The Debategraph: Tool for mapping controversies

http://debategraph.org/

According to its founders, “the goal of the Debategraph is to make the best arguments on all sides of any public debate freely available to all and continuously open to challenge and improvement by all.

In pursuit of this goal, Debategraph is:

(1) A wiki debate visualization tool that lets you:

• present the strongest case on any debate that matters to you;
• openly engage the opposing arguments;
• create and reshape debates, make new points, rate and filter the arguments;
• monitor the evolution of debates via RSS feeds; and,
• share and reuse the debates on and offline;

(2) A web-based, creative commons project to increase the transparency and rigor of public debate everywhere—by making the collective insight and intelligence of the global community freely available to all and filtering out the noise.

• Every debate map is provisional and open to iterative improvement by anyone who participates.
• Over time, the debate maps will mature into the definitive articulations of each debate.
• Every change you make—whether correcting a text, adding a new argument, or starting a new debate—contributes towards the fulfilment of this social promise.
• So be bold as a first time visitor—and safe in the knowledge that a full editing history provides a safety net.

(3) A global graph of all the debates that enables us to visualise and deepen our understanding of the ways in which different debates are semantically interrelated, and ways in which these interrelated debates shape, and are shaped by, each other”.

Using the Debategraph

The Debategraph allows you to create virtual spaces where debate can occur. To begin with, you create a map devoted to the controversy of your choice and you invite people to join you. You can choose whether or not to restrict access to your map to certain people alone by selecting its status as public or private (a choice you can change at any time). It should be noted that since you created the map, you’re the moderator.

Just as in a real debate, discussions are structured in terms of the question, position or argument that the moderator or the participants – who are like editors – have chosen. Debategraph works like a wiki, so the mapping is produced by the actors themselves, and it reflects their self-interest.

In order to make sure the debate is “readable” and understood by everyone, the edit process of the elements of the debate follows a logic that goes along with the colour of those elements. Favourable arguments are green; unfavourable arguments are red, for instance. The order of elements also follows a specific grammar. You cannot take position without asking a question first, or you cannot add arguments without taking a position first, for instance.

People are encouraged to construct the debate itself by cooperating with each other, and everybody can change the wording of other people’s positions (unless those positions have been locked in place by the moderator, who alone holds the power to lock positions), or move those positions around, change the elements of a position into something of another kind, or erase elements (even though they are always saved in case of a mistake and can be restored).

In order to preserve the re-traceability of the steps in a debate, every element has its own “edits’ history” that records all changes made (and shows who changed what).

Finally, although actors’ actions in this debate consist primarily of written opinions, other modes of expression such as video or photography are also handled by the software. Documentation can be attached, and marked for sharing or as material for discussion.

Remarks and Feedbacks

Here are some remarks we have gathered in the course of using Debategraph within the framework of our study on the dying out of bees.

Since Debategraph is not an automatized tool, but rather functions like a wiki, the results it produces, as regards both form and content, depend on the way it is used.

Learning how the Debategraph works

First let’s admit that Debategraph requires some effort on the part of participants to learn how it works. This level of effort provided may vary a great deal, depending on what public you have to work with. Do they have prior familiarity with the wiki principle, is their English good (the tool is only in English as of now), are they familiar with computer technology in general, … The use of Debategraph in a group that is collectively participating in the mapping of a controversy requires a minimum level of experience so that everyone can make proper use of the tool, and the moderator, who has proposed the debate topic, is responsible for showing people how to get that experience.

In our experiment, for example, we devoted a whole day during the first workshop to training the members of our entire group in the use of Debategraph (this is mentioned in the account of the case study on the dying out of bees). We also produced a tutorial and posted it on the web along with a digital version. When participants first handled the tool, we noticed some perplexity. But most of them got used to the interface pretty quickly. They found the editing menu to be limiting and they preferred to intervene and interact by leaving comments. We found that participants participated most effectively when they were involved in a dynamic of interaction, not editing paragraphs as such (see below).

