Beyond social link sharing, there are lots of ways conversation happens around the news — in comments and on other platforms like Branch, Reddit and Quora. What are the underlying dynamics of a healthy discussion? How can we better structure and edit conversation on news sites? What can we learn from social when designing comments for our sites?

Moderator: Guardian US Open Editor, Amanda Michel (@amichel)

Participants include:

* Ruth Spencer (@ruths) is the community coordinator at Guardian US. She creates editorial features that encourage discussion and engagement with Guardian content.

* Lauren Bertolini (@MsLaurenRae) is the manager of community development for Gawker Media.

* Laura Conaway (@oleta) lives and works as an old-media/new-media/social-media hybrid. After starting a couple of NPR projects, she now wrangles the Internet and writes segments for the Rachel Maddow Show.

* Elena Haliczer (@EllieSemantic) is Director of Product at The Huffington Post. Formerly, she founded Adaptive Semantics which built JuLiA, a machine learning algorithm that forms the backbone of HuffPost’s community moderation system.

* Libby Brittain (@libbybrittain) is the Director of Development at Branch, a discussion platform trying to make talking online a bit more like talking in the real world.

VENUE INFORMATION:
The Guardian (536 Broadway, 6th floor)