Building Interpretable Discussions for effective public engagement

摘要

Shifts in the culture of civic engagement, technologies and practices surrounding social media, and pressure from political leaders have ignited a movement amongst gov't agencies to extend their efforts for obtaining input on public issues. These projects face serious challenges related to scale of participation and political capture, though collaborative efforts elsewhere suggest we may be able to support interactions amongst large numbers of people. Instead of emphasizing the exchange of individual messages and voting, I propose that systems should be designed to support the cooperative production of discussions.