Summary

Discussion is an essential step / component in collaboration. While it is believed by the authors that discussion can improve ability to confront public problems, web-based public discussions are thought to be inflammatory and hyperbolic for proper information decisions. The authors argued that this might be partly caused by a lack of useful interface supporting listening. The reason is that through listening, discussion participants can establish more common understanding about the topic. Through a better understanding, there lies a possibility for improved quality of opinions generated in the discussion. Therefore, the authors proposed a deeper understanding of listening on the web, along with the design, deployment and evaluation. Reflect, the listening interface for online comment boards responds to their insight that incorporates an emphasis on listening interface.  As evaluation, the authors deploy Reflect on three means which they further divide into two categories, all of which demonstrated traction for voluntary public use and for summarizing full discussions.

Reflect (not their Reflect)

The paper is obviously well-written. I found no difficulty in following the authors’ motivation, approach and evaluation.

The motivation is simple: discussion leads to better collaboration. To ensure high quality discussion, a thorough understanding of each participant’s argument is required. Hence, listening interface can both facilitate and evaluation such understanding by allowing readers to restate and summarize content. This makes sense to me because any meaningful discussion I encountered in my life is based on neutral understanding of the argument. However, internet is a place where such understanding is missing and thus discussion sometimes inevitably becomes quarrelling. On the other hand, the writer should also be expressive enough to eliminate misunderstanding.

The original content writer can view the restated / summarized content to update on his writing or explain more on the details. This feedback further improves communication. The listener can also clarify the restatement if questioned. This positive cycle facilitates discussion through establishing understanding. Moreover, the entire process is transparent to other web viewers so that any one can pick on a topic rather faster and more accurate due to the summaries.

The tool and its evaluation is another thing that interests me. The qualitative analysis writing is particularly useful for me when I do need to study things in this way.

Question

Seems like the listening interface is for comment-based discussion. What about other forms of online discussion, such as teleconference?