| What is the Pollite Lens ? | | | What is it good for ? | |
The system stores opinions of anyone who cares to create an account.
The service is similar to usenet news in some ways, but provides a
different kind of relationship among documents posted by users.
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It is also important that each person's claims and responses are persistent
and do not go away like messages on a newsgroup or email-list, unless they are explicitly
deleted by the owner. Responses serve to link all persons' claims together into a single
web site whose structure emerges slowly and cooperatively.
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| | How does it store opinions ? | |
By keeping track of an ever changing set of
claims
and
positions
.
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A claim is similar to an issue in an election.
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Basically, claims are documents published by users,
and positions are reactions by users. These reactions
are in the form of votes
and reasons.
All of a user's position (and published claims) make up her platform.
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It is important to note that positions are taken only on claims.
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The Lens does not allow positions on positions, because we want to prevent rambling
flamewars from diffusing the debate.
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If you want to make a separate point in response to a claim, you can
starte it in a separate claim, and then link the related claims together by citing one as a
reason for voting on the other.
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This is one way the Lens is produces a more focused debate than does
the back-and-forth conversation in a newsgroup. However, this property also makes
understanding and using the lens a rather abstract endeavor which may not be easy or enjoyable
for everyone, especially at first. This problem presents an ongoing challenge
to us and other developers of cllient software for the system.
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The interface for researching of claims allows for sorting, filtering,
and aggregating of claims and responses in various ways.
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| | What kinds of claims are there ? | |
NO ANSWER IN HERE YET!
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| Who may use the Pollite Lens ? | | Who can browse the opinions in the system ? | |
Anyone with access to the WWW can read the opinions.
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| | Who may create an account and express opinions ? | |
Anyone with a valid email address can create an
account
on the system.
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Once she has an account, a user can
login
, and express opinions.
|
| | How is privacy of users ensured ? | |
Not very well. Like most internet systems, if you post personal information
into the Pollite Lens, you are taking a risk that this information will become widely known.
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Identity on the Lens is currently determined using email addresses.
These email addresses are used only for authentication and administration purposes, they are
not displayed to users of the lens, or propagated to other systems. However it is conceivable
that a government authority could demand that the Pollite Organization divulge the email address associated
with a particular posting, and we might then be compelled to comply with their instructions.
It is also possible that hackers could obtain this information and post it in a public place.
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Of course it may be possible to obtain what you consider to be an "anonymous"
email account, and use this in establishing your Lens account. At present, all
that is necessary is that you be able to receive mail at the email address you give us.
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| | Are there any charges for the service ? | |
No.
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| | Is advertising used or permitted on the service ? | |
No. This service may only be used to express personal opinions, not
to represent businesses or other organizations.
|
| | Can I write my own client to talk to the Pollite
Lens and gather information ? | |
Yes. We will publish a developer's kit in the near future.
|
| | Can I run my own Pollite Lens ? Can I use
the software for my own projects? | |
At this time we are not distributing any software on this web site.
This may change in the future.
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The software we use is licensed from
Scrutable Systems
, which is also a sponsor of our organization. You may
contact them regarding your needs for similar systems.
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| How does one use the Pollite Lens ? | | How do you search for opinions ? | |
You can search for claim documents that contain keywords, which is similar
to using Yahootm or other search engines.
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You can also see a list of the most recent claims, or the ones that
are the most cited or argued in debate.
You can also see all the claims that are used as reasons for voting
a particular way on another claim, and get
detailed statistics
on the voting.
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| | How do you enter your own opinions ? | |
After you create an account, you can login and enter claim documents.
You can also "vote" and "cite reasons" in response to claims.
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Accounts are free and require only that you provide a valid email address.
At this time you do not have to provide your full name or other personal
information.
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| | Can a position have more than one vote or reason ? | |
Yes.
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| | Can a user change her position on a claim ? | |
Yes.
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| | Can a user delete the claims she enters ? | |
No. Not right now. And probably never. You must recognize that
claims are semipermanent
when you enter them.
|
| | Can a user change the title or body of
a claim ? What about misspellings, etc. ? | |
A user can change (or delete) her response to any claim any number of times,
but she cannot change a claim. Instead, she can issue a new claim, change her response
to the old claim to indicate that she now votes REVISE, citing the new claim as reason, and
then release (explained later) the old claim. It is up to a reader (or his client software) to follow
this link and pay attention to the new claim rather than the old one.
