A quote from the blag:

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I was trying to decide what made a channel consistently enjoyable. A common factor in my favorite hangouts seemed to be a focus on original and unpredictable content on each line. It didn't necessarily need to be useful, just interesting. I started trying to think of ways to encourage this.

And then I had an idea - what if you were only allowed to say sentences that had never been said before, ever? A bot with access to the full channel logs could kick you out when you repeated something that had already been said.

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In other words, if you say something that has already been said, you get banned.

Thoughts? I haven't bothered to actually check out the channel myself, but from what I have heard, it's very smooth.

Post edited at 11:39 am on Jan. 26, 2008 by Most of LiveWire

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Don't let the "close account" button hit you on your way out. =] -- Metacarpi

"is this normal?"  *banned*
"2girls1cup"  *banned*
"guys..."  *banned*

:)

And it is an interesting concept, but I'm not of the opinion that it would necessarily promote quality communication.

It would surely promote unique communication, but there is a difference between being unique and trying to be unique.. among other things.

It may have some merit in terms of a serious discussion, a (much more) limited time frame, and the like.. but there is not a remotely definitive correlation between uniqueness and quality in terms of conversation.

For an exceptionally simplistic example: consider a situation in which someone articulates a viewpoint which you agree with, strongly, but have nothing meaningful to contribute that hasn't already been said.

Which is a better response:

a) Silence.
b) I completely agree.
c) I completely agree. I will now rehash several points you already made, contributing nothing, but ensuring that this reply is unique. Now that I have rambled on for quite awhile, using my thesaurus to swap in some words I would never normally use, while saying absolutely nothing, I'll conclude by thanking you profusely for expressing yourself so eloquently.

Of course, if you did have something to add or a dissent to voice, it would surely be more of a contribution to a meaningful dialogue.

And I would note that, if there were a good many other people responding, I would likely feel less of a need to say anything at all.. as I generally do avoid speaking up when I have nothing to offer. However, especially if very few people are involved in said dialogue, the voicing of such support would not necessarily diminish the quality of its discourse.

Still, I would suggest that uniqueness alone.. or even at all.. is a poor measure of quality.. as rote comments can be a meaningful part of any dialogue, especially one in which you have no feedback other than what is being typed.. or lack thereof.

And trying to be unique, in my opinion, could easily result in people trying to hard.. whether collaboratively, out of sarcasm, or similar.. and that would lead to a type of bullshit that I would find to be more lacking in quality than contributive, if repetitive, statements.

Post edited at 6:26 pm on Jan. 26, 2008 by Whuppee

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Unbelievably awesomesauce to the absurd degree that I wet myself.
Who else has created a LW/magnets
so explicit the mods deleted a screencap of it? =P