In open politics, an argument is made for or against a position.

  • A position is a statement of what should be done. It should be specific enough to disagree with.
  • An argument states why or why not. Each argument should provide only one good reason.

The existence of an argument against a position is a good sign that someone has been looking at it. If only the argument for is presented, chances are good that only the first author who wrote the position, has reviewed the issue in any depth. Nothing should be considered to be in issue/position/argument form until there is at least one argument against each position, and there are several clearly competing positions on the same issue.

A good argument provides evidence, appeals to reason and/or refers to an authority on the issue.

Arguments that state facts or quote outside sources should provide a cite link. Without these an argument may be challenged, or even removed from the current version (though it will always be retrievable from the page history).

Often arguments in open politics are just links to outside authority with descriptions of what the link is.

see also:
IPA, debate by edit.