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| | Can a user take a position to her own claim ? | |
Yes ! In fact, this is very important, because the Author of a claim should
indicate important reasons for her claim by creating a position citing
those reasons.
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The position of the author is always indicated specially and prominently,
unlike positions of other users (except the user currently logged in).
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When responding to her own proposal, typically an author votes to AGREE,
and lists a set of supporting reasons.
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When responding to a survey, the author will usually enter the votes
that she thinks are most appropriate. For example, in a survey claim asking "Who
was the greatest U.S. President ?", the author might enter votes of "WASHINGTON",
"JEFFERSON", "LINCOLN". Of course, other users could still enter their own alternatives if
they so chose.
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| Why is the Pollite Lens important ? | | Do we really need a Pollite Lens ? | |
We believe that the Pollite Lens service provides a unique oppurunity for
widespread yet focused debate.
| |
The Lens is intended to complement existing Internet applications, and
will undoubtedly remain a much lower volume phenomenon than
traditional news and email discussion groups, for technical and other reasons.
|
| | How is the Lens different from usenet news or
an email discussion group ? | |
Usenet News provides a very important mechanism for global discussions
within a topically organized set of discussion groups, and allows for continuing
debates usually spanning hours, days or weeks.
|
The main limitations of News are:
-
The lack of long term debating and propositional structures
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The restriction of "topics" when creating discussion threads
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Thankfully, Dejanews provides a searchable web interface which overcomes
the topic barrier from a querying point of view, but cannot change
the fact that news and email list threads are usually posted to by only a few individuals
over a short span of time. Another problem is that these discussions need
to stay "on topic" and not delve into "old stuff", otherwise drawing wrath
of veteran members.
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There is no natural process that draws to the top of any list the news
posts of interest to a large number of people over a long period of time. Nor
is there a good way to take news posts spread across time and combine them into
a coherent database of opinions that can be modified by users over time.
In general, the Lens does not record or distinguish among claims or
responses based on the time of entry.
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Another limitation of traditional newsgroups is the looseness of the
format of postings, especially regarding citation of what others have said, which is often
done with gobs of included text. Lens text postings (claims) are limited in size;
explicit links (responses) must be used to connect claims together.
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| | What about (threaded) Web Discussion groups ? | |
The ones we have seen are basically either newsgoups or tree-of-responses
style.
|
| | What about groupware applications like Lotus Notes ? | |
It is probably possible to create things like the Pollite Lens using Lotus
Notes and Domino, or Cold Fusion, or something. That's not what we have chosen to do.
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| | Will people really use this system for long term debate and development
of consensus ? | |
We rely on the fact that people will be interested in the responses to
their own claims, and any claims they have responded to, over a long period of time.
| |
People are obviously free to use means outside the lens to promote their
claims, just as they might promote a URL.
|
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| Why is the Pollite Lens built the way it is ? | | Why doesn't it have "topics" or "groups" ? | |
NO ANSWER IN HERE YET!
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| | Why can't users change the title or body
of their own claims ? | |
Because any changes in the claim text obscure the meaning of the responses
outstanding on the claim. Other users have invested effort in responding a particular way,
and it is not fair to allow change in the meaning of what they have responded to.
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To address this issue, there is a feature which allows the publisher
of a claim to vote to REVISE that claim, and have this fact indicated specially on the pages of
the replaced claim.
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This is meant to be seen by others as an attempt to refine her own statement
on an issue.
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Those who browse to the claim in the future will see that it has been
revised by its publisher. Usually, they will navigate to the revised claim, and register any
responses there.
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Users can in one swoop either delete their position or copy it to the
revised claim.
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| | Why allow such complex positions on claims ?
Why does the PL allow you to enter multiple votes and reasons for your position ? | |
Because this capability allows certain claims to become focuses of long
term debate.
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Note that the power of each citation is diluted in the weighted support
column when you add more citations to your position. This may affect the prominence of
that citation's display, depending upon how much support the citation receives from other users.
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You can always have a simple response with a vote and a single reason.
|
| | Why not allow subgroups in the Lens
to restrict access to a "private forum" ? | |
NO ANSWER IN HERE YET!
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