(Forgive me for not putting this on the lounge, but I didn’t think it would give me the formatting control to illustrate my point)
Okay, I was thinking about Nolan Chart in the web universe and what is currently unique or different about it over some of the other article and opinion pages (for instance OpEdNews).
I think that the concept behind drawing in people from multiple political viewpoints is in fact a very good one. But to make it more unique it might be helpful to capitalize on that point. One of the things that seems to be lacking on many fronts (not necessarily within NC) is honest debate about topics. Therefore to capitalize on the unique idea here it might be useful to harness the debates within the article.
For instance:
Article: The Role of Government in Education (a debate)
(followed by several articles on the same topic all on one page)
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In theory it could be possible to have the statements by each author act as tabs (current viewed tab on top) allowing the white space to read and interact with it, while still being intuitive enough to easily find the other statements.
The replies tab could be separate as shown, or could be all together to allow a general reader debate to begin about the merits and flaws of each. Further the readers could always become an author to add a tab.
Obviously this might not be the best format for all articles, but if you look at [link edited for length] as an example you’ll see where I tried to basically make an opposing counterargument within the replies, that could be better formatted in this manner.
An author could make a choice when publishing articles about which format to choose (Debate vs. simple opinion/news piece) and possibly how many additional authors would be allowed to provide counterpoint (first come first serve essentially).
In essence this would create a dynamic political debating tool which would be very much akin to the USAToday "Our View" & "Opposing View" articles that are easily found in Yahoo News. But, being author and user driven it would aid in the dissemination of a variety of viewpoints. I for one get rather annoyed when I read one of the USAToday article and counter article and see that something major and very important was missed by both.
PS, I love the site Walt, I’m just trying to offer innovative ways to improve it that might make it easier for you and others to make some more money off of it.
---Another thing that might help as well, I’ve come to the conclusion that ANY article that I read that makes a valid point, or could lead to a good discussion deserves a thumbs up. If people have limited time and are choosing articles based on quality then the thumbs up is the best way to go. I think a lot of times otherwise good articles are not getting a thumbs up because the reader disagrees with the statement. While that too is a valid way to rate articles, it also makes it more of a popularity contest, and until we get a greater diversity of readers it will not necessarily be a valid indicator of quality. (My opinion only)
---A final quick aside, one thing I like better about OpEd is the replies are more conversational. Each reply is tiered inward from the action statement you are replying to, essentially allowing multiple conversations to be going on at once. It allows for the intuitive understanding of who is replying to whom, thereby limiting misinterpretation about the target of a statement.
©2008 Chad_Underdonk, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work.
Published: Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Last modified: Tuesday, February 19, 2008
The views expressed in this article are those of Chad_Underdonk only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Chad_Underdonk is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
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Reader Comments:
Posted By: Christian Prophet
Date: 2008-02-19 11:36:30
Debate is pretty much useless if various opinions are merely being argued against other opinions. What would be valuable is some kind of harness or format wherein writers are channeled into agreement on a premise. Then agreement on another premise. Then agreement on the conclusion that can be drawn from premises already agreed to ... and so forth.
Posted By: Kishi
Date: 2008-02-19 11:40:29
You know, I think you're on to something with this idea. It seems to me that oftentimes the articles with the most thumbs are the ones who just pander to what people want to hear. It's not that they're bad articles - they really are good - but I think there would be more thumbs all around if this wasn't just a popularity contest.
Like, my most-thumbed article has Ron Paul in the tagline. My next one down from there has maybe 2/3 the amount of thumbs. That pretty much sealed it for me. This is a place where Libertarians writing for Libertarians get the exposure, which leads to the props and the praise. This does not lend itself to a critical all-camp look at things. Until this changes, I just don't see how this site can claim to represent everyone.
Posted By: World
Date: 2008-02-19 13:18:29
Kishi -
I'm not sure the site ever claimed to represent everyone. The vast majority of both writers and readers seem to have fairly strong libertarian views. Most readers probably found this website by searching for Ron Paul and it is clear that readership of articles is largely disproportionate when Ron Paul is in the title of the article. That is not necessarily a bad thing - but it is clear that all viewpoints are not represented equally, nor defended by similarly informed individuals. If you expanded the site to include opinions from all 4 sides of the nolan chart for each topic - where would you find the other 3 authors? Even if you could find them, I imagine the comments section would be grossly unbalanced.
Just like a candidate in the lead, conservatives, liberals, and statists alike can only lose by debating with libertarians. That is why the GOP and MSM worked so hard to suppress RPs message.
I think the 4 viewpoint architecture would be a great goal - although it would take serious effort to bring in enough interested individuals who were informed on the other viewpoints - unless we took turns playing devil's advocate as an educational excercise, but thats a bit too much homework to ask the average reader / writer. Linking responses to a specific comment would be a great feature that would promote the often quite informative debates spurred by the best articles on the site, and one that I would assume could be easily accomplished.
Posted By: Kishi
Date: 2008-02-19 13:54:07
@ World: ... you know, you're absolutely right. I'd like to retract that statement regarding that this site claims to try to represent everyone. I just thought that, since it has all the corners of the Chart, it was implied that this site would be a place where everyone could be heard. But since this is a Libertarian site, maybe you should just change the square so that it's nothing but green.
You know. Be honest about it. :)