Yes. It’s better than the alternatives I’ve seen, but it still feels seriously insufficient to me. Some of that is just because Kialo itself isn’t large/popular enough to have comprehensive points made on it yet. But my bigger objection is that it feels simplistic. Example. Kialo presents: “Should Governments Ever Limit Free Speech?” with a series of mostly one-sentence points on either side. It doesn’t examine different possible ways that governments have or could limit free speech, and the possible or real-life past consequences of each. The arguments on both sides are almost exclusively value-statements with almost no reference to possible facts. (Values should, generally, dominate pro/con arguments about actions, but facts should be appealed to in order to support the claim that an action does/does-not support a value, and more so when claiming expected consequences.)
Kialo doesn’t offer a way to break down the question into more specific options (maybe real free speech shouldn’t be limited, but political contributions should stop being counted as speech; maybe Germany should limit holocaust-denial speech but the U.S. shouldn’t). Kialo’s format currently encourages people to post opinions on topics more than it encourages people to think more deeply about topics. It’s possible that could be changed with greater participation or with Kialo somehow working to create a culture of deeper thinking. But I don’t see that there now.
I also think that logging in to post is a barrier to it growing as a crowd-sourced site. And I dislike showing the Like votes instead of only using them to sort, because I think that encourages people to pay attention to how popular an opinion is, and it makes those with minority opinions painfully aware that they are in the minority.
Yes. It’s better than the alternatives I’ve seen, but it still feels seriously insufficient to me. Some of that is just because Kialo itself isn’t large/popular enough to have comprehensive points made on it yet. But my bigger objection is that it feels simplistic. Example. Kialo presents: “Should Governments Ever Limit Free Speech?” with a series of mostly one-sentence points on either side. It doesn’t examine different possible ways that governments have or could limit free speech, and the possible or real-life past consequences of each. The arguments on both sides are almost exclusively value-statements with almost no reference to possible facts. (Values should, generally, dominate pro/con arguments about actions, but facts should be appealed to in order to support the claim that an action does/does-not support a value, and more so when claiming expected consequences.)
Kialo doesn’t offer a way to break down the question into more specific options (maybe real free speech shouldn’t be limited, but political contributions should stop being counted as speech; maybe Germany should limit holocaust-denial speech but the U.S. shouldn’t). Kialo’s format currently encourages people to post opinions on topics more than it encourages people to think more deeply about topics. It’s possible that could be changed with greater participation or with Kialo somehow working to create a culture of deeper thinking. But I don’t see that there now.
I also think that logging in to post is a barrier to it growing as a crowd-sourced site. And I dislike showing the Like votes instead of only using them to sort, because I think that encourages people to pay attention to how popular an opinion is, and it makes those with minority opinions painfully aware that they are in the minority.