Debatepedia is a wiki alternative with a point of view
One of the roles of media is to help people understand the world so we can make informed decisions – and then take action. The daily flood of news and information from all the big media institutions we love and love to hate is one approach to learning, sifting, filtering and evaluating all this information. Longer form magazines, books, documentaries, films, formal education and art are another. Talking and listening to friends, family and people we trust is yet another. It’s all so … much. What if you could put all of that wisdom and process in a blender and turn it into some sort of info power drink?
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That’s the promise of crowd-powered information aggregators like Wikipedia, which is thoroughly entrenched in the digital-info-culture as the second-best place to find information about anything (after Google, of course). But Wikipedia has a built-in “attitude” called neutral point of view that may not be ideal for helping us resolve life’s toughest questions. Some issues, ideas and arguments are difficult to express without a point of view, or a call to action. Or they beg for it.
A new crowd-powered wiki called Debatepedia aims to be more useful than Wikipedia because it’s modeled on the research, methods and logic trees used by formal debaters, with succinct propositions, evidence and data organized around arguments for and against each proposition.
I chatted yesterday on the phone with Debatepedia co-founder Brooks Lindsay, and he explained that the structure of arguments themselves is an important departure from Wikipedia’s neutral point of view. Debatepedia is the exact oppositie – infused with and structured around point of view. Here, for instance, are the sections built around arguments for and against the death penalty, carbon cap-and-trade policies and partial-birth abortion.
Debatepedia is owned and operated by the non-profit International Debate Education Association. Lindsay, a 2006 Georgetown University graduate, says he has created and organized a lot of the content so far – but he’s hoping debaters and debate societies around the world will pitch in and use Debatepedia as a hub to organize their notes on various topics.
