[1]: http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/u8q8a/new_tool_to_h...
> Foster good principles of logical debate within the community
This is the most agonizingly difficult problem to deal with.
Getting people to actually judge arguments on their logical and factual merit is ridiculously difficult. Many do not even seem aware such criteria exists, much less have capability to recognize or respect those traits in opposing arguments. The moment you start touching on politically or emotionally-charged issues like religion and discrimination, fair judgment of opposing logic and facts becomes scarce.
We could instead argue in code or in language that can compile, so "[y]ou are punished swiftly for obvious errors." [1]
[1] http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2012/05/16/please_lear...
But... compulsory registration? This just dissuades most of your potential users from even giving it a try....
I'm afraid not at this point. The system is set up to be connected to the user account (to make sure the votes and the links are attributed to an account).
However, it does make sense that some people might want a "Viewer only" version which doesn't add or vote, but just displays. We might look in to this....?
[1]: http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/u8q8a/new_tool_to_h...
However, in order to use these functions, there needs to be a user account for it. Otherwise people might 'test' things out and create nonsense links. Repeatedly. User accounts are a necessary filter in order to ensure we aren't inundated with testing clicks, and to provide quality control, and all the other things which follow from having registered users.
Most every page these days requires registration, so I don't think this is particularly odd.
Though we are now looking at creating a membership-free installation which allows you to complete our tutorial - and if we can, I would like it if that un-registered version could also deliver rebuttal alerts... So feedback is working. Now it will just take time to implement it all!
As of yet though, we are unable to replicate the problems. If you could provide some details of your OS and browser, and exactly what happened, I would appreciate it.
Because normally, copy and pasting a URL in to the rebuttal place actually isn't allowed at all. So something has gone very wrong! Also, the Tag box is indeed normally editable (after addition of the first tag).
So I just wanted to let you know, that there is a bug causing those faults, and we haven't identified what is causing that bug yet...
* Your data on all websites
This item can read every page that you visit -- your bank, your web email, your Facebook page, and so on. Often, this kind of item needs to see all pages so that it can perform a limited task such as looking for RSS feeds that you might want to subscribe to.
Caution: Besides seeing all your pages, this item could use your credentials (cookies) to request or modify your data from websites.
* Your tabs and browsing activity
Is it all manual or is there some automated component?
But of course, everyone and anyone can add rebuttals, so please, feel free to add any whenever you happen across one :)
What are they going to do with all these rebuttals? This is like level two. We need to go up some more levels.[2]
Is that what you meant?
For example, one link:http://rbutr.com/rbutr/WebsiteServlet?requestType=showLink&#... where the rebuttal is rebutted: http://rbutr.com/rbutr/WebsiteServlet?requestType=showLinksB... where the rebuttal is rebutted: http://rbutr.com/rbutr/WebsiteServlet?requestType=showLinksB...
Definitely the chicken-egg problem is our main hurdle, but we are working on that by turning this project in to something more than just the plugin. We are also focusing on connecting with the most active communities who already engage in exactly the sort of activity which we need - the Skeptic community is exactly that community. So we are walking away from chickens and eggs, and going straight after the seeds.
I still think there is a model where you can impact the wider lay internet audience by providing healthy skepticism for everyone. Between Twitter and Facebook, communities with large, lasting impacts on social knowledge distribution and the behavioral modification that follows really helps gain mainstream traction.
I guess what I'm saying is - please don't only solve the small problem of giving balanced skepticism to those who want it (and thus may have the drive to do it on their own), but make those who don't look for it want it in the first place by making it easy to obtain (paying for that service would not be one of those ways).
The lazy people will think paying for such a service is a scam, but little do they know they get scammed for free all the time with unbalanced points of view.