I notice that this General Philosophy forum has 66 pages of threads. Each thread has up to hundreds of replies. Many of the threads are recurrent themes.

I wonder what would happen if rather than each thread bearing no connection to previous ones, the threads built upon each other in terms of their idea development.

Further, if within each thread, instead of there being a maze of replies referenced only by "to whom" the reply was being made, the replies could clearly be seen to build upon each other.

If the forum were designed this way, do you think that many of the discussions would just END because everyone would have nothing new to add

OR

do you think that more participants would move beyond their current thinking, actually shifting to more evolved viewpoints and even creating new knowledge as a community?

maybe. interresting thought.

If the forum were designed this way, do you think that many of the discussions would just END because everyone would have nothing new to add

The idea is interesting but putting it into practice would be difficult for people won't understand how it works especially new members.



do you think that more participants would move beyond their current thinking, actually shifting to more evolved viewpoints and even creating new knowledge as a community?

I'd think it is up to the poster to say what they want. Sometimes others points of views are changed because of the repitition of certain subjescts that are repeated. I don't care for the repitition myself and would enjoy seeing new subjects introduced.

There is an electronic platform that has been created for just this purpose. It's called KnowledgeForum. I'm pretty sure that it isn't used in any public forums like this.

Not so few people come to this forum to train and sharpen their discussion and debate skills. Also, some come here for other reasons that have nothing to do with the things they talk about.

Then there is the whole "prominent posters" thing ... when it matter WHO said something, not what was said ...

Be it as it may, Sciforums doesn't exactly have a "schoolish" nature. I'm not sure if meddling with its nature would be welcomed ...

Well, I'm not really proposing changing Sciforums. I'm wondering if we are being wasteful with our thoughts and our energy when "babbling without building."

If the forum were designed this way, do you think that many of the discussions would just END because everyone would have nothing new to add

No, I think you'd see more additions to the beginning and middle of threads, not just the ends. It's a good idea. Google groups sort of supports this:

http://groups.google.com/

If a thread exists, post a reply with the same name. This reactivates the thread.

Then, you can reply to earlier messages, although you may need to do it from outside the Google Groups service.