A Proposal to Define a New Thread Format

[Josh]

Ideas here should be presented as clearly as the person presenting them is capable of and the person presenting them should welcome any opportunities to make their ideas clearer. Comments here should contribute something useful to the original post. Avoid inadvertently slipping into opposition where a simple request for clarification or a suggested reading would be more productive. Threads in this category are handled as follows.

1. A statement is made in the form of a post consisting of a short Title and a Body of any length. This post should be thoughtfully written, thoroughly proofread (and clearly referenced if appropriate).

2. Someone must offer to mediate the thread. This should not be someone who would be more interested in challenging the statement or idea(s) therein but it should be someone who is interested to learn more. A new thread of this format should not be allowed if another is still awaiting a mediator.

3. Once a mediator has volunteered, the thread is considered open to comments. Anyone that the thread is open to may comment (including the mediator). You are only allowed to have one unresolved comment at a time. You may ask for clarification of any number of points, request references or make any other queries. You may also include any number of statements, quotes, references etc. that give weight to your question(s). However, comments should always seek to improve the original post. The thread should not be considered a platform for debate (that's a different format). The objective here is not to arrive at something that everyone agrees with but simply to arrive at the clearest presentation of the original poster's idea. You're welcome to expand upon one part of a post or disagree entirely, but do so in a separate thread that references this one in whole or in part.

4. When a question is raised, the original poster should edit their original post as best they can to address the question. The original post should be considered something that is being submitted for peer-review. Although the ideas in the original post may be well founded, the presentation of those ideas (the post itself) should not be considered static. Edits should reference the #id of the comment that they are in response to.

5. The mediator is to mark questions as 'Resolved' when they believe they have been adequately addressed. This does not imply that the mediator agrees or disagrees with the statement(s) of either party, only that they believe the original poster has addressed the question adequately or provided a useful source for further understanding. It is also up to the mediator to determine what is a 'useful source' and what is not.

6. (optional) If there are no open comments (questions), the mediator may approve the thread. The thread will be closed to further comments until the original poster decides to reopen the thread or close it entirely.

7. The original poster closes the thread. Although there may be numerous unanswered questions and ways to expand upon parts of the post, the original poster may close the thread at any time. Ideally, this is only done when the original poster believes they have done all they can to support and clarify their original statement. As stated in step 3, anyone is welcome to respond in a new thread provided it is thoughtfully written, thoroughly proofread (and clearly referenced if appropriate).

[cozy]

We can only post responses in the form of a question?

[Josh]

Yes. The original post has now been edited in two places that reference your question. Maybe sources that the original poster wants to reference should be listed at the end of the post and referenced by superscript numbers in the body as would be the case in print. That way any links to questions from the thread could be removed from the body leaving references intact. Is that a reasonable approach? (BTW, If this thread strictly followed the format, this post would not exist.)

[cozy]

How should we specify thread formats/types? Would this be an option dropdown next to and in addition to the category selector? How many questions can we ask at one time in a single reply? How will the rules be enforced? Can we make a new to-do list with all the functionality that needs to be added, or that we've talked about adding recently?

[Josh]

How should we specify thread formats/types? Would this be an option dropdown next to and in addition to the category selector?

It's pretty common to have a post permanently pinned to the top of a category that outlines the criteria for new threads/posts. However, the functionality of the thread doesn't change. The proposed format would require certain functionality that is not available in other categories: specifying a single user who has the ability to pin multiple posts in everyone's view. It would also lack certain functionality that is available in other categories: the ability for all participants to submit an unlimited number of comments.

Can we make a new to-do list with all the functionality that needs to be added...?

Any to-dos specific to this proposal can and should be posted in this thread as even the concept is still just a work in progress.

[snoopy]

I will give this a go!!

[snoopy]

Originally posted by Josh >
A statement should be made in the form of a post consisting only of a Title (no Body).

I think the title of the thread should be short and simple. The statement should be a clear, to-the-point, single sentence, and be the only content of the very first post. (it's what I just did. LOL)

[Josh]

Yeah, maybe the statement should actually be in the body and titles are best kept as something you could fit on a marquee.Here's a link to highlighted text on another page. For some reason the text isn't being highlighted on this site though. Hmmm.