Saturday, October 25, 2008

Todays dangerous idea

Mike and i are going back and forth about nuclear power and its desirability. I appreciate Mike because unlike a some pro-nuclear folx (and a fair few anti-nuclear folx as well) he is civil is his approach (and we are not talking engineering here).

So here is our challenge. To take the nuclear debate off these personal blog pages and put it up for the public to see. There are some features for this system that make sense:

1) Supports people loging in and making public postings
2) for there to be multiple topics determined by moderators (cost, climate effect, safety, pollution, waste, etc)- in conjunction with the group
3) For it to be possible to pull down posts which are abusing
4) For there to be user profiles - or links to them, no anonymous postings

So a possible would do it as a wiki - where people could go in and edit and enhance arguments that support their position. The problem is that the wiki format is not well suited to issues that are argumentative. At least i thin it is not. You dont want someone to simply pull off or deface the arguments they dont like. But perhaps it is a all registered wiki with somewhat harsh rules for posting - destintly different from Wikipedia in this sense where experimentation and crashing around is encourage.

There are other web formats that we have been using for project support which might be appropriate. I'll check with me group mind expert and lover Tree about groups and tools that are out there. I know she has worked with these groups that specialize in contentious issues. Time for nuclear advocates and opponents to work together to present our best arguments and let the people decide (or the leaders, if we have to do it that way).

i will brush this up in a bit. But it is beautiful today in Am*dam and that is too rare to sit inside on a computer. Come on Mike and the other pro-nuclear folx reading this blog (who i am sure if we do this right, some of them i will call my friends) let's make this happen!

4 comments:

Angie said...
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Angie said...

Oh, I love this idea! as you know from one of my more recent blog entries (titled- I could be wrong), I think that educated informed intellectual debate is a great thing, and feel it's especially timely with energy issues. looking forward to developing this with you.

Michael Stuart said...

Paxus,

Thank you.

For once, you've left me speechless.

I have a pretty busy couple of weeks ahead of me, but let me think about this for a while. I'd like to see this happen.

Michael in Beaverdam
30 Falling Leaves 2K8

Anonymous said...

I still think this idea should be going on, regardless if the other side would like to join in... I have a great new address for ye, if you like.