Method and system for managing discourse in a virtual community

• US 20090198778A1
• Filed: 02/06/2008
• Published: 08/06/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 02/06/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Disney Enterprises Incorporated (The Walt Disney Company)
• Original Assignee: Disney Enterprises Incorporated (The Walt Disney Company)
• Inventors: Priebe, Lancelot Darren
• Granted Patent: US 8,140,528 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/063 Content adaptation, e.g. replacement of unsuitable content
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0245 Filtering by information in the payload
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/168 above the transport layer
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/922 Communications

Abstract

There is provided a method of managing discourse in a virtual community. The method comprises receiving a message from a virtual community user, the message being addressed to one or more recipient users of the virtual community; examining the message to identify any of a plurality of key expressions associated with virtual community forbidden communications; editing the message in response to identifying a forbidden key expression of the plurality of key expressions; determining a corrective prompt corresponding to the identified key expression; and issuing the corrective prompt to the virtual community user for managing discourse in the virtual community.

Claims

1. A method of managing discourse in a virtual community, the method comprising:

receiving a message from a virtual community user, the message being addressed to one or more recipient users of the virtual community;

examining the message to identify any of a plurality of key expressions associated with virtual community forbidden communications;

editing the message in response to identifying a forbidden key expression of the plurality of key expressions;

determining a corrective prompt corresponding to the identified key expression; and

issuing the corrective prompt to the virtual community user for managing discourse in the virtual community.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the corrective prompt comprises instructive content.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the corrective prompt comprises one or more allowed alternatives to the key expression.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the corrective prompt comprises information regarding rules of discourse in the virtual community.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of key expressions comprise individual words.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of key expressions comprise word combinations.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of key expressions comprise phrases.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the editing step comprises deleting the identified key expression from the message to generate an edited message.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising sending the edited message to the one or more recipient users.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the editing step comprises deleting the message in its entirety.

11. A system for managing discourse in a virtual community, the system comprising:

a virtual community server;

a forbidden content database stored on the virtual community server, the forbidden content database including a plurality of key expressions associated with virtual community forbidden communications;

a corrective content database stored on the virtual community server, the corrective content database including a plurality of corrective prompts; and

a discourse management software application configured to edit a message received from a virtual community user of a plurality of key expressions of the plurality of key expressions and to determine a corresponding corrective prompt for managing discourse in the virtual community.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the plurality of corrective prompts comprise instructive content.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the plurality of corrective prompts comprise allowed alternatives to any of the plurality key expressions.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the plurality of corrective prompts comprise information regarding rules of discourse in the virtual community.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the plurality of key expressions comprise individual words.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein the plurality of key expressions comprise word combinations.

17. The system of claim 11, wherein the plurality of key expressions comprise phrases.

18. The system of claim 11, wherein the discourse management software is configured to edit the message received from the virtual community user by deleting an identified key expression from the message to generate an edited message.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the discourse management software is configured to send the edited message to the one or more recipient users.

20. The system of claim 11, wherein the discourse management software is configured to delete the message in its entirety.