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Author
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Topic: A cooperative environment
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Moderator
Administrator
Member # 1
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posted 26. February 2003 08:40
This is a heads-up to everyone at Brainstorms. It involves a policy change.
Though this has been the intention of Brainstorms from the beginning, we are just now making it explicit.
All critiques at Brainstorms must be in the spirit of helping to improve the hypothesis. If the argument is just too far removed and off base, then participants are required to refrain from posting to the thread. If participants can't refrain from consistent efforts to merely shoot down ideas, rather than sometimes affirming the positives, their posting privileges will be removed.
Being even more explicit...
All posts on the first page of a thread must be what Edward de Bono calls of the "green hat" type. The earliest posts must be confined to positive construction, re-construction and modification of the ideas in the original post. In other words, on the first page of a thread, participants are required to show that they have an interest in helping the argument to be developed and not just in shooting it down.
After the first page of a thread, participants are then allowed to provide more forceful, "hole-picking" critiques.
There are several purposes to this new rule. First, to prevent an idea from being killed before it is given a chance to breathe. Second, to encourage a cooperative environment. Third, to give the moderator additional tools for removing participants from the board who are unable to participate in a cooperative environment and who constrain their behaviour to shooting down ideas and disrupting conversation.
[ 27. February 2003, 12:18: Message edited by: Moderator ]
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Rex Kerr
Member
Member # 632
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posted 26. February 2003 20:32
It would be helpful to have some examples of what constitutes "improving the hypothesis". In order to refine a hypothesis, you need to both think of additions and extensions as well as problem areas and counterexamples. Since I'm not familiar with de Bono's definition of "green hat", I'm not sure to what extent refinements are allowed.
This post didn't address asking questions of the original poster, in cases where it's appropriate (i.e. not a link to a paper). I would suggest that at least friendly and neutral questions be allowed immediately, since it is hard to give input of any kind on things that one doesn't understand.
Of course, this raises the danger of Socratic hole-picking (i.e. calmly asking non-leading questions about the areas of a hypothesis where the deepest flaws lie), but hopefully even with Socratic hole-picking there would be enough of an improvement in tone to allow ideas to breathe, as you put it.
I suppose it depends where along the continuum of a friendly atmosphere for new ideas vs. a stringent testing ground the boards are supposed to be. Too stringent and some people don't feel comfortable sharing even the best-supported ideas; too friendly and some people don't do even the barest sanity-check before posting. New ideas are good; good ideas are better.
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Moderator
Administrator
Member # 1
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posted 26. February 2003 23:28
Rex,
Let me just say that thus far your participation at Brainstorms has been an exemplification of what we're aiming to acheive in this forum. The main thrust of our new policy is to ensure that ideas receive breathing room, and that they not be subjected to various assasination tactics. I'm pretty sure that you have nothing to worry about. Feel free to provide constructive criticism as you see fit. Our rules are not hard and fast, they merely serve to provide a general sense of the level of discussion we are striving for.
An example of things we are trying to prevent are "guilt by association" blanket assertions such as "this is just another version of...[fill in the blank]" or "this commits the same blatant error as [fill in the blank]" or "this is typical of arguments from the [fill in the blank]"
Also, since we are trying to encourage a cooperative environment, we are trying to avoid the "us vs. them" mentality. We're trying to weed out the posters who participate merely to shoot down ideas or "save the world" from irrationality. We really are only interested in keeping participants who show a genuine interest in dialogue. Unfortunately, it is common for "cheerleaders" ("in your face... just more proof...its just so obvious") and assasins ("doomed to fail...obviously wrong...this paper has too many blatant errors to take seriously") to steer the conversation away from productive dialogue and towards a screaming match.
I hope this helps. Perhaps it only confuses things. The main point being summed up in the title of this thread. If a person contributes to a cooperative environment, then he/she has nothing to worry about. If a poster consistently postures, ignores, misdirects, etc. then, well...he/she can just go on with life minus Brainstorms. No big deal, really.
[Added edit: One last note, if something really seems stupid or has too many errors to take seriously, we'd prefer that people speak with silence rather than ridicule. We are not denying that some ideas are bad.]
[ 26. February 2003, 23:37: Message edited by: Moderator ]
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nobody
Member
Member # 145
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posted 27. February 2003 21:52
quote:
I hope this helps.
It does. Thanks.
And btw, thanks for running an excellent board. Very few boards on the net are the equal of this one.
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