The Problem in more Detail 

• We spend much of our lives debating with each other—and living in the consequences of those debates. But how often do we do it well? And can the process be improved?

• Public debates tend to be complex; with multiple data sources and perspectives and conflicting demands and values. Even relatively straightforward arguments can challenge our capacity to hold all the pertinent factors clearly in our minds. And, in complex debates, the volume of information and arguments can seem like an overwhelming obstacle to someone trying to develop a comprehensive understanding of the essential arguments advanced by all sides.

• Public debate is all too often characterized by repetitive contributions, digressions, argumentative fallacies, rhetorical flourishes, manipulative framing, obfuscation and personal attacks that result in a high noise-to-signal ratio and confusion rather than clarity.

• Conventional media reporting of public policy debates often struggles with the challenge of conveying nuanced, reasoned positions in a compressed linear form, when simple heated oppositions deliver a more dramatic and rewarding effect.

• This, in turn, makes it harder for established public figures to think tentatively and creatively in public about new policy approaches and to acknowledge strengths and common ground in opponents' positions.

• The human tendencies toward homophily (mixing with like-minded people) and group polarization (the self-reinforcing movement towards extreme positions in groups of like-minded people) can, if left unchecked, limit the diversity of arguments heard and stifle the creative discovery of new options in the clash of diverse arguments.

• Moreover, the significance people attach to arguments is often shaped by broader frameworks of value and belief, which are in themselves debatable; making the pursuit of a comprehensive appreciation of major debates harder still.


Our Approach in more detail 

• Our goal is to create a new kind of public service that enables local and global communities of people to think together by collaboratively building and editing comprehensive and succinct maps of complex debates that accurately present all sides of the debate from a neutral standpoint, free of repetitive clutter and ‘noise’.

• All aspects of the debate maps—both their content and structure—are continuously open to revision, refinement, comment, and evaluation by anyone who wants to join the community of thought. Each map is a cumulative work in progress that can be edited and expanded just like a wiki.

• The maps are multi-dimensional to reflect the nuances of real debate rather than being limited to one dimensional for and against arguments—and can be clustered into overlapping debates.

• Readers and editors of the maps can explore the top-level structure of debates and delve onto specific strands or sub-structures of a debate, without losing sight of the overall semantic whole.

• The debate maps can be embedded on, and updated from, multiple websites and blogs; with changes made to the map on one site updating immediately across every site on which it appears.

• RSS feeds and email alerts are available to keep everyone up to date with changes as a debate evolves, each element on a map has its own comments section to allow for open discussion and story-telling in addition to structured reasoning, and debates can be printed for offline reference or to create the framework for a written report.

• Each point on the map can be rated—enabling the map to be used as a kind of multi-dimensional poll or decision making tool—and the map visualizations change automatically to reflect the perceived strength of each point.

• Every part of every map has a direct URL associated with it; so readers can be pointed towards the debate as whole or towards a specific argument within the debate.

• The objective with DebateGraph is not so much an absolutism of rationality as a transparency of rationality; creating a means for people to collaboratively capture and display all of the arguments pertinent to a debate clearly and fairly so that all of the participants in the debate have the chance to see the debate as a whole and to understand how the positions they hold exist within that debate.

• Although consensus can emerge from such a process, not least because it promotes the discovery of previously unidentified options, our hope is as much that the people who continue to disagree will do so on the basis of an enriched understanding of the reasons for their disagreement and having had the chance to test each other's reasoning to the fullest.