Guidance and Supervision

The main difficulty we encountered during our experimentation had to do with getting participants involved and (even harder) keeping them involved. For this reason we believe that the use of the Debategraph requires a minimum of guidance for participants – at least if the results are to be taken into consideration in any serious way, in political, scientific or any other terms. The motivation and involvement of participants depends on a number of factors that are more or less connected, among which one may cite the question of what is at stake, what does the debate represent for each of the participants, the question of objectives that may underlie the debate, and the conditions that would have to be instituted in order to begin a dialogue in which everyone felt free to express himself or herself. All these dimensions are so many aspects that the debate moderator must take into consideration in order to promote the involvement of the persons he or she wishes to invite to a debate.

As an example: during our experimentation we devoted a day to getting actors in the controversy to tell us what to them were the most important questions that could be mapped using the techniques of a brainstorming fresco and a metaplan (these techniques were mentioned in the dying out of bees’ case study). In fact the involvement of participants strongly depends on the relevancy they assign to the debate. By using wiki tool that allows each actor to participate according to his or her own interests, we sought to assure such relevancy, and thanks to the brainstorming fresco and the three workshops, each actor’s interests were more or less brought out and taken into consideration according to the particular person involved. In our case, the guidance was handled by ourselves and by the communicators, not only to maintain the level of participation on the part of participants, but also to clarify the debate (in terms both of form and content), since our final objective was to expose less well-informed segments of the public to the mapping technique. Thus it was important for us to identify through actions that are typical for moderators the main elements of the debate and to place them in discussion (see the dying out of bees’ case study).

Making sure results are taken into account

The involvement of persons in such a mapping procedure is intimately bound up with the mandate that underlies this kind of experimentation – since that partly determines what will be done with the results obtained – and thus with the moderator of the debate and the nature of the connections between the group of participants.

In our case there was no political mandate to support our experimentation, which brought forth two opposite reactions from the point of view of the involvement of the participants:

Some saw in that the occasion to step out of the framework of their normal functioning and to engage in exchanges on a new basis, going beyond conventional, even caricatured fixed positions and taking a reflective attitude toward their own positions. Others in contrast preferred not to get involved precisely because there were no traditional commanditaires insuring that results would be taken into consideration at the institutional level. These reactions could lead to two different ways of perceiving the use of Debategraph.

There could be a “soft” version, in which a Debategraph is freely produced for a special occasion and made open to whoever wishes to share his or her point of view. There is no guarantee a priori that the results will be taken into consideration (by some authority) but there is a good chance that a diversity of points of view (including minority points of view) will be encountered. This space is very fragile because its existence depends on the good will of contributors and upon work done by a moderator to get people interested and signed up.

Or there could be a “hard” version. This would be a Debategraph commissioned by certain parties in order to get an answer to a question that they wish to respond to in an efficient manner. If we take the case, for example, of the constitution of a “quasi-parliament”, the agency commissioning is political: instituting a virtual forum for exchanges so as to bring together all of the stakes riding on the problem, but a space that also has authority to the extent that it accepts the fact that debates that take place are actively part of the decision-making process. From this point of view the space is robust to the extent that it becomes a necessary point of passage (“point de passage obligé” in French) in order to make itself known (here, political authority) and thus to weigh the decision. On the other hand if the role and the motivations of the commissioning agency and the moderators are not sufficiently explained in the eyes of the users of the platform, one risks finding present above all public statements of position and very few constructive, reflective exchanges turned toward mutual learning. The Debategraph becomes the latest window on the controversy and cannot make visible the duties (“obligations” in French) that each environment gives itself (that is, what makes the interest of their practices for themselves), but above all their requirements (“exigences” in French) (that is, what they require from others in order to be able to practice) (Stengers, 2006).

Our experimentation found itself in a sort of ambivalent situation, trying to make non-habitual points of view come out within a space marked by position taking, above all institutional. This was made possible thanks to the delicate intervention of some protagonists (which brings up the crucial question of the choice of participants in the group). But the entire group suffered from ambiguity owing to its intermediate position: the mandate is the one that the entire group gave itself, namely to test the pertinence of a procedure for exploration that belongs to the collective, and whose testing in relation to a wider public could not be accomplished at its proper value in view of the mission that our team was given (to work with and through stakeholders).

