5 ms·

Rbutr: a browser extension that finds rebuttals to web pages you're reading

68 points by MichaelJW 14y ago

taybenlor 14y ago
This is fantastic. I've always wanted to be able to see this, but the only way so far has been either if they allow comments, or if I see a discussion in the place I used to follow the link (eg. Twitter, HN, Reddit). Is it all manual or is there some automated component?
- Aegist 14y ago
  It is all manual I am afraid. We are reaching out to Skeptic communities right now in an effort to get the ball rolling and get as many rebuttals added as possible. We're getting amazingly positive support from the Reddit skeptical community (which is where this post came from), and I will be at the Amazing Meeting in July, talking to skeptic community leaders from all over the world. But of course, everyone and anyone can add rebuttals, so please, feel free to add any whenever you happen across one :)
ktizo 14y ago
rbutr is the best tool for keeping yourself genuinely informed online. I'm not so sure about that, I wonder if there are any articles that disagree..
- Aegist 14y ago
  Haha. Consider it a goal :)
Zakharov 14y ago
This sounds really cool. Very minor quibble: in rebutr's Philosophy, section 3, "backs it's claims up" should be "backs its claims up".
- Aegist 14y ago
  Fixed.
tomstuart 14y ago
This reminds me of Intel Research Berkeley's (now-defunct?) Confrontational Computing project, which produced a Firefox extension called Dispute Finder: http://ennals.org/rob/disputefinder.html http://ennals.org/rob/disputefinder.html, http://confront.intel-research.net/Dispute_Finder.html http://confront.intel-research.net/Dispute_Finder.html
- vardhanw 14y ago
  Is it any good?
- username3 14y ago
  We are in contact with Rob Ennals atm, who was the creator of Dispute Finder which aimed to provide a line by line annotation system which provided rebuttals to disputed claims. [1]: http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/u8q8a/new_tool_to_help_skeptics_reddit_can_we_get_your/c4tf8i8 http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/u8q8a/new_tool_to_h...
- abecedarius 14y ago
  Or Ka-Ping Yee's crit.org back in the 90s.
Zakharov 14y ago
Having gone through the tutorial, I had a couple issues. I couldn't mark a page to be rebutted, switch tab to the rebuttal, then mark that page as the rebuttal except by manually copy-pasting the url. When adding tags, I could only add tags from the list and couldn't remove a tag I accidentally added. Shouldn't the tag text box be editable?
- Aegist 14y ago
  Zakharov, I'm really sorry it didn't work for you. It is clear that this happens to a small percentage of the people because we occasionally get messed up submission coming through from the tutorial (which in theory should all be the same). 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...
twelvechairs 14y ago
Great idea - I've always wanted to see something like this. But... compulsory registration? This just dissuades most of your potential users from even giving it a try....
- Zakharov 14y ago
  That might be beneficial. Their philosophy section states that they want people submitting and voting on rebuttals to have an understanding of argumentative logic; making registration difficult makes it more likely users have some idea of what rebutr is before they start using it.
  - alttab 14y ago
    Considering this is auto research for lazy people, any price point creates a chicken egg problem nearly impossible to solve.
    - Aegist 14y ago
      While it will no doubt get used as 'auto research for lazy people', the implications of success for this project are much bigger than just that. Providing automatic skepticism for the average person is unheard of, but with a wide enough net cast by an active community, and wide uptake by common users, that is exactly what can come of it. 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.
      - alttab 14y ago
        Going after the skeptics would certainly be a niche market that could easily be created, I get that for sure. 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.
koide 14y ago
Related, but not implemented yet: http://hypothes.is http://hypothes.is
brudgers 14y ago
<snark> A browser that flames debate on the internet? Yeah, that's helpful. </snark>
joshuahedlund 14y ago
There is definitely room for some cool innovation in the online flame war space. I've thought it would be cool to have some kind of dedicated place for summarizing well-worn debate topics so that whenever comments on a site dissolve into assertions about the same old things you can point them towards an existing summary instead of again rehashing the same old facts and contexts. I haven't taken the time to flesh the idea out to see if it could really work, though.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
chris_p 14y ago
It seems that users have to submit rebuttals to articles they read, I thought that was done by the system using NLP techniques, specifically Sentiment Analysis. Now that would be really cool.
mazsa 14y ago
This extension can access: * 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
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
  Virtually every Chrome extension that has to deal with a web page somehow requires those two permissions.
- username3 14y ago
  A bookmarklet would be better. https://github.com/eliaskg/AlreadyHN https://github.com/eliaskg/AlreadyHN
albb0920 14y ago
This makes me think of sidewiki. Will many people really go find rebuttals and contribute back to the original page? It seems a little bit too much of work.
- Aegist 14y ago
  So far we are getting very promising numbers. The main difference betwen us and all of the annotation services which have come before us (around 50 on last count, thanks to Hypothes.is), is that we are page level. We connect one URL to another. It is so simple your grandmother could probably do it. The previous versions were all line-level, meaning that you had to highlight text and then write your comment, or connect to another page etc. It was overwhelming and confusing. rbutr requires you to press two button, small descriptive comment and tag. You don't need to be an expert on the subject matter or anything. You just connect the two authors who claim to know about it to one another...
Goladus 14y ago
In my experience: > 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.
- username3 14y ago
  We'd need to vote on votes, dispute reasons for your reasons, have a checklist of user's logic for voting and then filter out users with bad logic history. 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_learn_to_write.html http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2012/05/16/please_lear...
lectrick 14y ago
I would love this but 90% of the people I meet and know are not actually interested in actual discussion of the ideas they believe in and consume.
- username3 14y ago
  I don't blame them. We keep having the same discussions and don't get anywhere. Have the discussion once and for all. Let them follow it and show you what they agree with. Give us multiple choice discussions. We could just pick what's already been said to each other. Auto-complete ideas. Auto-correction for discussions.
username3 14y ago
Websites/domains should be allowed to rebut rbutr rebuttals and be highlighted/referenced like Talk.Origins and True.Origins do for each other.[1] What are they going to do with all these rebuttals? This is like level two. We need to go up some more levels.[2] [1]: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/moonrec.html http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/moonrec.html [2]: http://worrydream.com/LadderOfAbstraction/ http://worrydream.com/LadderOfAbstraction/
- Aegist 14y ago
  rbutr rebuttals can absolutely be rebutted. Any page can be rebutted, so you can follow a whole multi-step debate online. Is that what you meant? For example, one link:http://rbutr.com/rbutr/WebsiteServlet?requestType=showLink&linkId=1828 http://rbutr.com/rbutr/WebsiteServlet?requestType=showLink&#... where the rebuttal is rebutted: http://rbutr.com/rbutr/WebsiteServlet?requestType=showLinksByFromPage&fromPageId=1825 http://rbutr.com/rbutr/WebsiteServlet?requestType=showLinksB... where the rebuttal is rebutted: http://rbutr.com/rbutr/WebsiteServlet?requestType=showLinksByFromPage&fromPageId=2126 http://rbutr.com/rbutr/WebsiteServlet?requestType=showLinksB...
woodall 14y ago
From the looks of it, the hivemind has already taken over.
volandovengo 14y ago
Nice work Shane. How do you find the rebuttals?

