I've been thinking about simple ways of facilitating turn-taking. There are plenty of more inventive approaches to addressing this problem, but as a first step here are three dead simple turn-taking mechanisms to try, least restrictive → most restrictive:
- No turn-taking mechanism (control).
- Typing indicators, e.g. "joe is typing". Anyone can send a message at any time.
- Acknowledgement of previous messages. You can only send a message after first clicking on all previous "unacknowledged" messages.
- Single speaker typing lock. You can only send a message when nobody else is typing.
I don't think any of these will be the actual solution but I imagine very different dynamics would emerge in the discussion space as a result of each mechanism. Which dynamics end up being beneficial or detrimental is a tougher question that will likely be somewhat subjective.