How a conversation works in Omniforum
This page is for people who have already read the What is Omniforum page and want to see in more detail what happens to a statement from the moment you write it to the moment others can discuss it: what the author confirms, what role digital intelligence plays and how we know who said what.
You cannot use this yet: we are describing a plan and collecting comments.
The Omniforum prototype is under construction. Everything we describe below is at the design stage, and we have not yet completed any trial.
More: Omniforum whitepaper, chapter 1.
One sentence, many thoughts#
In a single sentence we convey many assumptions, values and expectations, and in a dispute each person often responds to different ones. The simple question “So you mean this and that, do I understand you correctly?” changes the tone of the conversation on both sides. Breaking a statement down is meant to support this reflex, not to turn a conversation into a dry chart.
Take the sentence “It's worth planting trees on our street if we choose drought-resistant species.” It contains two thoughts connected by a condition: “it's worth planting trees on our street” and “we choose drought-resistant species.” Each thought is made up of concepts: “tree,” “our street,” “species,” “drought.” The whitepaper calls concepts atoms and thoughts built from atoms molecules. A molecule can be supported with an argument or challenged; an atom by itself is neither true nor false. The word “drought” on its own claims nothing; only “drought is a problem where we live” can be supported or challenged.
The sentence must not be reduced to an unconditional “it's worth planting trees on our street,” because the condition is part of the meaning. If digital intelligence adds that the author considers drought a problem in the area, this is marked as the model's inference, not the author's words. We break things down only as deep as necessary: where the meaning depends on a single concept or where it may become the subject of a dispute.
More: Omniforum whitepaper, chapter 2, chapter 3 and the glossary in section 1.3.
Step by step#
This is how the path of a thought that originates in Omniforum is meant to look:
- You write. You start with ordinary text or a passage and set the goal: understanding, extracting arguments, your own response or comparing positions.
- Digital intelligence proposes a breakdown. Next to each thought it shows which passage it derived it from, and it points out the places where it may have strayed from your intention or where the text can be read in several ways.
- You check and correct. You do not have to go through everything one by one; you correct the places it points out. The whole can be accepted at once only when it is clear what is being accepted and it is possible to go back to the details.
- You confirm. You recognize that the interpretation conveys what you mean. Steps 1–4 are the preparation of a thought in the Ignis workshop (the whitepaper calls this stage Ignis). The manifesto calls the publication itself the Ignis Ceremony.
- You publish.
- The community considers the thought. Others add arguments, sources and caveats. This is the stage of shaping the thought together, called Formatio in the whitepaper.
- A shared agreement (Consensus) or an honestly described disagreement. An agreement states its version, its scope, the people who confirmed it and dissenting opinions; we do not count silence as agreement. When there is no agreement, an honestly described disagreement is also a result of this work.
We are also considering a second, voluntary ceremony: a moment in which we name the limit of what we can justify today and begin looking for an answer to a new question. For now this is an idea without a settled name or form.
More: Omniforum whitepaper, chapter 3.
What you confirm and what you do not#
A confirmation says only that you recognize your thought in the breakdown. It does not prove that you are right, does not mean that others agree with you, and is not a vote in a ballot. You can correct the breakdown or leave your statement whole, without dividing it.
Readers can break down your statement in their own way, without waiting for you; such a breakdown is shown as the reader's interpretation, under their name or pseudonym. We show as your breakdown only the version you confirm; silence does not mean consent.
A conversation is meant to leave room for changing one's mind without humiliation: you can admit a mistake, ask another question or finish without declaring agreement. A participant's dignity does not depend on whether they accept a conclusion.
More: Omniforum whitepaper, chapter 2 and chapter 1.
The model helps, but does not rule#
The model (the digital intelligence program that proposes a breakdown) has its own habits. It smooths out unusual phrasing and makes different voices sound alike. A ready-made proposal is also easy to accept unchanged. That is why the path without a model's help is of equal standing: you can arrange the division by hand, and from time to time we compare breakdowns prepared with and without a model's help.
With each breakdown we record who prepared it and when, and if a model helped, which model and with which version of the instructions.
More: Omniforum whitepaper, chapter 3 and chapter 2.
A thought from Suveria#
A thought can also come from Suveria, the private space for working with digital intelligence, where you refine it in your own workshop. In that case you publish it right away, without the Ignis workshop. The moment of publication is the same Ignis Ceremony, and after it Formatio begins, as with any other thought.
More: Omniforum whitepaper, chapter 3.
How we know who said what#
With each thought and each use of a concept we record where they come from: from which text, from which version of it, from which place, in what language and in what surroundings. This means you can always go back to the original and read a sentence in its context.
An atom is a meaning, not a word. The words by which we name it are its labels, and one atom can have many of them, also in different languages: drought is “susza” in Polish and “Dürre” in German. This allows people who use different words to talk about the same thing. Linking a word to an atom is a proposal that the author confirms. It can also be private information: the fact that “our street” means Warszawska Street reveals where someone lives, so the author decides whether others will see it.
More: Omniforum whitepaper, chapter 2.
What we will check in the first trial#
The first step of the trials is one complete path of a single thought: someone enters their own text, digital intelligence proposes a breakdown, the author corrects what was misunderstood, saves the result with its source and later returns to it in another conversation.
We check whether anything was lost along the way: the wording of the original, its meaning, successive versions and who has access to what. We also look for interpretation errors that the model did not flag itself, and we compare the result with the text alone and with an ordinary summary. Before the trial we publish what result we will consider sufficient, and we record its result in the log, also when the trial fails.
More: Omniforum whitepaper, chapter 9.
Read it and tell us what you think#
You will find the full description of this path in the Omniforum whitepaper (about 50 minutes of reading), especially in chapters 2 and 3. If something puzzles you or seems wrong, highlight that passage in the document and use the “I have a comment” button, or write to salve@novusignis.org.