I've been accumulating thoughts at http://debategraph.org/CollaborationTools

and am starting to craft a platform which serves as a framework for experimentation. The platform is called TQPortal, and a prototype is online (on a creaky old server at my home) here.  This is the first platform I put online that is supported by a full topic map rather than a simple relational database schema. So, the project is as much an experiment in topic mapping as it is an exploration of user experience for sensemaking.