Long comments

What about if you type more than 500 words the comment box extends automatically and an extra field appears for you to put a 140-character summary in? I think for starters at least it would be an optional field, but you could potentially include an alert box to say 'consider providing a summary for this longer-than-usual comment'.

I think it would encourage people to write with a little more focus.

Here's a mockup.

I'm against a software solution for this. Looking forward to UI skunkworks.

I think this will be quite different in different groups. Some will have a high tolerance for text heavy in-depth comments. Some not. But it's up to each group how to moderate it. I do however think some of our ideas about comment sorting and filtering will go a long way to help people find the info they need.

Encouraging brevity couldn't be a bad thing, surely, so long as the encouragement wasn't too annoying.

With Rob, this sounds like group culture would eventually sort this. Perhaps you could mention it in a beginners guide to getting the most from your Loomio.

I hate to sound like a stuck record, but forking...

Also, I would support having a maximum character length for comments, which can be set and changed by admins for the needs of the group. Comments beyond a certain length become editorials, or essays, not comments, and turn discussions into fragmented blog-comment-style threads.

I suggest:
* you define APIs for integrating the Loomio app with a wiki, for longer texts, which can be summarized in comments. This would avoid Loomio devs having to code a wiki from scratch (or fork and maintain one), as well as allowing Loomio to be adopted by groups who currently use an email list and a wiki, without duplication.
* that Loomio.org set up a well-supported WYSIWYG wiki package for its users. This would increase the value of the service to users, and provide a change to test and refine the APIs in the wild.

Also, keeping the discussion info box up to date helps. Maybe whoever started the discussion becomes the facilitator of that discussion, and confused users can hit a button asking them to review the discussion and update the summary?

Also, what about putting the Current Decision box next to the Discussion Info box, and separating the discussion into two columns; comments and suggestions?
I feel a mock-up coming on...

I really really like the idea of a field popping up encouraging a short summary when comments are long. It would essentially give two levels - brief and in depth - which is exactly what we want.

Certain people are already giving TL;DR summaries at the start of their comments, but it's only people who are used to doing it from other forums. This would be an awesome behaviour to encourage through a framework that makes it easy!

Culturally I think it would do really good things to the way people think about communicating.

@aaronthornton , culture is definitely part of it but we can clearly do simple things in the software that encourage it.

Character limit on comments adjustable by admin sounds really sensible to me also @strypey

@benjaminknightloom there are many places people can post long-form discussion pieces (eg their own blog, a wiki etc), and post a link in a Loomio thread for those who have time to read them. But I strongly believe consensus works best when people are conversing with each other, not lecturing each other. Remember how frustrating it was at GA when people would give lengthy speeches? I really feel that if people have to summarize their comment, it is too long for that group. I actually really like that the small comment window is a disincentive to lecture.

At the risk of repeating myself (something which contributes significantly to walls of text), a lot of comments would be avoided if it was possible to collaboratively craft the wording of a proposal.

As others have said elsewhere, it can really slow down group process when we have to wait for one proposal to close before we can offer a modified version that might get greater consensus. I suspect it also creates a sense of ego attachment to a proposal once it's put up, because it can only be adopted or voted down, and not iterated.

I understand why editing of proposals was disallowed - people say "yes" to one thing, then it becomes something quite different. However, preventing proposal editing enables people to treat Loomio as a voting engine, say "yes" to a proposal, and stop following the discussion. It's been a while since this decision was made, and a lot of tools have been added to the app to making following discussions easier (notifications, emails etc).

I propose that proposal editing be allowed, and urgent notifications are used to let people know when a proposal they have taken a position on is edited. Perhaps editing a proposal could also auto-extend the closing day by a few days (eg 3)?

Noting the irony of saying how much I like short comments, and dislike lecturing, then proceeding to lecture... ;P