I love this!!! I wish it gets pushed forward! I wish a lot of people would use this! I think it is a great platform!

I worked on something very similar as one of my very first projects which got me into programming. I wanted there to be a debate website where anything could be debated using arguments. I've found that the debates I would see on TV or in everyday discussions would not be good enough, because:

- There was space for people to diverge off of the discussion

- When the discussion would fork, the participants might forget some previous arguments that were made

- It would be difficult to come back to a previous point.

- People would have a bias towards the arguments made by the most prestigious side of the sides discussion a certain matter.

- It was possible to make some claims without backing up proofs/sources.

- Emotions could become a factor. The discussion can heat up.

I thus wrote a small website where one could post an idea as a node, and others could reply in favor of, against the idea or under a neutral position. The users could also vote for some nodes. The website would then become a collection of trees. As I see it, it could be used to discuss any matters! However, I've never really pushed the idea forward.

I've always thought about picking the project back up as I was passionate about the idea. I've never really got around doing so (I would love to discuss on how to get projects pushed forward). Through the years, I thought about this website, and I've found some problems that could arise:

- There would have to be a good user base. My perception was that people would have less incentive to discuss where no one would listen.

- How do you simplify ideas as much as possible? Some texts can be summarized or shortened (and some connections like relationships to other nodes could be added) and still have the same idea. I'm guessing this would be done using moderation. I think this is somewhat relevant because if you're browsing a tree of ideas, you want to do so seamlessly such that you do not lose interest in providing your input.

- For some, it is tiring to undergo a proper debate where the claims made need to be backed up. A lot of people like to discuss freely, in a comfortable setting. The usual reply system works for that.

- How do you report an improper report?

- I have found that many people like to stick with their beliefs more than with research. (This point applies to debates which need evidence. Many philosophical debates would be fine without the need for evidence.)

- It would make sense to have some nodes point to many parent nodes. How is that managed?

- The users need to learn about the possible relationships between the nodes.

- If a node would get too big, it would contain more than one idea. There has to be a system to split nodes apart.

- How do you deal with merging nodes?

- How do you manage spam and moderate node creation? (I did not have a good understanding of how to achieve these)

- How do you deal with nodes that have been edited? I've found a way to deal with this, but it's not as pretty as I would have liked it.

- Watching websites like Reddit and Facebook, I realized the reply system was enough as it allowed people as much room as they needed to make their point, using text. The only issue is organizing the ideas properly in this case. Hacker News had the reply system and people were using it to lead great discussions.

I've also thought about extending relationships to not just logical relationships. The reason I was looking to do this was that I wanted to find the simplest and most elegant solution that could apply to many use cases (not ALL the use cases though). It fitted (and still somewhat does fit in) how I think about writing good software (please someone correct me if I am wrong). The relationships would be akin to: Grows from, Follows, Is of type, Contains, etc.

I thought that this would essentially grow into a database of everything, a little bit like Wikipedia. Although Wikipedia does not allow much discussion (As far as I know).