Informed consensus determination among multiple divergent user opinions

A system for determining deliberative consensus among a plurality of opinions expressed electronically in an online discussion, the system comprising:

• an online discussion system configured to host online discussions, wherein the online discussions include at least one of an online forum, a social media platform, and a poll;
• user devices running client applications that interact with the online discussion system to present the online discussions to users of the user devices;
• and
• a computer system in communication with the user devices, the computer system being configured to determine a deliberative consensus opinion among a plurality of opinions expressed by the users of the user devices in an online discussion hosted by the online discussion system, wherein the computer system is configured to perform operations comprising:
• receiving, from the user devices, user feedback data for at least a first group of users and a second group of users, wherein the user feedback data identifies a first opinion expressed in the online discussion by the first group of users and a second opinion expressed in the online discussion by the second group of users, wherein the first opinion and the second opinion relate to a topic, and the first opinion is different from the second opinion;
• receiving, from the user devices, comment data identifying comments posted to the online discussion in response to the first opinion and the second opinion expressed in the online discussion;
• identifying, based on reactions to the comments and the user feedback data, a critical comment from among the comments that support the second opinion, wherein the first opinion represents a majority view held by the first group and the second opinion represents a minority view in the online discussion held by the second group;
• transmitting, to a portion of user devices associated with users of a third group, a notification with the critical comment, wherein transmitting the notification causes the critical comment to be presented on the portion of the user devices and for the portion of the user devices to receive responses to the critical comment from the users of the third group;
• receiving, from the portion of the user devices, indications of the responses to the notification;
• determining, based on the indications of responses to the notification, a deliberative consensus opinion based, at least in part, on the responses to the notification regarding the critical comment from the portion of the computing devices associated with the users of the third group, wherein the deliberative consensus opinion is a numeric value associated with at least one of the first opinion and the second opinion for the topic;
• and
• transmitting, to at least one of the user devices of users in the first group, the second group, and the third group, the deliberative consensus opinion of the online discussion.

A computing device used by a user to interact in an online discussion, the computing device being configured to:

• receive, from an online discussion system, an online discussion, wherein the online discussion system is configured to host online discussions, the online discussions include at least one of an online forum, a social media platform, and a poll;
• express a first opinion in the online discussion;
• transmit the first opinion to a computer system, wherein the computer system is configured to add the first opinion to user feedback data for at least a first group of users and a second group of users, the user feedback results data identifying the first opinion expressed in the online discussion by the first group of users and a second opinion expressed in the online discussion by the second group of users, wherein the first group of users represents a majority view and the second group of users represents a minority view in the online discussion;
• receive, from the computer system, a notification with a critical comment, wherein the critical comment is identified, by the computer system, from among comments posted to the online discussion in response to the first opinion and the second opinion expressed in the online discussion;
• transmit, to the computer system, an indication of a response to the notification, wherein the response comprises an action to switch from expressing the first opinion in the online discussion to adopting the second opinion based on viewing the critical comment;
• and
• receive, from the computer system, a deliberative consensus opinion of the online discussion, wherein the deliberative consensus opinion is determined, by the computer system and based on the indication of the response to the notification, the deliberative consensus opinion being a numeric value associated with at least one of the first opinion and the second opinion for the topic.