Flow/Design

Mission statement
Flow shall contribute to healthy community discussions.

Invite many productive comments.

Less harassment.

More collaboration.

Vision
Maximize user attention on discussion

Cut clutter so users have less to process while scanning/reading conversations.

Humanize content 

Focus on content rather than personalities but at the same time remind users that they're interacting with real people to avoid personal attacks / other harassments while keeping discussions productive.

Your point is just as valid as mine 

Make it easy for new (or existing observer) users to quickly and effectively grasp discussion content and contribute if they have a point to add.

Keep it on-topic 

Ability for participants to zoom out and reflect on the productivity of a discussion to avoid lengthy conversations that tend to go off-topic and lose the ability to achieve consensus.

Visual design iterations

 * (the last version of the prototype)
 * First pass
 * Second pass
 * Third pass
 * Fourth pass
 * Fifth pass

Functional specs

 * Boards and Topics
 * History
 * Moderation, Protection, and Refactoring
 * Search and Filter

Long-term design ideas: user talk, workflows, subscriptions

 * Basic information
 * User to User Discussion module
 * Workflow Description module
 * Welcome module
 * Block module