One of my ever-pending posts to write is on what sort of simple interface might prevent online arguments from retracing the same points over and over. I suspect it will not be graphical with boxes, because that makes poor use of screen real estate. I suspect it will not have lots of fancy argument types and patterns, because no one really uses that stuff. I think it does need to have a karma system, because otherwise there’s no way to find the good stuff.
Yes, one of the commonest mistakes people make when building this sort of tech is to suppose that the main success factor is the tech. An even more common mistake is to assume that the more features it has, the better the tech.
One of the main success factors is whether the software suits how people use it, in actual everyday operation and not just in the testing lab. So one of the main factors in succeeding with software projects is a capacity to observe people closely.
Here on LW I observe that people make heavy and ready use of permalinks; and not just post permalinks at that, but comment permalinks, which is more remarkable. Linking to fine-grained material is one of the features I’d expect to play a large role in effective online debate.
On the other hand LW remains a blog, perceptually a “source of news” rather than a knowledge base. The format encourages an unending accumulation of new material more than it does drilling down into previously covered topics.
The LW Wiki is a useful adjunct in combating this tendency, but it seems to still be viewed as a sideshow at the moment (though that might be getting less so over time). Also wikis have their own way of encouraging a “granularity” of arguments and topics, which may or may not be suitable for the kind of work I attempted to do re. cryonics.
Thanks for looking into this for us!
One of my ever-pending posts to write is on what sort of simple interface might prevent online arguments from retracing the same points over and over. I suspect it will not be graphical with boxes, because that makes poor use of screen real estate. I suspect it will not have lots of fancy argument types and patterns, because no one really uses that stuff. I think it does need to have a karma system, because otherwise there’s no way to find the good stuff.
Yes, one of the commonest mistakes people make when building this sort of tech is to suppose that the main success factor is the tech. An even more common mistake is to assume that the more features it has, the better the tech.
One of the main success factors is whether the software suits how people use it, in actual everyday operation and not just in the testing lab. So one of the main factors in succeeding with software projects is a capacity to observe people closely.
Here on LW I observe that people make heavy and ready use of permalinks; and not just post permalinks at that, but comment permalinks, which is more remarkable. Linking to fine-grained material is one of the features I’d expect to play a large role in effective online debate.
On the other hand LW remains a blog, perceptually a “source of news” rather than a knowledge base. The format encourages an unending accumulation of new material more than it does drilling down into previously covered topics.
The LW Wiki is a useful adjunct in combating this tendency, but it seems to still be viewed as a sideshow at the moment (though that might be getting less so over time). Also wikis have their own way of encouraging a “granularity” of arguments and topics, which may or may not be suitable for the kind of work I attempted to do re. cryonics.