When a user writes the majority of an online conversation’s posts, they will receive a dialog on future attempts to contribute, which suggests that they step back and allow others to participate.For example, on the open-source forum, Discourse, when a user is composing a new reply, if they already wrote 80% or more of the posts in the thread, a just-in-time message appears to the side to inform them of that statistic and ask if they might want to let other folks contribute more before responding.

• Dominant poster becomes more contemplative about the role they play in a forum, and perhaps more conscientious about letting others speak
• May make less prolific users feel less intimidated by the idea of contributing to the discussion
• May build towards equity in prompting people of privilege who are used to having the spotlight to make room for others who are often without that privilege.

There should be an option to disable this notification in specific contexts where having one person be the focus is specifically encouraged: such as Reddit-style Ask Me Anything (AMA) discussions. In the case of Discourse, there were specific instances where implementing this intervention was found to be counterproductive.

The intervention should consider the engagement that the poster on the thread has received before being deployed. This could be reduced by using courteous, calm language to not shame the user for posting.

This intervention also makes the assumption that dominant voices taking a step back will naturally make others feel more welcome. That’s a pretty strong assumption, which warrants testing.