Decidim Debates

[carolromero]

This is a Feature Proposal

🎩 Description

• What is the use case that should be solved. The more detail you describe this in the easier it is to understand for us.

In most Participatory Processes there is at least one phase of deliberation where a debate component is needed. Now that several organisations are using Decidim, we see that it makes sense to have a component for debates within the components available.

I know this have been discussed before, IMHO this should be a core functionality, since we are talking about a participation platform.

• If there is additional config how would it look

To the existing component in Decidim.Barcelona (https://github.com/AjuntamentdeBarcelona/decidim-barcelona/tree/master/decidim-debates), we would add the following functionalities:

• The admin can create a type of debate AMA and set: http://decidim-design.herokuapp.com/debate-view-AMA/
  • Start date/time
  • Finish date/time (Comments and voting for comments should be disabled after end date)
  • Debate Instructions / information updates
• A registered user can create a debate
• The admin should be able to activate/desactivate these options for each Participatory Process.

📌 Related issues

• Participatory Process Debates #292

📋 Subtasks

@mrcasals, as the developer of this, will keep this lust up to date to reflect the progress of the PR.

• Copy the code from BCN
• Add new features:
  • For AMA debates, only open comments when the AMA is open
  • For non-AMA debates, leave comments always open
  • Allow debates without start/end times in the admin
  • Let admins add information updates
  • Add author to debates, let debates be official
  • Let debates be reported
  • Let users create debates
  • Admins cannot edit user-created debates
  • Show debate reference in show page
  • Let users create a debate as a user group
  • Add real pagination
  • Admins can control if users can create debates (don't forget the i18n key)
  • Show comments count in debates card
  • Search and filter debates
  • Allow users to follow a debate
  • When a user creates a debate, notify their followers

📋 Additional Data

• Screenshot:
  

[xabier]

This is critical to many City Councils and also very relevant for other organizations. It also serves to find hacks to create new features (like direct talk to politicians, to create participatory diagnosis for a process, etc.)

[xabier]

In this case, unlike proposals (yet), it is very clear to me that the possibility to edit debates at any time (with or without keep version control) is very interesting.

[mrcasals]

I'll start working on this.

Some doubts I have:

The admin can create a type of debate AMA

This is listed as features that need to be added, but isn't this how debates already work right now?

The admin should be able to activate/desactivate these options for each Participatory Process.

What's "these options" referring to?

[oriolgual]

I think the options mean that an admin can toggle the feature so users can create their own debates or not.

[mrcasals]

@decidim/product can you help here? 😄

[xabier]

@mrcasals @oriolgual is right. Here is the logic:

1. Admins choose whether debates are open to a) citizen creation or only by b) admins.
2. If a): either any registered user or only verified users can create new debates
3. If b): only admins can create debates.

[mrcasals]

@xabier nice, thanks!

[arnaumonty]

@mrcasals It should work in the same way as proposals, according to @xabier comment.

[carolromero]

Some doubts I have:

The admin can create a type of debate AMA

This is listed as features that need to be added, but isn't this how debates already work right now?

@mrcasals Correct, except that comments and votes are not automatically turned off after the debate is over. But let's consider whether this feature is critical or not. @decidim/product ?

[mrcasals]

@carolromero if it helps you decide, I have already implemented that comments are only open while the AMA is open. Currently, debates cannot be voted.

[mrcasals]

@decidim/product letting users create debate means we need to show the author somewhere in the views. This is not a problem, but adds the concept of official debates (those created via the admin interface).

Also, can users create a debate as a user group? Does this make sense?

[mrcasals]

@decidim/product also, letting users create debates means we need to make debates reportable. Should official debates be reportable too, or only those created by users/user groups?

[mrcasals]

I've updated the description of this issue and added a Subtasks section to reflect all the changes that this issue actually requires.

[xabier]

@mrcasals nice well thought!!

Regarding you question: Only user generated content should be reportable. But if making admin generated debates be reportable is cheaper or simpler I don't think it harms.

We need user groups to be able to create debates.

[arnaumonty]

@decidim/product letting users create debate means we need to show the author somewhere in the views. This is not a problem, but adds the concept of official debates (those created via the admin interface).

Ok, it make sense to show the author of debate. We should find a solution about the behaviour of the author when the debate is created from admin but for a moment I will use the same solution that we have in official proposals.

Also, can users create a debate as a user group? Does this make sense?

Yes, user groups can create debates.

[mrcasals]

Ok, it make sense to show the author of debate. We should find a solution about the behaviour of the author when the debate is created from admin but for a moment I will use the same solution that we have in official proposals.

@arnaumonty yes, I copied the functionality from proposals, so when the debate is created from the admin it shows "Official debate" at the author section:

I'll upload more screenshots once the features are completed so you guys can review it.

