Interview with Brooks Lindsay on Debatepedia: Where it is, where it is going, and what it all means

I founded Debatepedia in early 2006 in my last semester at Georgetown. I found a tech business partner, gathered a group of students and professors to develop the concept, and we just jumped in. Then, we worked hard, consistently. And, certainly, innovations evolved over time. The idea, like all ideas, took greater and greater shape over time; there was no one single light bulb moment. As Thomas Edison put it, "Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration." Maybe we're not geniuses, but you get the point.

Debatepedia came out of a fascination with Wikipedia, a recognition of its inability to present debates in a full and helpful form, and a class in which I was reading a book called "Taking Sides", which essentially had scholars write pro con essays for certain topics. Like many innovations, it was largely a matter of connecting the dots and moving forward quickly.

What became clear is that it takes way, way too long for citizens to gather the primary pro and con arguments in any given public debate, such that they can deliberate effectively and take a stand. It takes me 20 hours to compile a pretty comprehensive list of the primary pros and cons in a typical public debate. That means other citizens have to spend at least as much time doing this. What ordinary citizen is going to do that? They simply aren't. And, I don't blame them.

It takes about twenty minutes to read a typical Debatepedia article. So, a big part of our mission is to make it ten times easier for citizens to view the information they need to deliberate through debates they care about and take a stand. Assuming Debatepedia scales on par with Wikipedia, you're talking about a lot of time saved, a lot more informed and passionate citizens, and a truly heightened public discourse.

Well, the most trafficked debates are the ones that both have the most content and are highly contentious and important. One of our most trafficked debates is on closing Guantanamo Bay. Its content is pretty good, but can always be improved.

http://wiki.idebate.org/index.php/Debate:Guantanamo_Bay

A successful debate is determined in large part by the will of the editors. If editors are determined to commit to the mission of comprehensively documenting the primary pro and con arguments in a debate, then all is well. If they are not, and are more interested in venting, then it is typically less successful. To some extent, it's difficult to convince people that this is an encyclopedia project, instead of an ordinary debate site where people are free to express themselves with "I believe this" and "I believe that"...

The other component is simply my editorial oversight and guidance. Someone might make the mistake of expressing their personal views, but that doesn't mean they are being mean. It might, rather, simply mean I need to nudge them in the right direction, provide guidance, and edit their work. Indeed, on a wiki, community-building and proper directioning is done the old-fashion way; by hard work and one-on-one interaction.

The other thing I would say is that a good topic demands a good/important question. If a debate matters to people and their lives, it is typically going to gather more steam (both the good and bad kind - but we have an exhaust valve for the bad).

Certainly. Debatepedia is a tool where any public debate can be opened by any user around the world, and where the pro/con splitscreen format can be used by citizen-editors to frame debates, to help them deliberate through the pros and cons, and help others do so as well. So, certainly, it is meant to scale in the election cycle to fit the public demand for information that can help us deliberate through important and complicated public debates. The issue right now is getting the critical mass of volunteer editors so that it can scale. This is something we are trying to improve on.

I would also say that debate pages are meant to scale in many ways that go far beyond Wikipedia's capacity to scale. And, the way it does so is important to voters. Beyond the splitscreen pro/con structure we've adopted, what we enable is that specific arguments - for instance "Handguns should be banned due to their uniquely dangerous concealability" can be made into their own page (with the above "claim" as the title). In these argument pages, a mass of supporting evidence for that particular argument can be presented, including such things as quotes from scholars and experts. This enables the scaling of evidence-presentation in a way that has never been done. It is also important to note that this scaling remains organized and relevant to our final deliberations on a topic. The pro/con debate pages remain manageable and concise, so that we can view the essence of the debate and weigh and deliberate effectively. This is very important when voters have to decide where they stand and compare that to where the candidates stand.

The wiki platform is essential and appropriate for debate in a number of ways. But, it takes the proper perspective. On a wiki, you need to be able to arrive a consensus in regard to the content that you are building. That is, the community needs to be able to agree about what is appropriate and inappropriate content. What we are doing with Debatepedia is building an encyclopedia of debates, arguments, and evidence. Are thesis and experience is that we can come to agreement and consensus regarding what arguments are being made in these public debates, who is making these arguments, and we can agree on the quotes from experts that reflect these arguments. So, we can form a consensus on the wiki regarding, "what is the debate".

The wiki is also appropriate as a means to avoiding the repetition of arguments. We want Debatepedia to be reader friendly, in the sense that arguments aren't repeated (which happens all the time on other debate forums). The wiki avoids this by synthesizing and widdling down encyclopedic entries into a reader-friendly form.

The purpose of Debatepedia is to help citizens deliberate through debates they care about. The structure is designed specifically to aid this process. People deliberate through "yes/no" debates, among other, more multi-faceted debates. We encapsulate yes/no debates by titling a debate with a yes/no question. Then, we have a pro/con splitscreen structure; pros on the left cons on the right. Simple enough. But, what we realized, is that super long lists of pros and cons can be disorganized. So, we innovated a subquestion/subdebate structure. In this, the primary subdebates (social, economic, externalities...) in any given larger debate can be addressed systematically. We call this a "logic tree" because it orders and aids the way users deliberate through a topic. See the below example.

http://wiki.idebate.org/index.php/Debate:DC_handgun_ban

Certainly. But, the yes/no questions (which frame the debates) that are asked have to be well formulated. For example, you can't just ask, how do we solve global warming or how to we solve the war in Iraq. We need to be more specific, asking questions like, "What are the pros and cons to solar energy?" or "Is nuclear power an important solution to global warming?" and others. Or, "Can we consider the troop surge in Iraq a success?" Specificity is important.

No debate ever ends, really, just like no article in Wikipedia is really ever completely done. New evidence can be added, new arguments, or, simply, the rhetoric can be improved. This is another important aspect of the wiki technology; it leaves room for constant improvement. Its humble, I guess, in this way, which we need.

The competitive debate world is really struggling with itself right now. Its been misguided. The emphasis on winning is only a small part of the problem. The bigger problem is that many of the styles focus on technicalities and super-fast-unintelligible speech. The focus, for many of them, is away from helping debaters uncover what course of action is actually ideal, in any given instance. This is what it should be about. That it is not, is part of the reason why nobody attends debate tournaments anymore. There are good movements of change, though, such as Worlds Debate, which simply makes debate sexy and to-the-point of finding the "truth".

Debatepedia is aimed squarely at channeling the debate community toward more productive ends, and re-focusing it on "righteousness" over competitiveness and technicality. We have about 10 interns right now, which I think is a testimony to the itch in the debate community to have greater meaning.

We have about 2,000 unique visits to the site every day. A good number, but not massive yet either. We are looking for better ways to promote the site, like this interview. Ideas? Contacts to bloggers or journalists who'd want to write a story? Contact me at brooks[at]debatepedia.org.

We have about 600 debates, hundreds more argument pages (specific arguments with evidence, quotes), and over 500 edits per day I think.

Yeah, some people have said that it clarified their position. We haven't had a "changed my mind" testimony yet. That would be a great to have. But, many people are using it for college essays, and have expressed thanks for that.

What we really want people to say is, "wow, editing on the site helps me frame the debates I care about in your logic tree, so I can deliberate better."

Thanks Dave. It was a pleasure.

Just check out the site, use it to deliberate on debates you care about, and use it to edit and frame debates you care about and want to dissect better. And, help others deliberate too; perform a good, worthy public service!

All the best,