Author: David McKnight

What NEED does this meet?

I can never recall a debating point to trump a clever one during a live debate or discussion. It comes a few days later well away from any time to be effective. There are countless people who never look at the other side of an argument. Often important proposals are made which have to be revisited countless times before any thing concrete is done about the problem and time is wasted in revisiting or even neglecting points obvious to some but not others. Our whole system of decisions can be hijacked by people who are just clever, opportune or are prepared to shout the loudest. This debate proposal might take longer, but is an opportunity to be more reflective, would force each side to be as prominent as the other and in the long run could save time in avoiding constant revisiting. I cannot think of a sphere of public life where this would not be useful. It may even be useful to rational thinking on a more private level. It will never replace live debate, just enhance it.

What is the APPROACH?

The idea is for a trained volunteer to take on the â??chairâ?? or moderating role on a web page dedicated to one debate. It would be linked from an entry, registration and directory page. A good deal of thought would have to be put into deciding the motion. Thought that would cover the widest range of debating points. The job of the moderator would be to copy and paste single debating points submitted by general contributors using e-mail into a two column table, one for and one against the motion. There would be a limit to the number of words that could go into each cell. Outside of this restriction, the cell could also contain either a web-site URL or an e-mail address that could lead the reader to a source of data or other evidence to support this point. Another function of the moderator would be to spot overlapping points and return to sender for revision and substitute better versions of points. Thus there would be a reason for people to separate arguments into specific debating points and overall to be clear simple and concise. As the idea and its development progressed there would be a further opportunity for interaction with the site and it should be possible with the use of embedded counters to allow for separate endorsements of each point again by e-mail or clicking a box. The moderator would be charged with putting the points with the largest endorsements nearer the top of the list. Additionally the moderator would have to arrange that points that bore relevance to opposing points -or even were the simple opposite would be physically placed opposite. A restriction to keep the number of points approximately equal in each column would encourage all angles to be covered. This restriction would be somehow limited in time or lifted when points ceased to flow in. Training and/or licensing for a moderator would be vital to prevent misuse. See below for a partial attempt at the format. The system would not attempt to sum up or to reach a conclusion for the reader.

What are the BENEFITS to people?

This would have the potential to vastly improve the quality of debate for any institution or group of individuals. It may not lend itself immediately to every contentious issue but it would if used improve the chance of more people contributing to the validity of conclusions reached as a result of a debate. Thus it enhances democracy itself. It would also show the relative importance of each point across a wide range of contributor backgrounds within a debate. It has the potential to counter the human weakness or trait to fixate on a limited number of points.

What is the COMPETITION?

If you Google â??Balanced debateâ?? and â??Balanced Discussionâ?? you get 65 million hits calling for or trying to implement balance somewhere, but without going through each of these site to check this, I doubt if any one of them has a universal tool as is being proposed. Sampling shows that these sites are very verbose.

In researching it I came across the following site

www.balancedpolitics.org

which contains tables on a variety of topics that was prepared by a limited number of authors. The site has possibly not changed in the time (18 months) since I first saw it. It is certainly not as interactive as the current proposals need to be for survival.

What BUDGETS & LOGISTICS are required?

The whole site needs good moderation of moderators and to build up the site from trust. A â??Kiteâ?? mark indeed. As there is a potential rake off for moderation a registration and training fee could be charged. Editors of Newspapers and Magazines would be very interested in publishing the results of a debate nearing its conclusion. A percentage of this revenue would be passed to the moderator. The rest of this would fund development of additional software to make the jobs of moderation and endorsements easier. Initial trials to sort out layout, protocols, training and advice could be tackled with existing coding (say Word) and simple e mailing. I would suggest that the word politics would not be in the title or used in advertising literature. It appeal is wider than politics. It could put some off. It could be used by any organisation or group of individuals although politics would undoubtedly latch on to it.