68 points by MichaelJW 14y ago

This is fantastic. I've always wanted to be able to see this, but the only way so far has been either if they allow comments, or if I see a discussion in the place I used to follow the link (eg. Twitter, HN, Reddit). Is it all manual or is there some automated component?

Aegist 14y ago
It is all manual I am afraid. We are reaching out to Skeptic communities right now in an effort to get the ball rolling and get as many rebuttals added as possible. We're getting amazingly positive support from the Reddit skeptical community (which is where this post came from), and I will be at the Amazing Meeting in July, talking to skeptic community leaders from all over the world. But of course, everyone and anyone can add rebuttals, so please, feel free to add any whenever you happen across one :)

ktizo 14y ago

rbutr is the best tool for keeping yourself genuinely informed online. I'm not so sure about that, I wonder if there are any articles that disagree..

Aegist 14y ago
Haha. Consider it a goal :)

Zakharov 14y ago

This sounds really cool. Very minor quibble: in rebutr's Philosophy, section 3, "backs it's claims up" should be "backs its claims up".

Aegist 14y ago
Fixed.

tomstuart 14y ago

This reminds me of Intel Research Berkeley's (now-defunct?) Confrontational Computing project, which produced a Firefox extension called Dispute Finder: http://ennals.org/rob/disputefinder.html http://ennals.org/rob/disputefinder.html, http://confront.intel-research.net/Dispute_Finder.html http://confront.intel-research.net/Dispute_Finder.html

vardhanw 14y ago
Is it any good?
username3 14y ago
We are in contact with Rob Ennals atm, who was the creator of Dispute Finder which aimed to provide a line by line annotation system which provided rebuttals to disputed claims. [1]: http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/u8q8a/new_tool_to_help_skeptics_reddit_can_we_get_your/c4tf8i8 http://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/u8q8a/new_tool_to_h...
abecedarius 14y ago
Or Ka-Ping Yee's crit.org back in the 90s.

Zakharov 14y ago

Having gone through the tutorial, I had a couple issues. I couldn't mark a page to be rebutted, switch tab to the rebuttal, then mark that page as the rebuttal except by manually copy-pasting the url. When adding tags, I could only add tags from the list and couldn't remove a tag I accidentally added. Shouldn't the tag text box be editable?

