We propose as an assistant to virtual communities in conducting a structured discourse on topics of interest.
It supports a top-down group analysis of a subject domain, the accumulation of documentation that supports the process, and the initial stages of a bottom-up development of action proposals (problem solutions).
ConsensUs extends the idea of threaded comment structure by introducing the concept of typed discourse structures and specifying an organization of these structures.
The introduction of organization (internal structure) fosters keeping the community members "on-topic" without sacrificing flexibility. Members are able to pursue ideas in a semi free-form but kept within the domain of interest.
There are two new ideas in ConsensUs that facilitate arrival at consensus, or at least, nuclei of consensus. The first idea is based on learning and memory in brains, specifically short- and long-term Memory Effects.
The second new idea is the use of computational semantic analysis to assist finding common themes and what we will call Nuclei of Consensus.
The central idea is to aggregate and collapse or coalesce comments whose semantic content indicates a high degree of similarity.
Such an aggregation does two things.
It first reduces the Information Load.
Second it provides a Sense of Consensus.
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I was bored by Gallery "views" which are computationally wasteful: why do we need $700 calculators to create the same spaces we build out of drywall? Alternative: use computational semantic analysis to assist finding common themes, materializing Autopoietic Systems, reducing information loads and arriving at historical consensus through open-source collaboration made effective by design.
Nuclei of Consensus by providing a weighted comment that represents a commonality of ideas, values, and objectives. Community members can grasp the core of the theme by reading a single comment that represents the nucleus rather than having to read, and recall all of the comments that seemed to agree.
The second thing it does is provide members with a sense of how strong the consensus is for a particular theme (nucleus). This may aid in members being swayed in the direction of the perceived consensus. But of course, it may simply invigorate their efforts to move the discourse in a different direction.