Kialo -- an online discussion platform that attempts to support reasonable debates

I came across this site and it seems quite interesting to me. I believe that the discussion format can influence the discussion itself a lot. Not sure whether exactly the Kialo format is optimal but I consider Kialo as at least a promising attempt.

Well, Kialo is indeed an interesting platform but I think its format is rather oversimplified, I prefer proper old school debating websites like http://debate.org or https://www.debateart.com, where you can have more structured one on one textual debates with fewer limitations.

I find that trees of claims don't always work because context gets lost as you traverse the tree.

Imagine we have an claim A supported by B that is supported by C. If I think that C does support B in some cases but is irrelevant when specifically talking about A, there's no good way to express this. Actually even arguing about relevance of B to A is not really possible, there's only impact vote, but often that was too limiting to express my point.

To some extent both of those cases can be addressed via comments. However, the comments are not very prominent in the UI, are often used for meta discussion instead, and don't contribute to the scoring and visualization.

One idea that I thought about is creating an additional claim that states how B is relevant to A (and then it can have further sub-claims). However, "hows" are not binary claims, so they wouldn't fit well into the format and into the visualization. It seems like complicating the model this way won't be worth it for the limited improvement that we're likely to see.

People keep rebuilding this thing. It's a mistake. If you tag all content as for or against something, it helps with sorting out genuinely binary balance-of-considerations issues, but almost nothing that's actually discussed, or that is actually worth discussing, fits this format. The most valuable content either clarifies, or pulls the rope sideways, or makes the original question moot. These can't fit in the template of an argument-structuring website, so argument-structuring websites don't get this content, so they aren't worth reading or participating in.

The internet can, I believe, fix itself. Kialo is one attempt at doing so.

The pros of Kialo appear to be that 1. Participants are civil, 2. Arguments are deconstructed, and 3. one can look at a topographic map of an argument. Also, the system checks to see if any arguments have already been made elsewhere so as to prevent repetition

Deeper than this is what could be be called the Wikipedia effect. Though anyone can edit a page in Wikipedia, pages more or less get better and better, particularly in the areas that are not controversial. There is a constant improvement process in place.

That is in Wikipedia. However, arguments are inherently controversial but with editors and flagging I can imagine that improvements could lead to improved arguments. I cannot say if that is in fact the case. One troubling part is that sub arguments get voted upon to appear higher or lower on a pros vs. cons list. Truth is not democratic.

Furthermore as there are no barriers to entry of participants, such as a test of reasoning skills or a test to eliminate those with a pathological bias -- the hallmark of a online troll -- the voting process hinders rather than furthers the "Wikipedia effect".

Thx for the post mirefek. If you guys have suggestions on how to improve K, we are all ears.

Off the top of my head I'd say it's doomed to forever be a minor niche platform, because what the general public wants is not "reasonable debate". They want drama, and reasonable debate doesn't provide that.

sigh

Your landing page doesn't show me any current discussion the way Reddit or Quora do. I think that's likely a bad decision.

I came across this platform and my question is when submitting a "pro" for an argument on Kialo, is it supposed to be in agreement with the parent argument, or just a positive outcome of it?

And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two

Hm, the format is interesting. The end product is, ideally, a tree of arguments, with each argument having an attached relevance rating from the audience. I like that they didn't try to use the pro and con arguments to influence the rating of the parent argument, because that would be too reflective of audience composition.

Most of the comments provide arguments without referencing any sources to back up their claims. The result is that this system filters for popular arguments instead of filtering for arguments that can be well supported by sources.

How is the Paths Forward compatibility of Kialo?

http://curi.us/1898-paths-forward-short-summary