Terms like 'misinformation', 'fake news', and 'echo chambers' permeate current discussions on the state of the Internet. We believe a lack of technological support to evaluate, contest, and reason about information online---as opposed to merely disseminating it---lies at the root of these problems. Several argument technologies support such functionality, but have seen limited use outside of niche communities. Most research systems overemphasize argument analysis and structure, standing in stark contrast with the informal dialectical nature of everyday argumentation. Conversely, non-academic systems overlook important implications for design which can be derived from theory. In this paper, we present the design of a system aiming to strike a balance between structured argumentation and ease of use. Socratrees is a website for collaborative argumentative discussion targeting layman users, but includes sophisticated community guidelines and novel features inspired by informal logic. During an exploratory study, we evaluate the usefulness of our imposed structure on argumentation and investigate how users perceive it. Contributing to arguments remains a complex task, but most users learned to do so effectively with minimal guidance and all recognized that the structure of Socratrees may improve online discussion and results in a clearer overview of arguments.

中文翻译：

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Socratrees：探索面向外行用户的 Argument 技术设计

“错误信息”、“假新闻”和“回声室”等术语充斥着当前关于互联网状况的讨论。我们认为，缺乏对在线信息进行评估、竞争和推理的技术支持——而不是仅仅传播信息——是这些问题的根源。一些参数技术支持这种功能，但在利基社区之外的使用有限。大多数研究系统过分强调论证分析和结构，与日常论证的非正式辩证性质形成鲜明对比。相反，非学术系统忽略了可以从理论中推导出来的对设计的重要影响。在本文中，我们提出了一个旨在在结构化论证和易用性之间取得平衡的系统设计。Socratrees 是一个针对外行用户的协作论证讨论网站，但包括复杂的社区指南和受非正式逻辑启发的新颖功能。在探索性研究中，我们评估了我们强加的论证结构的有用性，并调查了用户如何看待它。贡献论据仍然是一项复杂的任务，但大多数用户学会了在最少的指导下有效地做到这一点，并且所有人都认识到 Socratrees 的结构可以改善在线讨论并导致更清晰的论点概述。我们评估我们强加的论证结构的有用性，并调查用户如何看待它。贡献论据仍然是一项复杂的任务，但大多数用户学会了在最少的指导下有效地做到这一点，并且所有人都认识到 Socratrees 的结构可以改善在线讨论并导致更清晰的论点概述。我们评估我们强加的论证结构的有用性，并调查用户如何看待它。贡献论点仍然是一项复杂的任务，但大多数用户学会了在最少的指导下有效地做到这一点，并且都认识到 Socratrees 的结构可以改善在线讨论并导致更清晰的论点概述。