Structured debate
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Overview
A structured debate is a dispute resolution technique which breaks down the elements of a disagreement into the smallest arguable chunks ("points"), clearly indicating the dependencies between supporting points and the larger points they support or attack.
This helps to prevent a number of common problems with discussions of complex issues:
- accidentally (or deliberately) taking opposing points out of context, and answering them as if the context didn't exist
- the feeling of getting "lost" in the argument due to not knowing what has been settled and what remains to be discussed
- significant points falling by the wayside and remaining unanswered
- conflating multiple points into a single point, which leads easily to making logical fallacies
See project:Structured Debate for extensive design discussion.
Implementations
- Issuepedia is working on a set of rules for structured debate, eventually to be turned into an internet application with a web interface
- category:debates has a list of structured debates using Issuepedia's proposed rules and debaticons
Links
Reference
- Wikipedia (argument map)