Statements:

Problem statement: Argument establishing the nature of a problem

Solution statement: Argument clarifying the nature of the solution required

Action proposal: Where the text is structured as a proposal or recommendation

Substantive comment: on the substantive issues

Procedural comment: on the procedural and organization issues

Denials: Statements by which participants deny messages falsely attributed to them (a response to the issue of author IDs in the absence of verification)

Miscellaneous / Uncodable / None of the above

Responses/Reactions to Other Statements:

Support: Statement in support of some other message.

Opposition: Statement in opposition to some other message

Reference only: Where a citation is neither in support of in opposition to a previous message, but simply makes reference to it

Irrelevance: Indication that a reference to it made by another message is irrelevant (to be made notably by a working group endeavouring to distinguish what it is focusing on from a clutter of other issues on peripheral topics)

Structuring of Pattern of Statements:

Summary: Statement summarizing the situation in the light of previous messages by drawing together the different aspects of a discussion (and clustering the references to them)

Articulation: Statement amplifying or elaborating some aspect of a previous message (namely the exploration of detail)

Written by Nadia McLaren, Union of International Associations, with revisions and HTML layout by Robert Pollard, Information Habitat: Where Information Lives.