Concision enthroned: How Yoomoot keeps discussions trim

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The problem: Online discussions contain many unnecessary posts
Online discussions are cluttered with extraneous information. There areposts which are just "me too" expressions of agreement, posts whichmake the same point as a previous post but from a slightly differentangle, posts based entirely on misunderstandings and posts rewordingprevious posts in an attempt to rectify misunderstandings. It all addsup to make popular online discussions overwhelmingly enormous. In contrast, Yoomoot discussions have no more posts thanneeded.

Solution 1: Judgements
On Yoomoot, users can 'agreewith', 'disagree with' or be 'unsure about' posts via a simple votingmechanism. This removes the clutter of 'me too' posts while retainingthe value of knowing which posts have the most support. Curious userscan see exactly who voted what and what version of the post they votedon.

Solution 2: Revision requests
If users are confused about what the author of aparticular post is saying they can write a 'revision request' to theauthor, encouraging them to edit their post to make it clearer. Thisavoids cluttering discussions with expressions of confusion and thesubsequent clarifications.

Solution 3: Co-authoring of posts
Often, discussions are litteredwith posts which make the same basic point, but give subtly differentinsights into the issue. Yoomoot encourages such additional insights tobe added to existing posts, in order to avoid clutter. To facilitatethis, we allow users to edit one another's posts. Authors can choose between making a specific post editable only tothemselves and specifically invited users or (the default setting)making the post editable by any 'trusted user'.Moreover, trusted users are required to make edits only if theystrengthen the arguments made in the posts. Opposing arguments must bemade as separate posts.

Solution 4: Merging of similar bookmarks
'Bookmarks' (basically links torecommended sites) are always editable by all trusted users. Users areencouraged to group similar links into a single bookmark, eithermanually or via the 'merge' button. This helps fight a common problemencountered on other social bookmarking sites: multiple links todifferent versions of the same story. This solution is not fully implemented yet.