Expressing argumentative discussions in social media sites

{{Summary Online discussions contain hidden semantics which machines can't easily parse, including argumentation.
 * title=Expressing Argumentative Discussions in Social Media Sites
 * authors=Christoph Lange, Uldis Bojārs, Tudor Groza, John G. Breslin, Siegfried Handschuh
 * url=http://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/Publications/CEUR-WS/Vol-405/paper4.pdf
 * tags=Semantic Web, online argumentation, social media websites, SIOC, decision making, IBIS
 * summary===Motivation==

Ontologies like SIOC (Semantically Interlinked Online Communities, see e.g. Interlinking the social Web with semantics) can help indicate the flow of participants and the underlying structure.

Forums and blog discussions, wiki discussions and bug tracking are presented as places argumentative discussions happen; these use cases motivate the need for an argumentation model for SIOC. In wikis, structured argumentation already happens using the DILIGENT ontology, on http://wiki.openmath.org/

Model
An IBIS-based argumentation model for SIOC is presented (Fig 3), however using it presents several issues: "Once the software supports the SIOC argumentation in principle, the next challenge is acquiring information about argumentative structures in discussions. This could be done automatically, or by letting the users annotate their posts manually."

Use Cases

 * An opinion in a blog posts could be responded to with comments that agree or disagree.
 * Determining the location of a meeting for a discussion thread on a forum or bulletin board.
 * Wiki discussions
 * Bug tracking

Related Work
The related work section is quite useful, referencing related theories, models, and applications.

Selected References

 * U. Bojārs, J. G. Breslin, V. Peristeras, G. Tummarello, and S. Decker. Interlinking the social Web with semantics. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 23(3), May/June 2008.
 * C. Lange, T. Hastrup, and S. Corlosquet. Arguing on issues with mathematical knowledge items in a semantic wiki. In J. Baumeister and M. Atzmüller, editors, LWA, 2008.

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 * C. Tempich, H. S. Pinto, Y. Sure, and S. Staab. An Argumentation Ontology for Distributed, Loosely-controlled and evolvInG Engineering processes of oNTologies (DILIGENT). In ESWC 2005, pages 241–256, 2005.
 * relevance=Users will be able to get machines to do some for the work for them!
 * journal=Social Data on the Web
 * pub_date=2008
 * subject=Computer Science
 * openaccess=yes