Google Launches User-Driven Debate Site

Tyndmyr writes "In conjunction with the previously covered Knol system, Google has recently released Knol Debates, where users can vote for and discuss various topics. First up, presidential debates, representing topics from any party, and with some commentary being given by the libertarian Cato Institute. Unfortunately, patent law and technology questions are still rather poorly represented. Oddly enough, Knol Debates doesn't even appear to be in beta. The system makes use of Google Moderator to select questions."

Comments

So they want to expand youtube?

[allaunjsilverfox2]

Or is this just a separate site for comments? :p

To what end?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are interested in debates with a meaning, check out the metagovernment. Sure, their software is not finished yet, but the point is they don't just let you argue, they help you build consensus and then they do something with that consensus: make it law.

Re:To what end?

[erikina]

Please tell me that it's not just wikimedia and a domain. I hate to say it, but the wiki format isn't good for everything. (Like wiki talk pages or personal pages) And while I'm ranting, I hate wiki-markup -- it's completely retarded in comparison to HTML.

Re:To what end?

[gbutler69]

I beg to disagree with respect to Wiki markup. I find it highly intuitive. It is, for the most part, a natural extension of how people type things in plain text documents. For example (Bulleted List): * First Bullet Point * Second Bullet and point * Third Bullet Point Bold *text*, Italic/Emphasize _text_, Underlined __Text__ I find this highly convenient and wish this type of markup was supported in Slashdot for example. It's much more intuitive, fast, and cognitively consistent. But, as you can see, Slashdot doesn't support it, so what I typed looks like crap and I have to remember obscure tags instead or use HTML tags. Blech!

Re:To what end?

[Jorophose]

As opposed to

<b[old]></b>
<i[talicise]></i>
<u[nderline]></u>

Etc?

Seriously? And every wiki package seems to change the formatting.

Wiki formatting is lame, sorry. XML and SGML based formatting is so much nicer.

Re:To what end?

[Brad Eleven]

I agree that Wiki markup is intuitive, but try formatting a large table, for example.

I'd personally like a wiki that would support automated entries, e.g., configuration management. I dreamt once that the wiki I was putting together at work could derive configurations and also cause configuration changes.

Then I woke up.

Here we go again

[David Gerard]

In further news, Google would rather Knol didn't suffer the ignominious fate of Google Answers. Not everything Google does is a hit.

Re:Here we go again

[peragrin]

So not everything apple does is also a hit. The companies that have track records of hits keep trying different approaches until something awesome comes out.

Google, Apple and a few others are looking for a perfect product and lots of things fail along the way. Not every idea is workable on a massive scale.

Re:Here we go again

[David Gerard]

Oh, I know. It's just in comparison to the massive publicity Knol got.

Re:Here we go again

[blahplusplus]

"Google would rather Knol didn't suffer the ignominious fate of Google Answers [google.com]. Not everything Google does is a hit."

Google answers was a bit of a cash grab, you'd get better responses for money. No one really wants to pay a bunch of google guys money for answers when they can use google themselves and save money.

Re:Here we go again

[David Gerard]

Yeah, Knol works on selling ads.

And massive copyright violation. More than a few Wikipedia editors are getting a little peeved at (a) people blatantly taking Wikipedia articles and reposting them in violation of the GFDL (b) Google's refusal to do anything about this massive blatant copyright violation. IT'S NOT HARD TO OBEY ON THE WEB, GUYS.

Re:Here we go again

[F�an�ro]

Google Answers was tremendously useful thought IMO.
I never understood why they closed it.

It was far better than comparable services are even now (yahoo answers, expertSexChange)

Re:Here we go again

[ribuck]

Fifty of the former Google Answers Researchers now operate Uclue, which is a paid Q&A/Research service that operates much as Google Answers used to.

Re:Here we go again

[marnues]

It's also not hard to ignore on the web.

Re:Here we go again

[Ihmhi]

Expert Sexchange is pretty good, simply for the security they have on not showing you the answers: "Gee whiz, we hope nobody scrolls down!"