Aegist 14y ago
Zakharov, I'm really sorry it didn't work for you. It is clear that this happens to a small percentage of the people because we occasionally get messed up submission coming through from the tutorial (which in theory should all be the same). 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...

twelvechairs 14y ago

Great idea - I've always wanted to see something like this. But... compulsory registration? This just dissuades most of your potential users from even giving it a try....

Zakharov 14y ago
That might be beneficial. Their philosophy section states that they want people submitting and voting on rebuttals to have an understanding of argumentative logic; making registration difficult makes it more likely users have some idea of what rebutr is before they start using it.
- alttab 14y ago
  Considering this is auto research for lazy people, any price point creates a chicken egg problem nearly impossible to solve.
  - Aegist 14y ago
    While it will no doubt get used as 'auto research for lazy people', the implications of success for this project are much bigger than just that. Providing automatic skepticism for the average person is unheard of, but with a wide enough net cast by an active community, and wide uptake by common users, that is exactly what can come of it. 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.
    - alttab 14y ago
      Going after the skeptics would certainly be a niche market that could easily be created, I get that for sure. 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.

koide 14y ago

Related, but not implemented yet: http://hypothes.is http://hypothes.is

brudgers 14y ago

<snark> A browser that flames debate on the internet? Yeah, that's helpful. </snark>

joshuahedlund 14y ago

There is definitely room for some cool innovation in the online flame war space. I've thought it would be cool to have some kind of dedicated place for summarizing well-worn debate topics so that whenever comments on a site dissolve into assertions about the same old things you can point them towards an existing summary instead of again rehashing the same old facts and contexts. I haven't taken the time to flesh the idea out to see if it could really work, though.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

chris_p 14y ago

It seems that users have to submit rebuttals to articles they read, I thought that was done by the system using NLP techniques, specifically Sentiment Analysis. Now that would be really cool.

mazsa 14y ago

This extension can access: * 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

TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
Virtually every Chrome extension that has to deal with a web page somehow requires those two permissions.
username3 14y ago
A bookmarklet would be better. https://github.com/eliaskg/AlreadyHN https://github.com/eliaskg/AlreadyHN

albb0920 14y ago

This makes me think of sidewiki. Will many people really go find rebuttals and contribute back to the original page? It seems a little bit too much of work.

Aegist 14y ago
So far we are getting very promising numbers. The main difference betwen us and all of the annotation services which have come before us (around 50 on last count, thanks to Hypothes.is), is that we are page level. We connect one URL to another. It is so simple your grandmother could probably do it. The previous versions were all line-level, meaning that you had to highlight text and then write your comment, or connect to another page etc. It was overwhelming and confusing. rbutr requires you to press two button, small descriptive comment and tag. You don't need to be an expert on the subject matter or anything. You just connect the two authors who claim to know about it to one another...

Goladus 14y ago

In my experience: > 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.

username3 14y ago
We'd need to vote on votes, dispute reasons for your reasons, have a checklist of user's logic for voting and then filter out users with bad logic history. 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_learn_to_write.html http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2012/05/16/please_lear...

lectrick 14y ago

I would love this but 90% of the people I meet and know are not actually interested in actual discussion of the ideas they believe in and consume.

username3 14y ago
I don't blame them. We keep having the same discussions and don't get anywhere. Have the discussion once and for all. Let them follow it and show you what they agree with. Give us multiple choice discussions. We could just pick what's already been said to each other. Auto-complete ideas. Auto-correction for discussions.

username3 14y ago

Websites/domains should be allowed to rebut rbutr rebuttals and be highlighted/referenced like Talk.Origins and True.Origins do for each other.[1] What are they going to do with all these rebuttals? This is like level two. We need to go up some more levels.[2] [1]: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/moonrec.html http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/moonrec.html [2]: http://worrydream.com/LadderOfAbstraction/ http://worrydream.com/LadderOfAbstraction/

Aegist 14y ago
rbutr rebuttals can absolutely be rebutted. Any page can be rebutted, so you can follow a whole multi-step debate online. Is that what you meant? For example, one link:http://rbutr.com/rbutr/WebsiteServlet?requestType=showLink&linkId=1828 http://rbutr.com/rbutr/WebsiteServlet?requestType=showLink&#... where the rebuttal is rebutted: http://rbutr.com/rbutr/WebsiteServlet?requestType=showLinksByFromPage&fromPageId=1825 http://rbutr.com/rbutr/WebsiteServlet?requestType=showLinksB... where the rebuttal is rebutted: http://rbutr.com/rbutr/WebsiteServlet?requestType=showLinksByFromPage&fromPageId=2126 http://rbutr.com/rbutr/WebsiteServlet?requestType=showLinksB...

woodall 14y ago

From the looks of it, the hivemind has already taken over.

volandovengo 14y ago

Nice work Shane. How do you find the rebuttals?