The Solution Exchange will be a threaded discussion forum in which political organizations and thoughtful individuals with a range of diverse political ideologies will express their ideas for solutions to the problems of greatest concern to each of them. It will be different from existing forums and websites in several ways:

• It will engage people in positive problem solving. There are many excellent websites dedicated to analyzing what’s wrong and whose fault it is, but there are too few focused on how to make things better. The Solution Exchange will have many mechanisms designed to encourage positive dialogue and constructive critique, while at the same time discouraging abusive negativity and irresolvable arguments.
• It will be diverse. We intend to actively recruit as many contrasting points of view as we can find on any public issue of concern to anyone, rather than simply presenting one or two of the mainstream party lines.
• It will promote collaboration. Contributors will post ideas for solutions to political problems. Authors putting forward similar or complementary ideas will be urged to work together to combine their proposals. Other participants will comment on the proposals they read, eventually pledging to contribute time and/or money to those solutions that they are willing to actively support. Supporters of specific ideas will form fluid coalitions that will work together to develop strategies for publicizing and generating the support needed to implement the solutions that they created, combined, and endorsed.
• Another important unique feature of the Solution Exchange is that it will be highly structured, so that it will be easier for users to navigate, contribute to, and interact with. People writing up solutions will follow a standard format that will ask them to briefly summarize their solutions to each issue in one or two paragraphs, so that readers immediately identify their positive solutions. They will also be encouraged to be specific about their plans (in terms of how their idea might be implemented and paid for, for example). This format will make it easier for authors (and others) to identify points of commonality, which will be an excellent beginning point from which to build working relationships and perhaps coalitions.
• While we believe in the value of dialogue and consensus building, the purpose of ActivistSolutions.org is not to resolve conflict between people with substantially different points of view. We strongly believe that premature compromise and capitulation between conflicting parties is rarely constructive. We have serious doubts about whether clever software and online dialogue alone can meaningfully bridge the distances that exist between those that have strong ideological differences. Rather than attempting to merge differing points of view, our purpose will be to encourage diversity. As the ideas for solutions generated in the Exchange are circulated to wider and wider audiences, we think the public will be better served by exposure to a number of real choices, rather than tepid compromise statements that don’t reflect anyone’s best thinking. This process will not bring fierce partisans closer together, but it is a necessary stepping-stone toward a productive national dialogue, in which people with many different points of view might better understand and accept each other, leaving the important decisions to a better informed, more active electorate.