Re:Here we go again

[rtb61]

This time around it appears like the googlites now feel threatened by, oh no, slashdot. So it just seems to be a tightly controlled sites, where a bunch of 'stink' tanks, get to put forward their own for profit views, promote themselves and at the same time try to give that whole 'knol' marketing B$ an air of legitimacy.

The whole site seems terribly stifled and completely lacks the open cook pot of slashdot, where thousands of ideas and opinions boil to the surface upon a continuous basis, all without the too chilling effect of too many facts or the need to try and create an 'air' of superior boringness ;).

One silly discussion was performance based pay for teachers, how daft. Now the delusion is that offering teachers more money for better grades means that somehow they will alter genetics and improve the IQ of students and the reality is in order to increase their pay they will simply kick the lower performing students out of the class/school and endeavour to attract higher IQ students who will be more far profitable. The result, the worst students end up stuck with the worst teachers in the worst schools, with the worst pay and funding, hmm now that's going to be real successful. The worst students in reality need the best teachers and teaching environment in order to achieve any measure of successful outcome, the results will of course never be high scoring but of course it is all about preventing failures and the damage that it causes, crime and prison. So imagine, financially penalising highly skilled teachers and schools who are willing to take on the difficult low performing students.

So, knol discussions, people only really interested in hearing their own opinions and of course as a blatant vehicle for google self promotion and advertising.

Re:Here we go again

[F�an�ro]

looks good, thanks!

"market prices" on the answers I saw seem quite higher than the old google answers thought.

Re:Here we go again

[TCiecka]

I think this only happens when you access their content from a crawled search result. At least, that's what happens from the links Google serves you.

Re:Here we go again

[ribuck]

The "market prices" are certainly higher, and the minimum price at uclue.com is $10 compared with $2 at Google Answers.

The problem with $2 questions is that they are not quite cheap enough to satisfy the "free" crowd, who are best served by something like Yahoo Answers, yet $2 doesn't cover the extra costs of organizing and running a paid research service even before paying the researchers anything.

Just What I Need

[igotmybfg]

Another way to argue with strangers over the internet...

Re:Just What I Need

[Kugrian]

You don't need it. You're wrong.

Re:Just What I Need

[Anonymous Coward]

Without wanting to sound too cynical (I'm using Occam's razor here), this is (rather obviously) just another way for Google to profile you. Unless someone can offer a simpler explanation for an advertising company trying to engage you this way.

Having said that, I'll check it out. Playing the part of devil's advocate, of course ;-)

Re:Just What I Need

[digitalaudiorock]

You're confusing it with Google's soon to be released Trol Debates ©

Re:Just What I Need

[Darkness404]

Or you know, Google just is like most of us and are tired of people just voting for a candidate based on the hype machine which is the media. Tired of people only going to vote for Obama because he is black and not Bush and tired of people voting for McCain because hes white and not Bush. Tired of the fact that most of the people who vote have no clue what the issues are, tired that the fate of entire industries are being determined with this election with no clue on what either candidate supports (for example, neither McCain nor Obama claim to support or deny software patents that are killing the US computer industry).

Sure, Google might be profiling you, but I think it is mostly that they are sick and tired of people voting with no clue who they are voting for.

Re:Just What I Need

[erikina]

Try again. By definition Occam's razor cuts against these conspiracies.

Re:Just What I Need

[erikina]

Fair enough. So what's your simpler explanation for an advertising company offering a service like this?

More page impressions, sell advertising, build a bigger brand, increase 'stickiness', promote knol, etc.

Re:Just What I Need

[memristance]

Fortunately for us, they are both vulnerable to flames.

Re:Just What I Need

[Knuckles]

And to do this effectively, they need to profile you. It's what they do with all other services, too.

Re:Just What I Need

[rugatero]

Looking at it from the outside, I felt that Kerry was the guy in the right place at the right time.

Re:Just What I Need

[Tubal-Cain]

Parents are always wrong. Until you become one.

Re:Just What I Need

[jonaskoelker]

but I think it is mostly that they are sick and tired of people voting with no clue who they are voting for.

There's a simpler explanation: more revenue from ad views.

They're a public company. They are obligated to make money. Making people vote based on an informed thought process--how exactly does that make Google money? Not all are going to vote for the candidate that helps Google. Meanwhile, the site is going to take time (i.e. money) to build and operate.