Adapting techniques to the needs of participants

Locking text

It is possible that depending on the status of persons who are brought together to debate by means of Debategraph, the philosophy of the latter will never be shared by all participants. As we saw above, the designers of Debategraph want to create a space for debate that is free and open so that the widest possible variety of issues, positions and arguments might exist and develop. In this line (in agreement with all other platforms based on this approach, such as Wikipedia) an issue, position or argument is the product of a collective work of elaboration whose development and changes can be followed. But it may be difficult for some people, especially individuals who have to act as spokespersons, to adhere to that concept of Debategraph.

This is a problem we ran into while experimenting with the stakeholders. Since the individuals were appearing in their quality as representatives of institutions, it was problematic for them to share control over their written communications. Accordingly they wanted the power to lock what they wrote in place and make it impossible for other participants to modify their writings (although this power is traditionally reserved for the moderator of the debate). We note that this worry may also arise among persons who are participating in the debate as individuals, especially is they are unfamiliar with the process of a wiki. But as David Price, the co-founder of Debategraph, remarked to us, since the program keeps track of all modifications of texts in the debate, it’s more than likely that such fears will disappear over time.

The main question is thus to decide if you want the elements of the debate to be the property of their authors or the property of a community formed around a point of view. Inspiration in this regard might be drawn from other experiments that have to do with wikis, such as Wikipedia, in which all modifications or additions are subject to the approval of a committee.

COMMENTARY AS A PRIVILEGED MODE OF PARTICIPATION

We have noticed participants tended to enjoy their participation more when they are caught up in a dynamic of interaction and not paragraph editing. In fact, it appeared very quickly while Debategraph was being used that the real added value of the platform in its method of producing an account of a controversy (that is, giving one a graphic representation) is not what was spontaneously used by members of the collective or its public. In fact the privileged mode of putting information on Debategraph was the addition of “comments”. The logic of comments is that the latest comment is at the top, like on a blog, and the oldest comment is at the bottom. Several explanations can be offered for this state of affairs. It is a fact that it takes a little more technical skill to modify the structure of Debategraph itself (make additions, deletions, or changes in a basic element). Undoubtedly these things are done less often as a result.

Second, and in line with the point just described, the trick of leaving comments appears to be easiest for participants to learn because it falls in with habits they have already formed while surfing the web. In addition, we realized that commenting is a privileged mode, in which one is led to develop issues, positions, or arguments. One gains the confidence necessary to share his or her points of view in the framework of an ongoing discussion (a comment thread). From this point of view it is remarkable that the positioning of an opinion or a question in its wider context in the arborescence of the “mapper view” or equally its representation using “bubbles” (“explorer view) – these are judged to be difficult, abstract, and even arbitrary. On the other hand many of the group members agreed on the necessity of such views (if only to “structure” the debate and to allow visitors and participants to find their way in it). Finally, a fourth reason that should not be neglected, comments are a way of standing to speak, yet with a limited visibility on Debategraph. Locating issues, positions or arguments in a comment is difficult, to the extent that they do not appear directly among the base elements of Debategraph; you can’t do keyword searches for the body of comments. In such a case leaving comments allow people to take part in the discussion without taking the risk of high visibility, while maintaining a certain anonymity regarding the question.

We simply note that this preferential use of comments requires on the part of the moderator an effort to bring things up out of comments that merit it (take a look at how this was done in the handling of the dying out of bees debate).

Final tips

The participation of group members can be encouraged and maintained by the sharing of and discussion of documents (newspaper articles, scientific articles, videos...) that are related to the problematic. The moderator should be proactive and stimulate discussion whenever this is needed.

Case study: Dying out of bees

The Debategraph has been employed in mapping the dying out of bees’ controversy.

References

Stengers, I. (2006). La vierge et le neutrino. Les scientifiques dans la tourmente. Paris, Les empêcheurs de penser en rond.

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