Work in progress
There are far fewer requirements here than there should be. I am working to update these when I can.
Feature requirements
Support for conditional logic
The system must be able to work with conditional propositions.
Rationale
The system must be capable of meaningfully contributing to discussions around universal basic income (UBI). It’s hard to meaningfully discuss (UBI) without discussing the specifics of the policy. For example, you cannot advocate for UBI without proposing some means of funding it. Therefore, you must be able to say things like “we should not implement UBI unless we can find a way to pay for it” and “we should implement UBI if we can pay for it with a value-added tax”.
This sucks
Users must be able to post “this sucks” anywhere they want. It must be easy and the system must not interfere. Wicker must detect if the user is trying to be productive. If it thinks they are, then it can work with them to help frame their contribution in a more useful way. Maybe the user can see a little indicator in the post box that might incentivize them compose their text more rationally, but that’s as far as it should go.
Rationale
Wicker needs to be social. You cannot separate people from their ideas. In order for users contribute their best, they’ll need to feel like the system will accept them when they’re not at their best. Just like in real discourse, Wicker must accept the silly, the off-topic, the confused, the bizarre, and the incoherent. It must also accept the humour, the trolling, and the memes — these things are all forms of real communication. It must just promote what it deems to be a healthy balance of these forms of communication with the more purely rational forms that are typical of collaborative reasoning platforms. There will be problems about the definition of “healthy” on this topic, but I’m sure that we can do a lot better than the systems that we currently have.
UX Requirements
Users must feel good about the phrasing of claims
In my exploration of tools like Kialo and Ameliorate, I have found that one of the most irksome experiences is feeling forced to work with claims whose phrasing I don’t quite agree with. It strongly disincentivizes me from participating if I feel like I can’t quite get on board with the premises of a discussion. Wicker, therefore, must find ways to solve this problem such as allowing multiple phrasings.
The mobile experience must be as good or better than the desktop experience
I think this has to do with the role that Wicker plays in peoples lives. Despite being firmly in the “mobile era”, many pieces of software are still desktop-oriented or desktop-exclusive because they’re software with which work is done — with which large, high-effort artifacts are produced, often across multiple sessions. Some software is the kind of thing that you use when you sit down at your desk to do work. Social platforms tend to prioritize mobile because they’re used during more casual or transitional moments — on the bus, the toilet, or lunch break — and because they’re only used to produce and consume small artifacts, often in a single session. Since Wicker must be social, it will fall, at least partly, in this latter category. Therefore, the mobile experience for Wicker must be just as good, if not better, than the desktop experience.