{"id":911,"date":"2007-02-21T06:41:49","date_gmt":"2007-02-21T06:41:49","guid":{"rendered":"\/ifbookblog\/?p=911"},"modified":"2007-02-21T06:41:49","modified_gmt":"2007-02-21T06:41:49","slug":"an_encyclopedia_of_arguments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/2007\/02\/21\/an_encyclopedia_of_arguments\/","title":{"rendered":"an encyclopedia of arguments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I just came across this though apparently it&#8217;s been up and running since last summer. <a href=\"http:\/\/debatepedia.com\/index.php\/Main_Page\">Debatepedia<\/a> is a free, wiki-based encyclopedia where people can collaboratively research and write outlines of arguments on contentious subjects &#8212; stem cell reseach, same-sex marriage, how and when to withdraw from Iraq (it appears to be focused in practice if not in policy on US issues) &#8212; assembling what are essentially roadmaps to important debates of the moment. Articles are organized in &#8220;logic trees,&#8221; a two-column layout in which pros and cons, fors and againsts, yeas and neas are placed side by side for each argument and its attendant sub-questions. A fairly strict citations policy ensures that each article also serves as a link repository on its given topic.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Debatepedia.jpg\" img style=\"margin:15px;\" src=\"\/blog\/archives\/Debatepedia.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"110\" border=\"1\" align=\"right\" \/> This is an intriguing adaptation of the Wikipedia model &#8212; an inversion you could say, in that it effectively raises the &#8220;talk&#8221; pages (discussion areas behind an article) to the fore. Instead of &#8220;neutral point of view,&#8221; with debates submerged, you have an emphasis on the many-sidedness of things. The problem of course is that Debatepedia&#8217;s format suggests that all arguments are binary. The so-called &#8220;logic trees&#8221; are more like logic switches, flipped on or off, left or right &#8212; a crude reduction of what an argument really is.<br \/>\nI imagine they used the two column format for simplicity&#8217;s sake &#8212; to create a consistent and accessible form throughout the site. It&#8217;s true that representing the full complexity of a subject on a two-dimensional screen lies well beyond present human capabilities, but still there has to be some way to present a more shaded spectrum of thought &#8212; to triangulate multiple perspectives and still make the thing readable and useful (David Weinberger has an inchoate thought along similar lines w\/r\/t to NPR stories and research projects for listeners &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/doc.weblogs.com\/2007\/02\/19#aFloorOnTheQuestion\">taken up by Doc Searls<\/a>).<br \/>\nI&#8217;m curious to hear what people think. Pros? Cons? Logic tree anyone?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I just came across this though apparently it&#8217;s been up and running since last summer. Debatepedia is a free, wiki-based encyclopedia where people can collaboratively research and write outlines of arguments on contentious subjects &#8212; stem cell reseach, same-sex marriage, how and when to withdraw from Iraq (it appears to be focused in practice if [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[330,456,590,2011,2016],"tags":[2312],"class_list":["post-911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collaborative_authorship","category-debatepedia","category-encyclopedia","category-wiki","category-wikipedia","tag-debatepedia-wikipedia-encyclopedia-wiki-collaborative_authorship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}