Debate mapper/goals - Revision history

Woozle: link updates; removed obsolete sentence

2013-01-18T16:24:32Z

link updates; removed obsolete sentence

Woozle: moved meta-rules to "structured debate/rules/meta"

2013-01-18T16:21:30Z

moved meta-rules to "structured debate/rules/meta"

Woozle: extracted non-goal stuff to other pages; reformatted and tweaked

2013-01-18T16:07:57Z

extracted non-goal stuff to other pages; reformatted and tweaked

Woozle: Woozle moved page Issuepedia/Structured Debate to Debate mapper/goals without leaving a redirect: probably the best fit for most of this page's contents

2013-01-18T15:02:14Z

Woozle moved page Issuepedia/Structured Debate to Debate mapper/goals without leaving a redirect: probably the best fit for most of this page's contents

Woozle: removing Issuepedia-specific bits

2013-01-18T15:01:38Z

removing Issuepedia-specific bits

Woozle: 9 revisions: pages with namespace issues (fixed, I hope)

2013-01-18T13:57:58Z

9 revisions: pages with namespace issues (fixed, I hope)

Woozle: /* Rules */ non-threaded discussion

2012-06-28T12:04:47Z

Rules: non-threaded discussion

Woozle: meta-rule 1: the rules must allow themselves to be challenged

2011-12-06T03:29:11Z

meta-rule 1: the rules must allow themselves to be challenged

Woozle: save link to SMW experiment page

2011-04-09T01:49:51Z

save link to SMW experiment page

Woozle: /* Chewbacca participants */ acronym not needed; another suggestion

2010-09-21T17:59:57Z

Chewbacca participants: acronym not needed; another suggestion

@@ Line 13: / Line 13: @@
 ==Usage==
 In order to be truly useful:
-* A [[structured debate]] needs to be part of a system which recognizes it as a valid means of resolving disputes (what [[David Brin]] calls an "[[accountability arena]]") within some milieu -- even if that milieu is only a small group of people. (The larger the group, however, the more useful and powerful it is to have everyone agreeing, and the more important it is for the outcome they ultimately agree on to be one that is as rational as possible.)
+* A [[structured debate]] needs to be part of a system which recognizes it as a valid means of resolving disputes (what [[issuepedia:David Brin|David Brin]] calls an "[[issuepedia:accountability arena|accountability arena]]") within some milieu -- even if that milieu is only a small group of people. (The larger the group, however, the more useful and powerful it is to have everyone agreeing, and the more important it is for the outcome they ultimately agree on to be one that is as rational as possible.)
 * It must be possible for any given structured debate to be used as a "point" in ''another'' structured debate -- so that:
 ** determinations (debate outcomes) affecting multiple issues don't have to be argued over and over again, and so that
 ** if the outcome of a debate ever ''changes'' due to new information, the logical consequences of that change in understanding ''will propagate to all the issues affected by it''.
 ==Potential Issues==
 ===[[issuepedia:Chewbacca defense|Chewbacca]] participants===

