Control or Suggest?

For anyone who wants to create a collaborative space online, there is a tension between two opposing forces: the need to steer the discussion, and the need to allow discussion to emerge. As the designer shepherd steward instigator of this space, I am attempting to bridge these two tendencies. On the one hand, I think the emergent nature of discussion is really important to building a vibrant community. Not only would it be silly to think that I can anticipate all the kinds of ideas and conversations are going to live in this space, but it would suffocate the evolution of the environment if I tried.

Instead, I think it might be neat to create an open category and simply allow users to submit and tag their submissions however they see fit. After a while it might be possible to pick out some patterns and see how I can provide other ways to slice and dice the content.

On the other hand, too much openness makes things too vague and therefore uninviting. So here’s a start: there are two different “channels” (ie categories for content on this site) that I think would be useful to pick out. One relates to your feedback and ideas about this project itself - your suggestions and observations on how to improve any aspect of it. This is a pretty broad conversation. Appropriately, this channel is called “Suggestions”.

The second channel is related to why the ASC project exists in the first place: your voice taking part in a public discussion. This channel is called “Questions for Union Square”. And this is the beginning of the ASC project: How do I seed the conversation online to generate a dialog in Union Square that can build upon itself into something cumulative, something uncommonly solid?

To re-state my line of inquiry: What questions should be asked that will generate the best and most productive set of questions and answers thereafter? I think one excellent question that goes in this direction is this:

If you could ask one question of millions upon millions of people, what would it be?

Can you think of a better way of putting it? Maybe that question is too open-ended. What is your question?

Please post it to the “Question for Union Square” category. If the audio interface is unavailable, don’t hesitate to create an account and simply post it in text form. Otherwise, you can also email it to me.