# Dealing with highly contentious discussions **URL:** \ **Category:** Community Building\ **Tags:** moderation\ **Created:** [May 17, 2017, 4:18pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/dealing-with-highly-contentious-discussions/62887 "2017-05-17T16:18:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 2
**Author:** ![tophee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/tophee/32/73406_2.png) [@tophee](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tophee)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2017, 9:21pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/dealing-with-highly-contentious-discussions/62887/2 "2017-05-17T21:21:13Z")
The experiment described in that medium post is quite interesting and well worth the try. I’m very curious how it works out. I’d say the moderation advice provided is a good starter but managing the actual situation in situ is another thing. Even professional facilitators can reach their limits as this little documentary illustrates: > **[Can Gun Victims and Gun Advocates Find Common Ground? An Experiment in Empathy](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/12/gun-exchange-shared-empathy-policy-laws-narrative-4.html)** > > The idea was simple: Put both sides together to talk. The results were far from simple. I’d say among those five base rules, the most important one is this one: > [@codinghorror](#): > > Participants goals should NOT be to try to influence or change their neighbor’s mind. The goal is to listen to understand and to speak to be understood. If we walk away from each meeting understanding the perspective of someone who does not share our ideas and opinions, that is a win! In other words: make empathy the goal. And I’d say that the face-to-face situation tends to support that goal in a natural way because of the of the multimodality (richness) of the communication and the availability of multiple synchronous feedback channels. So my question would be: how do you do that online? --- _[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/dealing-with-highly-contentious-discussions/62887)._