Michel Bauwens: Civilized Discourse Construction Kit

Advanced Cyber/IO, Architecture, Civil Society, Data, Design, Governance, Innovation, Knowledge, P2P / Panarchy, Software, Worth A Look
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Michel Bauwens
Michel Bauwens

People are raving about this as a possible alternative command and control system for the public to use.

Civilized Discourse Construction Kit

Jeff Atwood

Coding Horror, February 5, 2013

EXTRACT:

After spending four solid years thinking of discussion as the established corrupt empire, and Stack Exchange as the scrappy rebel alliance, I began to wonder – what would it feel like to change sides? What if I became a champion of random, arbitrary discussion, of the very kind that I'd spent four years designing against and constantly lecturing users on the evil of?

I already built an X-Wing; could I build a better Tie Fighter?

Today we announce the launch of Discourse, a next-generation, 100% open source discussion platform built for the next decade of the Internet.

 

logo discourseThe goal of the company we formed, Civilized Discourse Construction Kit, Inc., is exactly that – to raise the standard of civilized discourse on the Internet through seeding it with better discussion software:

  • 100% open source and free to the world, now and forever.
  • Feels great to use. It's fun.
  • Designed for hi-resolution tablets and advanced web browsers.
  • Built in moderation and governance systems that let discussion communities protect themselves from trolls, spammers, and bad actors – even without official moderators.

Our amazingly talented team has been working on Discourse for almost a year now, and although like any open source software it's never entirely done, we believe it is already a generation ahead of any other forum software we've used.

I greatly admire what WordPress did for the web; to say that we want to be the WordPress of forums is not a stretch at all. We're also serious about this eventually being a viable open-source business, in the mold of WordPress. And we're not the only people who believe in the mission: I'm proud to announce that we have initial venture capital funding from First Round, Greylock, and SV Angel. We're embarking on a five year mission to improve the fabric of the Internet, and we're just getting started. Let a million discussions bloom!

So now, when someone says to me …

You're so right! We need a place for community around our thing. What software should we use?

I can reply without hesitation.

And hopefully, so can you.

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