You can't really chalk it up as a branding or awareness thing either: the Google brand is strong and everybody knows it. And it's definitely not "the cost of doing business".

I think it's the money. For Google, that means ad views.

Re:Just What I Need

[Alsee]

Making people vote based on an informed thought process--how exactly does that make Google money?

a mismanaged economy in global depression is bad for profits?
bad tech policy and bad internet policy is bad for tech&internet sector profits?
global hatred for America and American companies is bad for US based company profits?

Ummm....
global thermonuclear war is bad for profits?

-

Re:Just What I Need

[eulernet]

Not necessarily.
I think Google will remain neutral, but they will probably add some realtime election maps:
http://code.google.com/p/election-maps-2008/
http://code.google.com/p/primary-maps-2008-live/
(hint: only Google people working on that)

Re:MOD STORY DOWN (then vote McCain!)

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think that John McCain will fit in the ballot box if I vote him.

Look...

[Darkness404]

This is only going to fuel the fire of stupidity in the USA. Just read their slogan

Knol Debates: Listening to opinions, debating the facts

That isn't exactly how a debate should be run. It should be listening to facts and debating about opinions unfortunately, there lacks a good source to get facts, and even the presidential debates are more or less set up to keep us more in the dark.

Ideally, there should be a debate where individual citizens can stand up without pre-screened questions and ask the candidates anything pertaining to the election, but today with the news nothing more than glorified hype, that isn't going to happen.

Re:Look...

[thomasw_lrd]

Wow, that's a nice post. It's nice to see people who actually pay attention to what's going on.

Re:Look...

[St. Alfonzo]

I just wish the debate moderators would do less to get the candidates talking to each other and more to actually make them answer the questions.

Re:Look...

[Tubal-Cain]

That isn't exactly how a debate should be run. It should be listening to facts and debating about opinions unfortunately, there lacks a good source to get facts, and even the presidential debates are more or less set up to keep us more in the dark.

I hope that Google will require sources to be cited.

Debating the facts

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say that especially when it comes to economics and climate, interpretations of the data are basically opinions. I don't think we are going to end up with a single fact repository for these issues.

On the presidential debates, I agree 100%. They are all about management. Especially when they are this close to the end game, nobody wants to risk ruining the sale with a real debate. Even without pre-screened questions, the candidates seem perfectly capable of answering around the questions or answering some other question! Perhaps give Joe Citizen (No relation to Joe the Plumber) a series of questions and follow-ups. I doubt anyone who thought they had a real chance of winning would go anywhere near this.

xkcd

[Anonymous Coward]

Obligatory http://xkcd.com/386/

Google Knol IS LITTLE debate

[sciop101]

Advert: A knol about a private army in Greece: Its history from private detective agency to being sponsored by the Greek government

Religious Verse: A knol of the dogma of Islam: "Allah is great, Allah says he is great, therefore Allah is great! Nobody debates Allah!" Nuff said

Actual Debate: 2008 Presidential Election Policy Debate: Long-winded in writing! That is a policy debate for you!

More competition

[anoop_thomas]

Uh Oh. Google is now a competitor for Slashdot? What is M$oft is cooking up? They have a tendency to get into almost anything Google is up to these days.

Already done, but better... www.debatewise.com

[KidHash]

A service like this already exists - debatewise.com. The major differences seem to be that it's a not-for-profit, and by the looks of the google site, a lot better...

Re:And...

[Tubal-Cain]

More of a groupthink than a proper debate.

Re:Goddamn Liberals

[spazdor]

"imprisoned in a ballot box for weeks!" was pretty funny.

old news really

[hotweightlossre]

and this is news? it happened a while ago already

Re:And...

[hogwaller]

It strikes me as the same old well-financed thinktanks engaging in the same old diversionary topics.

Re:Allah is great

[ztcamper]

So leme get it right. If Allah isn't great, Allah doesn't say he is great. If Allah is great, we have no clue about what Allah is saying. Affirming the consequent is a bitch... :)

Debate

[jaunty]

This is a dead parrot.
No its not.
Yes, it is.
No, its not. ....