10:23 AM PST]

I stumbled on your comments here by accident, but I think your thoughts have great merit. However, I think they'd go farther on a forum with people more aligned with scientific thought processes, not on a forum where people seem mostly content to flame and leave. This is not a forum to try and institute thoughtful debating protocols in a discussion. I like your optimistic views on having substantial, meaningful discussions, especially on topics that do tend to bring out people's more passionate natures.

Thoughtful debates take time to prepare responses, find the citations, etc. Most people commenting on this forum don't have that time. It's thoroughly a comment and go type of forum. Have a lovely week.

But this forum would be a great way to acquire feedback on the idea. Random thoughts can be good for brainstorming. I agree that this forum would not be the best place to implement such thoughtful discussions, but for receiving random constructive ideas it might be the right place.

Are you still there

Excellent points, and a great concept. What you're after is structure, moderation ( as in control of errant contributors ) and the like. That's what you need for adult cooperative behaviours, the sort that achieves collaborative building. Many however would be incapable of subsuming their anarchic, paranoid, dishonest and plain mischievous traits. You will find, and probably very rapidly, that it will degenerate into dissent about the processes of the discussion ( ie. the protocol that you constructed ). Not because there's a problem with the process, but it will become a proxy target because (a) it can be a target ( "you're suppressing my freedom of speech, yada yada yada ....." ), (b) it allows those that can't subsume as above to rebel, and (c) it's easy.

One can achieve polite and useful moderated discussions, but it will require absolutely ruthless application of what I call 'The Duck Test'. If it looks like one, walks like one, and quacks like one then : it is a duck. Insert duck for troll, or whatever, and you have the criteria for moderation. This has an important precondition though : it is the explicit responsibility of the contributor to avoid duck-apparent behaviours. That prevents the feigned 'injured innocence' defence so beloved of trolls, used after they have been shot for being a duck. So if they wrote something that appears offensive, say, then they have to go back and correct it themselves ( eg. re-express in more emotionally neutral language say ) - or be sanctioned.

You'd most likely find that the discussion would become progressively more useful, mainly due to self selection by participants. If the trolls aren't fed, and spanked by moderation instead, they go away. Lurkers begin to speak up. Casual lookers see that the scene is polite and useful, and maybe stay and contribute sensibly. It builds.

[ One glance at the AGW thread shows how shameless some can be. It's basically a small core group of people wailing on each other for months on end without progress. It may well be, for them, validating some emotional issue or need that perhaps others would find bizarre - if disclosed. Clearly the obvious idea of continuing the rancour on some private channel hasn't arisen. So you might deduce, at least, that it is the appearance of public validation that is really being personally sought. Sadly many threads here have that character. So I could have swapped AGW for another topic to use as an example, and this bracketed paragraph wouldn't need any further editing ..... :-) :-) ]

Cheers, Mike.

But I don't think that moderation is the solution. I think that anyone should be allowed to express their opinions, even if that means trolling. What I'm looking for is a system where trolling doesn't degrade the conversation. If each "side" posts to their own side, the system should make that side lose relevance (based on ratings by others of that "side" or tree of posts and edits) thus making trolling much less interesting for the trolls. Today some systems allow modding down posts, or even in some cases users. But that's not enough. Modding down whole discussion branches and making them less visible somehow should achieve the desired result. Post what you want, but if you troll or don't add anything, you'll become irrelevan.

"I think that anyone should be allowed to express their opinions"

You're right. Any opinion/viewpoint is fine. I'm sorry, I didn't elaborate well enough. I was more leaning toward moderation of the method of expression ( politeness and pleasantries ... ), regardless of the intellectual direction of the discussion. Friendly delivery independent of the content. We are emotive beings, so the less 'red mist' the better. I'm sure many of us ( I have! ) have regretted actions/decisions poorly thought out due to anger or distress.

Indeed alot of the most fruitful ideas in the history of scientific discourse are 'off the wall', and useful precisely because they challenged the going paradigm. So you do want to be hearing all possible content, but without the considerable ( and ultimately useless ) disturbances that interpersonal conflict can engender. :-)

Cheers, Mike.

( edit ) Such moderation might incidentally reduce trolling of course, given the high correlation b/w trolling and unpleasantries.

Here's a simple suggestion:

Discuss relevant items to the discussion board at hand.

Religion belongs to the religion boards. Science to the science boards.

Taa-daa.

The ignore button is all the moderation required.

In fact, the Amazon.com nannybot is so lame that the discussion of 18th and 19th "racialist" theories is nearly impossible. They used the Latin word for "black" as a racial label. The Amazon.com nannybot will delete any use of these Latin words- even when they are part of a popular brand of Mexican Beer! Black Bear Beer. Just try to post the real name. Amazon will delete you.

"the Amazon.com nannybot is so lame"

Wow! Thanks. I was so wondering why I couldn't get a post onboard in another thread. I was talking of 'black body' radiation. I kept getting punted without an exact explanation. But later it was OK, maybe re-worded a bit. So it's a nuffybot ..... :-) :-)

Cheers, Mike.

Use "abed" for slave, means black in arabic

What hath "political correctness" wrougjt?

So 'abed body radiation', eh? :-)

"What hath "political correctness" wrougjt?"

As far as I can tell, merely some adjustments to contemporary dictionaries. :-)

Cheers, Mike.

What I hate is when in the US I have to call my friends of middle eastern origin with dark skin that live in either Europe or South America "African American" despite them not being African nor American. At home we don't treat skin color as if it were a stigma, and the first step in that direction is being able to refer to it freely.