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52 karma · joined August 23, 2016
So, instead of using tools primarily designed for chatting and commenting, you could use a tool specifically designed for the facilitation, capturing and representation of complex arguments.
We have spent the past 8 years building just such a tool, it’s called Kialo (https://kialo.com). It’s nowhere near as perfect as we would want it to be, but it gets the job done nicely.
In a nutshell, Kialo is an argument tree on steroids, with claim/comment separation, voting, claim multi-linking and switching of user perspectives, for single and multi thesis arguments.
Discussions can be real-time or async, private or public and worked on via desktop or mobile browser.
Here is a discussion Ethereum did whether they should use Kialo: https://kialo.com/28996 (103 claims)
And as an example of a multi thesis debate, have a look at this US politics one: https://www.kialo.com/24431 (>1k claims)
Two months ago we launched Kialo Edu (https://kialo-edu.com), our dedicated site for educators, as we wanted to build some extra functionality for them, additionally to giving them a more controlled environment without the public discussions.
We plan on releasing a custom site with additional decision-making features for teams and organizations soon (drop us a mail if you want to be notified support@kialoXXcom), until then, feel free to experiment/use kialo.com.
All feedback is welcome.
It's something we have been thinking about a lot. As you write, there is no real good way of dealing with this. Stating both options will make theses read convoluted.
Writing the thesis as a question doesn't help much either and confuses some people. (We have tried.)
We think that the best place to correct for anchoring and setting up the stage for a discussion is the discussion info, the popup that appears the first time you load a discussion.
Regarding the "should abandon" and "should embrace", what kind of new claims do you think would arise, compared to a single thesis "should abandon"? We normally were able to fit all claims of two theses multis in comparative single thesis debates, sometimes though not at the first level as they require an implicit assumption to be stated as a parent pro or con.
We leave it to users, but consider comparative single thesis debates much easier to write than multis with a lot of linking. If there are more than two options though, multis are required.
We see most multis in team situations, not public discussions, e.g. us discussing which framework, library or design to choose.
https://www.kialo.com/kialo-should-create-a-mobile-app-addit...
In the end, this is a simple, doing X is better than doing Y.
Using multiple theses generally only makes sense if they are "unrelated" (and not competing) or if you have more than two options.
And yes, we do allow multi-linking and intermap-linking of claims.
Also, our reputation system, the thanks count, is based more around HOW you interact with others, so if you are polite, open to have your claim changed, etc. It's a general measure of how nice it is to work with you and how good your contributions are.
Contrary to SO and Q, we are not a place where you, solipsistically add an atomic answer, but because you are working with others in a collaborative reasoning system, will have to edit your claims, comment on others etc.
Re 1-3) Most discussions can actually be distilled to a single pointed issue or a very specific discussion (https://www.kialo.com/should-there-be-a-universal-basic-inco...).
You can then ask in a follow up, using a multi thesis discussion, which variant of e.g. legislation is the best (https://www.kialo.com/what-is-the-best-drug-regulation-syste...).
Or you can start with a multi and discuss various options, as e.g. done here: (https://www.kialo.com/who-will-win-the-game-of-thrones-1203)
It's really up to the discussion creator. Multis allow you to change the theses and add a "better" one, as happened in the drug legislation debate (I think).
Re 4) Do you remember nupedia, it didn't work. Wikipedia is not perfect, but the best resource we have to look up the "what". What we are building with the public site is a repository of the "why".
It doesn't require experts to write the reasoning of experts, which is what is happening, sometimes phds come in and post all the scientific papers pertaining to a position.
We agree that the hardest issue is actually moderation. When you have thousands of people chime in, as is the case with e.g. the UBI debate, you need a good system to filter for duplicates and trolls. That's why we implemented the suggestion system (https://support.kialo.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003791445-Sug...) and 5 different permission levels(https://support.kialo.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003877705-Par...).
This seems to work, as can be witnessed in the large debates. It's by no means perfect though and we are constantly improving it. The last bit we added was nested suggestions and suggestion commenting.
Again, thanks for your input. :)
Not speaking for the team, but, I would probably consider something to be argued rationally, that is logical within a cultural setting and frame of mind. Very often, this depends on the epistemological system a person is using. Take believers vs non-believers. Both can be rational within their framework, but many will consider other people's framework as not rational.
