Disagreement's Good

This short TED talk by Margaret Hefferanan points to the virtue of constructive disagreement and engaging thinking partners who aren't echo chambers, something that Interactive Democracy is designed to foster. Her book Willful Blindness was shortlisted for the Financial Times/GoldmanSachs Best Business Book award in 2011

Agreeing with Comments

Should comments placed on the Voter Interface each have a button so that you can agree or disagree with them?

Should comments with the most agreement rise to the top of the list and those with the most disagreement fall to the bottom?

Given that the number of comments is likely to be vast, perhaps there should be some way of organising them other than on a first-come/first-served basis. This could be achieved by this votes per comment system.

It may also be worth dissuading new comments that are similar to previous comments. This may be achievable by automatically matching words in one comment with words in the new one and then presenting a list of similar comments to the commentor. They may then prefer to add an "I agree" vote to an existing one, instead of publishing their own.

No Politics or Religion Please!

Arguments may not be pleasant, and in polite society they are sometimes best avoided so that deep seated disagreements don't tarnish a relationship. However, cyberdisinhibition may allow discussion of politics that would never occur in a social group. (This blog may be a case in point.)