CommunityBoard: social meeting system able to visualize the structure of discussions

Abstract

We have developed a social meeting system called CommunityBoard which visually displays the discussion structure. Discussions on networks, e.g., by a mailing list, Usenet newsgroup, or online forum, are becoming more and more popular. However, many people have difficulty following and participating in discussions on networks, and one of the reasons is due to a failure to grasp the context of discussions. Previous tools have been insufficient in helping to avoid this failure. In order to solve this problem, we have developed CommunityBoard. Users can avoid confusion and achieve informative discussion. This system provides one integrated view of discussions from three aspects: the speakers, topics and time. The integrated view enables users to easily obtain various information about these aspects at one glance and this leads to lively and productive discussions. An example illustrates the efficiency of CommunityBoard.