Pacisco/Development/Design_Principles

Like Pacisco itself, the principles underlying its development are evolving.  They may be refined and added to as experienced dictates.   However, their essence will remain consistent.

Transparent

The details of algorithms employed in Pacisco must be open for inspection.

It is intended that the source code of the Pacisco database and Escritoire interface will be made available under an appropriate open source licence.  The technologies used in its construction must also be open source.

Once published, a claim and its associated cases may not be retracted or edited.

Additional rebutting or supporting cases may be added.

Pacisco is implemented as a client-server architecture, the server holding the published arguments, and retrieving chains of argumentation and evaluations.  The client, initially developed to run in a web browser (Escritoire) merely presents arguments retrieved from the server and facilitates the writing and submission of new arguments.  Validation of submitted arguments is in the final instance determined by the server.

Anonymous

Contribution to debates held on Pacisco should be completely anonymous.

Registration is required so that users can be reminded of their unsubstantiated claims and their personal ratings can be retrieved, however there will be no requirement to link the Pacisco identity with anything that would allow the user to be identified.

Pragmatic

Pacisco will be further developed based on experience of use with a preference for what works over other considerations.

Whilst the Toulmin model had been used as a conceptual basis for the development of Pacisco thus far, if experience in use demonstrates inadequacy in the implementation of the model or the appropriateness of the model itself, it will be revised as required to make it effective.

Undetermined

Pacisco is intended to allow individuals to assess the merits of arguments and come to their own consistent opinions.  There is never a point at which an argument is definitively ‘won’ (unless perhaps in the field of logic or mathematics).  The individual will note where their opinions differ markedly from the debater population as a whole, but they are not required to change their opinion to conform. The dissenter may be correct.

The opinion of an individual debater, expressed through a confidence rating, or an identification of logically equivalent or inverse claims may be altered by them at any time.

When arguments are evaluated, the influence of a particular debater’s opinions will be calculated and presented separately from the summated opinions of others.

 

The incorporation of these principles into a working product with an unrestricted user base will no doubt throw up challenges.  These challenges will be handled in accordance with the principles themselves.