The Future of Online Discussions – #FoOD2020

About the Conference

Whether in comment sections of news media, via social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter, in online discussion fora or on public consultation platforms: millions of people engage in online discussions every day. Based on extensive research and practical experience, it is well known that the way online discussions take place today exhibits many problems, including balkanization, lack of rational discourse, incivility or a high degree of redundancy.

There have been many proposals by scientific communities how to overcome some of these problems. Those include structuring discussions through argumentation maps, building a web of reusable arguments, automated summaries and additional interaction features such as ratings. Additionally, research has identified factors such as moderation style, platform design or community rules which influence the quality of online discussions. However, those proposals have had only very limited real-world impact, so far. There appears to be a gap between research on online discussions and the practical implementation in real world settings such as news websites, social media outlets or large-scale online consultations. The conference on ‘The Future of Online Discussions’ aims to bridge this gap.

Aim and Focus of the Conference

The key goal of the conference is to bring together researchers and practitioners in order to exchange ideas on how future online discussions should look like and by what means they should be supported. The conference aims to provide a platform where scientists and practitioners are committed to cooperate in order to promote change. The focus will be on both technical and non-technical means by which this can be achieved. Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

How should online discussions look like?
What are the main technical, legal and economic real-world constraints regarding online discussions?
By what technical and non-technical means can online discussions be improved?
What can be learned from real-world experiences with trying to improve online discussions?
We envisage that the topic of the conference is particular relevant to practitioners such as platform developers, media outlets or NGOs on the one hand, and scholars of Computer Science and Communication Science on the other hand. Practitioners are asked to give insight in the necessities, constraints and expectations which emerge in the context of their practical experience. We also welcome best case practice and innovations which are used by practitioners in the context of online discussions (e.g. automated word filters, moderation technics, community management etc.). The conference format is going to provide sufficient space for demo sessions and exchange for further collaboration.

Program

The conference Programm starts Thursday, 12th March at 1.00 pm. Registration and opportunity for lunch will be from 12.00 am. There will be a conference dinner Thursday evening at the brewery Schuhmacher (Oststraße 123). The conference will end Friday, 13th around 6.00 pm. You can download a short and extended version of the latest program: https://diid.hhu.de/en/food/

Venue and further Information

The conference is going to take place 12th–13th March 2020 in Düsseldorf/Germany at the House of the University. It is jointly organized by the NRW Forschungskolleg Online Participation and the Düsseldorf Institute for Internet and Democracy (DIID) at the University of Düsseldorf. Both institutions have a strong interdisciplinary focus on online participation research. For further questions please contact the Head of the organizing committee.

Registration

To register for the conference, please write a short email to diid@hhu.de which provides full name and affiliation (for the conference badge) as well as particular food preferences. Please also note whether you are planning to participate at the conference dinner Thursday night (please note that places for dinner are limited and participation cannot be guaranteed by late registration) . The registration is open until Wednesday, 4 March 2020. However, due to the limited number of seats, we may close the registration before this date. In any case, no conference fees will be charged.