Deliberations

Similarly, a “yes, and…” button might also add value.

However, the core problem with these rating mechanisms is that they occur way too early in the process when instead participants should be encouraged to suspend judgment as long as possible.

Hi Tim, yes I agree with you, and ideation should follow the ideal of brainstorming to not include ranking. But we could also expand the conversation while ideation is occurring to bring in multiple points of view.

I think we have to take a step back and rethink “rating” as such. Thumbs up or thumbs down, stars our of fives, like dislike and don’t care, all these concepts might in some cases miss the point and sometimes a system such as launchpad is more conducive to the content, where you can mark things as “also affects me” or “is a duplicate idea of” and so on. I agree with Tim that rating usually occurs too early in a process where sorting, combining, splitting and “filling with more details” is way more important. If you let ideas come to a voting stage, that pulls the rug out from under discussing its content….

Thanks Sebastian, I think we’re generally on the same page with this. Let’s separate ranking from elaboration. Agreed that early ranking should be avoided, but perhaps elaboration is useful.

I think we need to distinguish collaboration systems (like LaunchPad) designed mainly to overcome technical problems against those designed to help solve societal problems. It is very easy to delay judgement in the former, where much (but not all) evidence comes in the form of facts. The expression “let’s get all the facts on the table first” rings true.

But for societal problems, suggestions are often made on normative grounds (ie. starting with personal belief). Their subjective nature just demands immediate response.

Tim’s suggestion of a “but-and” button (same icon could be used!) is right as it supports appreciative rather than bullying strategies.