[mrcasals]

@decidim/product just to make sure: can admins edit user-created debates?

Note that currently we don't have traceability for debates, and currently admins can edit the official debates.

[arnaumonty]

Good point @mrcasals

@decidim/product just to make sure: can admins edit user-created debates?

I would say no if we have moderation.

But it makes sense that admins can edit official debates. Maybe we should keep the same rule as proposals to be edited after be published for a short period of time or until the debate doesn't receive any comment.

Thoughts @decidim/product ?

[carolromero]

@decidim/product just to make sure: can admins edit user-created debates?

I would prevent admins from modifying the content of a debate created by another person without version control.
In fact, IMO the authors of the debates should be the ones who have permission to edit their content. And If a debate is not appropriate for whatever reason, it can be reported, just like proposals.

[mrcasals]

@decidim/product since the only mention of a user editing a debate is found in this comment:

In this case, unlike proposals (yet), it is very clear to me that the possibility to edit debates at any time (with or without keep version control) is very interesting.

And we're just starting to discuss this, I propose a first iteration with all the things in the list I'm maintaining (copied from the PR), and a second iteration where we debate how should we deal with user editing a debate: a time windows, traceability, etc. This way we can reduce the amount of things to review (both in staging and PR review).

Does this sound reasonable to you?

[carolromero]

Sounds reasonable to me :)

[xabier]

@jsperezg please check out this PR since decidim-module-consultations needs to use this feature/component.

[mrcasals]

@decidim/product a couple of things:

1. Debates had pagination, internally, but that was not reflected on the public views, so users could not paginate. This means that if a participatory space had more that 12 debates, the oldest ones would be hidden, as they would not appear in the first page and users could not change page. I'm fixing this to add real pagination on the public side.
2. Apart from pagination, Debates had support for filtering, but it's not tested. Should we replicate the index page for proposals with some filters too?
3. Current design for debates in the index page does not show how many comments that debate has (screenshots follow). We could copy the proposals view, where it shows the amount of supports. Should we show the number of comments in the debates view? If so, which ones should we count: only root comments (top-level) or all of them, and what should the text be?.

Debates:

Proposals:

[mrcasals]

@decidim/product even more doubts:

Admins can control if users can create debates

Should this be a global setting or a step setting?

[arnaumonty]

@mrcasals

Debates had pagination, internally, but that was not reflected on the public views, so users could not paginate. This means that if a participatory space had more that 12 debates, the oldest ones would be hidden, as they would not appear in the first page and users could not change page. I'm fixing this to add real pagination on the public side.

ok, following the proposals maybe you can choose the number of items per page.

Apart from pagination, Debates had support for filtering, but it's not tested. Should we replicate the index page for proposals with some filters too?

Yes, we need it. The MVP could work with the same design that proposals have, but maybe in a future, we could have a specific design to differentiate proposals and debates. Thoughs @decidim/lot-px ?

Current design for debates in the index page does not show how many comments that debate has (screenshots follow). We could copy the proposals view, where it shows the amount of supports. Should we show the number of comments in the debates view?

Yes we should follow the design card provided here.

If so, which ones should we count: only root comments (top-level) or all of them, and what should the text be?

All of them. For a moment (MVP) "Comments"

Should this be a global setting or a step setting?

Step setting.

[mrcasals]

@arnaumonty perfect, thank you! 😁

[mrcasals]

@decidim/product regarding comments count, right now we're only taking into account the top-level ones:

This is from a debate:

And this is from a proposal:

So, in order to keep the behaviour, I'll only count the top-level comments. I this this has been discussed previously on other issues.

[arnaumonty]

@mrcasals the general criteria should be to count all comments in all components, not just top-level. I will open a new issue for proposals.

[mrcasals]

@decidim/product the PR is ready for reviews. I've added some screenshots in the PR:

#2506

[mrcasals]

@decidim/product in reply to @arnaumonty's comment in the PR:

So I need to remove the instructions to participate field from the public views, right?

[arnaumonty]

Is it possible to leave it just for the AMA cases, where is the admin who creates the debates, not the end-user?

[mrcasals]

@arnaumonty sure, no problem! I'll fix this tomorrow 😄

[javierarce]

@arnaumonty: The MVP could work with the same design that proposals have, but maybe in a future, we could have a specific design to differentiate proposals and debates. Thoughs @decidim/lot-px?

Agree, at some point we should work on the upper section of each debate page and also the cards (indicating the level of activity, participants, etc.)

[mrcasals]

@decidim/product PR adding debates has been merged! Can we close this issue and open a new one for debate edition/tracing?

[mrcasals]

Closing this issue in favor of #2600 to keep discussing how to edit debates.