What do constructive conflicts in online communities look like?

Constructive conflicts emerge in communities in the form of disagreement about ideas, values or opinions. Many communities are purposefully designed to foster constructive conflicts. In these environments, users engage in open and respectful discussions to address disagreements and gain insight into each other’s perspectives. Conflicts become beneficial.

Constructive conflicts are also referred to as “task conflicts”. Task conflicts are situations where users come together to solve a problem that is caused by their natural differences. Every user in the group concentrates on solving the problem instead of blaming others.


This is a fragment of a draft of the book “Lessons Learned While Working On Stack Overflow”. Read the full book on kindle or the paperback version.