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-==Meta-rules==
+==Overall==
-In the event that anyone disagrees with these rules, they are free to suggest their own -- but there are certain non-negotiable criteria which must be met in order to ensure that any rule-set promotes rational discourse. These meta-rules, then, are the goals which the current debate rules were intended to satisfy:
+* The debate mapper must enforce the [[structured debate/rules|rules]] of [[structured debate]].
-* It must be possible to challenge the rules while staying within them (i.e. the rules must not somehow place themselves "off-limits" for discussion).
+* As much as possible, the system should be set up so that no individual has any more power than any other. There will always need to be sysops, of course, but they should not have to intervene except under extraordinary circumstances of obvious spamming or other overtly bad behavior. Creating mechanisms to deal with bad behavior will be one of the main challenges; see [[#Potential Problems]] below.
 ==Interface==
 Ideally, a structured debate is represented in a manner which provides visual cues for:
@@ Line 24: / Line 19: @@
 A structured debate module will be one of the core elements of [[InstaGov]].
-===Potential Issues===
+==Potential Issues==
-====[[issuepedia:Chewbacca defense|Chewbacca]] participants====
+===[[issuepedia:Chewbacca defense|Chewbacca]] participants===
 The one major problem which seems likely to raise its head is that of an unfriendly participant posting nonsensical arguments which the system will automatically count as valid, thereby requiring a counter. Although countering them may be just as quick as creating them (e.g. "This is nonsensical"), the argument's visual presentation could be rapidly overwhelmed by the nonsense-and-counters and become practically unreadable.
@@ Line 31: / Line 26: @@
 Another is to allow voting comments as spam, with something resembling karma-point penalties for posting spam comments.
+==Additional Features==
-====Quote mapping====
+===Quote mapping===
 Another, somewhat less thorny problem is involved in the process of "mapping" an existing freeform debate into a structured debate. Claims in freeform format are often tightly bundled together and need to be "unrolled" and disambiguated. What we need is some way to take the original quote, mark it up with the claims it seems to represent, and then insert those claims into the structure of the argument while referencing the original quote.
 A semi-obvious way of dealing with this is simply to treat quotes as sources. This does open up the question, however, of how to handle authoritativeness and misrepresentation; perhaps "source" needs to be a data entity understood by the system, and sources whose claims are repeatedly contradicted need to have a lower "authority" score than sources whose claims are not, or whose claims are repeatedly confirmed by other sources. Although this makes the programming substantially more complicated, tentatively it would seem a worthwhile thing to spend significant time on (perhaps not in the first version, however).
-====Questions====
+===Questions===
 Debaters need to be able to pose questions which somehow hold up the ultimate decision until answered satisfactorily. It should be possible to display a list of all questions being asked across all debates, allowing researchers who may or may not be otherwise involved in the debates to help find answers.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-==Goals==
+==Meta-rules==
 In the event that anyone disagrees with these rules, they are free to suggest their own -- but there are certain non-negotiable criteria which must be met in order to ensure that any rule-set promotes rational discourse. These meta-rules, then, are the goals which the current debate rules were intended to satisfy:
 * It must be possible to challenge the rules while staying within them (i.e. the rules must not somehow place themselves "off-limits" for discussion).
@@ Line 8: / Line 7: @@
 As much as possible, the system should be set up so that no individual has any more power than any other. There will always need to be sysops, of course, but they should not have to intervene except under extraordinary circumstances of obvious spamming or other overtly bad behavior. Creating mechanisms to deal with bad behavior will be one of the main challenges; see [[#Potential Problems]] below.
-===Interface===
+==Interface==
 Ideally, a structured debate is represented in a manner which provides visual cues for:
 * which side of the argument is being advocated by a particular piece of text
@@ Line 17: / Line 16: @@
 The software should automatically track the status (supported, unanswered/open, or defeated) of each point, in order to minimize the administrative overhead of enforcing the basic debate rules. (There is a potential problem in this, however; see [[#Potential Problems]] below.)
-===Usage===
+==Usage==
 In order to be truly useful:
 * A [[structured debate]] needs to be part of a system which recognizes it as a valid means of resolving disputes (what [[David Brin]] calls an "[[accountability arena]]") within some milieu -- even if that milieu is only a small group of people. (The larger the group, however, the more useful and powerful it is to have everyone agreeing, and the more important it is for the outcome they ultimately agree on to be one that is as rational as possible.)
@@ Line 25: / Line 24: @@
 A structured debate module will be one of the core elements of [[InstaGov]].
 ===Potential Issues===
-====[[Chewbacca defense|Chewbacca]] participants====
+====[[issuepedia:Chewbacca defense|Chewbacca]] participants====
 The one major problem which seems likely to raise its head is that of an unfriendly participant posting nonsensical arguments which the system will automatically count as valid, thereby requiring a counter. Although countering them may be just as quick as creating them (e.g. "This is nonsensical"), the argument's visual presentation could be rapidly overwhelmed by the nonsense-and-counters and become practically unreadable.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 ==Goals==
-===Structure===
+===Meta-rules===
-Any set of rules for truth-driven debate must satisfy a number of criteria, including:
+In the event that anyone disagrees with these rules, they are free to suggest their own -- but there are certain non-negotiable criteria which must be met in order to ensure that any rule-set promotes rational discourse. These meta-rules, then, are the goals which the current debate rules were intended to satisfy:
 * It must be possible to challenge the rules while staying within them (i.e. the rules must not somehow place themselves "off-limits" for discussion).
 * It must be possible to determine, at any given moment, which items are agreed upon and which are still in dispute.

@@ Line 31: / Line 31: @@
 ==Rules==
 The visual structure is kind of like an upside-down chain of reasoning; we start with a conclusion, then argue over both supportive and contradictory evidence until it becomes clear whether the initial claim is adequately defended.
 * [[/v2010.03]]: the most succinct version
 * [[/v2009]]: allowance for "informal" points and "bundling"; these accommodations should probably be rewritten as addenda to the 2010.03 rules.
 ==Refinements==
 * The outcome of any debate may be used as a claim, in which case the children of that debate's root claim become children of the current claim, and the same rules apply. This lets us reuse already-established truths rather than having to hash them out again each time.

← Older revision	Revision as of 15:02, 18 January 2013
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