Native Debate System
Learn about Society Speaks' advanced native debate features with consensus analysis and real-time voting
What is the Native Debate System?
Our Native Debate System is a next-generation deliberation platform built directly into Society Speaks. It combines the proven principles of pol.is with powerful new features like threaded arguments, evidence linking, and optional AI-powered insights.
✨ Key Advantages:
- No separate account needed (fully integrated)
- Instant real-time voting with AJAX
- Add detailed pro/con responses with evidence
- Interactive consensus visualizations
- Optional AI features (you control the costs)
How to Participate
1 Vote on Statements
- Agree - Click if you support the statement
- Disagree - Click if you oppose the statement
- Unsure - Click if you're undecided or need more context
- Votes update instantly without page reload
- You can change your vote anytime
2 Add Your Own Statements
- Click "Add Statement" to contribute
- Keep it concise (10-500 characters)
- Choose type: Claim (assertion) or Question
- System checks for similar statements to avoid duplicates
- You have 10 minutes to edit after posting
3 Add Detailed Responses
- Click "Add Response" on any statement
- Choose your position: Pro, Con, or Neutral
- Write up to 2000 characters
- Add evidence: citations, URLs, or file uploads
- Responses can be threaded (reply to replies)
4 View Consensus Analysis
- After enough participation, consensus analysis becomes available
- See how different opinion groups formed
- Discover statements with broad agreement
- Identify "bridge" statements that unite groups
- View interactive scatter plot visualization
Sorting Options
Choose how statements are displayed:
📊 Progressive (pol.is style)
Shows you statements with fewer votes first, ensuring all get attention
⭐ Best
Highest agreement statements first (using Wilson score)
🔥 Controversial
Most divisive statements (close to 50/50 split)
🕐 Recent
Newest statements first
Understanding Consensus Analysis
After enough participation (7+ users, 7+ statements, 50+ votes), the system analyzes voting patterns to:
👥 Identify Opinion Groups
Users are clustered based on voting similarity, not demographics. The system uses PCA (Principal Component Analysis) and Agglomerative Clustering to find natural groupings.
Example: Group 1 might prioritize environmental concerns, while Group 2 prioritizes economic growth—even if both have mixed political backgrounds.
✅ Detect Consensus Statements
Statements with ≥70% overall agreement and ≥60% in each group are marked as consensus.
These represent common ground across different perspectives.
🌉 Find Bridge Statements
Statements with high agreement across all groups (≥65% mean, low variance) that unite different perspectives.
These are especially valuable for finding solutions that work for everyone.
⚡ Highlight Divisive Statements
Statements with close to 50/50 splits (controversy score ≥0.7) that reveal deep disagreements.
These help identify where dialogue and understanding are most needed.
📊 Visualize with Interactive Charts
See a 2D scatter plot where each dot is a participant, colored by opinion group.
Hover over dots to see details. Closer dots = more similar voting patterns.
Adding Evidence
Strengthen your responses with supporting evidence. You can add three types:
📖 Citations
Academic papers, books, reports
🔗 URLs
Links to articles, studies, or websites
📎 File Uploads
PDFs, images, or documents
💡 Evidence can be marked as verified, pending, or disputed by moderators.
Moderation & Safety
We maintain high-quality discussions through:
- User Flagging: Report spam, offensive content, off-topic posts, or duplicates
- Edit Window: 10-minute grace period to fix typos or clarify, then content becomes immutable
- Moderation Queue: Discussion owners can review flagged content
- Rate Limits: 30 votes per minute, 10 statements per hour
- Audit Logs: All moderation actions are tracked for transparency
Optional AI Features
Unlock advanced features with your own AI API key (OpenAI or Anthropic):
🤖 AI Discussion Summaries
Generate human-readable summaries of consensus analysis results, highlighting key agreements and disagreements.
🏷️ Automatic Cluster Labels
AI generates descriptive names for opinion groups based on their shared beliefs (e.g., "Environmental Advocates" vs "Economic Pragmatists").
🔍 Semantic Deduplication
Prevents semantically similar statements (not just exact duplicates), helping users find and vote on existing statements instead.
💰 Cost: ~$0.01-0.05 per analysis. You control when AI features are used, and your API keys are encrypted before storage.
Native System vs Pol.is
Both systems are excellent, but they serve different needs:
| Feature | Pol.is Embed | Native System |
|---|---|---|
| Account Required | Separate pol.is account | ✓ Society Speaks only |
| Real-time Voting | Page reload required | ✓ Instant AJAX updates |
| Threaded Responses | No | ✓ Pro/con threading |
| Evidence Linking | No | ✓ Citations + files |
| Edit Window | Immutable | ✓ 10-minute grace |
| AI Summaries | No | ✓ Optional (user-key) |
| Mobile UX | Good | ✓ Tailwind optimized |
| Best For | Quick large-scale polls | Deep deliberative discussions |
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