@John Twitter was never a formal deliberation platform, on which things would conclude with a vote. And contentious subjects yield camps and multiple consenses, unless some institutional form demands some compromise “win”. But on Twitter, within broad camps rather than between, there was a kind of consensus-forming process. Things would be hashed out, conclusions would become conventional wisdom, the past could be carried forward by backreferences to older conversations. 1/

@John Not wonderfully! Twitter was not designed, was poorly designed, as a deliberation platform. There is no convenient, reliable, way for example to find and follow all the branches of rely chains. Like Facebook, a lot of record can be submerged to the point of disappearance. 2/

The claim isn’t that Twitter is (or Mastodon or anything else merely social-media-ish should) adjudicate between deeply opposed camps. Shouting happens more there and more destructively of goodwill than ever here. But the notion of constructing something that will survive and inform the future within conversations among people considering and disputing in goodwill is very valuable, but hard to do here. /fin