We think that claims should always be logical and pertaining to the parent claim above them, in YOUR belief system, otherwise it becomes incoherent and unreadable for others.
The fancy sunburst, currently, only appears on initial load of a discussion, we are thinking of changing that. You can open it by clicking the (i) on the thesis, or via discussion menu "Discussion Info".
The link one above is correct, if you want people to have viewer rights, (which allows them to vote and suggest claims). If you want people to have writers rights, where they can immediately write into a discussion, you have to go to share, enable the writers sharing link and paste that. We do not recommend using that for public posting though.
Generally speaking, claims are supposed to make sense and relate to their parent claim, the one directly above it. This is the only way to allow for linking, intermap linking and copying of branches into other debates.
In very large debates, with thousands of claims and levels, often, a discussion on level 10, is really only pertaining ot the parent, e.g. this is not relevant here or attacking the veracity of a statement. How this claim relates to the thesis on top, isn't anymore that relevant.
Due to linking, it would also be quite confusing, one time the claim is a pro, then a con. And most people read claims as relevant for the parent directly above. That's why we spell out the "Support /Attack parent". I think it's also in the intro video.
Also, when you are on level 10 of a debate, the claims might very well be a subdiscussion that attack the veracity or relevance of their parents, not of the thesis. Our debates often have >1k claims, that's the only way to handle it. A pro or a con relates directly to the parent above.
(Linking your site once, instead of thrice, would have been polite, like the others did. :) )
Normally you then get invited as a writer. That's our system to keep the trolls away, which naturally, with the topics we are dealing with, is essential. (https://support.kialo.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003791445-Sug...)
I don't want to know what e.g. the gun legislation debate would otherwise look like. It meanwhile has 2.4k unique claims and 5x that in comments. (https://www.kialo.com/3346)
If you are undecided, that's fine, don't vote or vote it a two. Voting is how you show your position in Kialo.
But we do have debates with middle ground positions or for debating multiple theses, they are called multi thesis debates. Here are examples for drug legislation (https://www.kialo.com/2027) and Game of Thrones (https://www.kialo.com/1203)
Also, many discussions have little scienitifi papers to use, e.g. most of the ethics and religion debates. "The Existence of God", "Theodicy"...
They broadly fall into, "science is knowledge" vs "whatever I want / feels right" is knowledge. We have perspectives, with which you can look at a believers vs a non-believers voting, other than that we are still waiting for the world to build AIs that can distinguish those....enough are working on this :)
People that are incoherent, don't normally get their claims accepted. The admins after all don't want gibberish in their debates.
People that have very different points of views, get their claims accepted and get them rebuked underneath. We believe that sunlight is the best disinfectant. You need to spell out bad thinking and then debunk it underneath.
We do have perspectives, where you can see the votes of individuals and will introduce a measure to show you the votes that agree / disagree with the main thesis. That is the best auto splitting of votes we could come up with.
Happy about better suggestions.
Weighing voting brings a whole new set of problems.
But agree, the ALL votes perspectives, isn't really that great. The reason being that often then many votes there end up in the middle (2), but the interesting bit being what the sides(0+4) are thinking. See here: https://www.kialo.com/should-the-us-adopt-stricter-gun-contr...
Voting on our site is different, we explicitly ask for the impact a claim has.
But we agree, the total average of votes, with public discussions, isn't very useful, not because popularity contest, BUT, if we assume a fair split of society on a topic, because the thesis will be voted two = middle and most claims too. People basically cancel each other out and you end up with a no strong opinion either way for most claims. Which is boring. You could add standard deviation, but that would still not be great.
Thus we are going to introduce a way to visualize votes, by separating them into cohorts.
We had perspective tagging, but that has it's own set of features.
So really many topics don't have middle ground, the debate IS binary: Is climate change real / man-made. Should abortion be legal. Is there a God. Should homosexuals be allowed to marry/adopt. If you made these into multis, not much is gained.
And then, exactly for your example about drug legislation we have a multi theses discussion, check it out :) and you can add new theses or claims: https://www.kialo.com/what-is-the-best-drug-regulation-syste...