Toward machine-assisted participation in eRulemaking: an argumentation model of evaluability

eRulemaking is an ongoing effort to use online tools to foster broader and better public participation in rulemaking --- the multi-step process that federal agencies use to develop new health, safety, and economic regulations. The increasing participation of non-expert citizens, however, has led to a growth in the amount of arguments whose validity or strength are difficult to evaluate, both by the government agencies and fellow citizens. Such arguments typically neglect to provide the reasons for the conclusions and objective evidence for factual claims upon which the arguments are based. In this paper, we propose a novel argumentation model for capturing the evaluability of user comments in eRulemaking. This model is intended to be used for implementing automated systems to assist users in constructing evaluable arguments under online commenting environment for the benefit of quick feedback at a low cost.