The binary set-up creates false 'noise'. The moderation could be more neutral (and more intelligent, frankly ) but more so it could help shape an argument rather than 'tidy' . Sometimes the mods seem to be machine bots reacting to single words and not context. Overly dependent on US English and US culture. Commonly held, but None-USA , thoughts are challenged to the point of attrition but others are allowed as unsupported, and unchallenged, statements. It would be dangerous to encourage students to access this.
If you want a nice place to quickly scrub over an issue and grab some pros and cons, Kialo is a good place. Unfortunately, the restrictions that plague interacting with the site can be detrimental. For instance, a topic on PETA was composed mostly of bunk science, but posting factual, supported evidence was rejected by the moderator before it was made available to view by others for various reasons.
It's a neat idea, and the internet is in dire need of a platform that enforces some form of stricter moderation for nicer debate and discussion. However, with the strict level of control Kialo forces among its users, and potential bias that's been shown in certain topics from anonymous moderation, I can't recommend it to the wider internet at this moment.
I gave Kialo a good try for several days. Yuuuuk!
No thanks! Definitely not for me. I don't think I'm sophisticated
enough for (some) of those folks.
