Improving debates in CONSUL with a new approach from GREMIEN

#1

I want to discuss wether it might be useful to improve the existing system and display of debates so that they are more focused on pro and contra arguments.

I tried this approach in my project GREMIEN for abstract debates and on the other hand focused on the procedures of the german parliament. I wonder wether this would also improve CONSUL.

201809031805%20Diskussion
201809031805 Diskussion.png2804×2092 705 KB

You will find the proposal for the debate in the grey area above with important documents on the right. The debate happens in the colored part at the bottom with pro and contra arguments and information that doesn’t belong to one of the sides.

Should I bring this into CONSUL?
Question to @voodoorai2000 @AAA

#2

And also to @bertocq @vanessametonini and all others.

#3

Hi @Magnus thanks a lot for the proposal. We think that the pro/contra functionality may increase the polarization in the debates, that is a very delicate issue in such platforms, so we prefer to let the comments functionality as it is in Consul. Also the current way of commenting allows to reproduce the way people debate and comment offline, not structured in pro/contra arguments, so it may be more natural for the people participatings. And also allow other kind of interactions between comments with different dynamics, depending on how the users want to talk between them.
Anyway, if you decide to include that functionality in a fork of Consul, please share the fork here, in case some other fork wants to include this functionality in their version.
Thank you very much for the suggestion.

#4

Thanks for the answer!

How do you handle lots of comments on one issue?
Isn’t it very hard for people that join a discussion later to go through all the comments and separate the relevant ones from the more talkalike comments?

#5

Users can rate the comments, so the relevant ones very fast get to the top of the list. Also the sub-debate branches can be collapsed, helping also to reduce the amount of information.
Anyway do not underestimate the talkalike comments, some times the most interesting ideas come from such moments :wink:

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