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  Benjamin Davies revised idea #4063. The revision addresses ideas #4065, #4064, and #4134.

Moved branch to a better place due to #4134


Drugs are a net negative for society.

Drugs are a net negative for society.
(This branch of the conversation has been moved to #4137)

  Benjamin Davies addressed criticism #4137.

Drugs are a net negative for society.

#4137·Benjamin DaviesOP, 20 minutes ago

The purpose of the law isn’t to minimise negatives and maximise positives. The purpose of the law is to uphold the rights of people.

  Benjamin Davies criticized idea #4058.

All drugs should be legal because people have a right to do what they want, as long as it isn’t violating the rights of others.

#4058·Benjamin DaviesOP, about 19 hours ago

Drugs are a net negative for society.

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #2242.

Those run the risk of turning Veritula into yet another social network like Reddit or messenger like Telegram.

#2242·Dennis HackethalOP, 4 months ago

This is speculation, see #4106. If it really becomes an issue, I can retire the feature or improve it.

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #2466.

Not if I do reactions on a per-paragraph basis. I think that’s a new feature none of those sites have.

#2466·Dennis HackethalOP, 3 months ago

I plan to go piecemeal by starting with reactions to ideas as a whole, then maybe to paragraphs/block-level elements down the line.

  Dennis Hackethal criticized idea #4063.

Drugs are a net negative for society.

#4063·Benjamin DaviesOP, about 19 hours ago

Would this work better as a criticism of #4058? That way, the relationship between these ideas might be clearer, and there’d be the possibility of a criticism chain.

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #4131.

Getting someone hooked on an addictive substance to get repeat business is predatory. It’s not an honest way to do business. Even if consuming drugs was legal, maybe the selling of drugs should still be illegal.

#4131·Dennis Hackethal, about 4 hours ago

Related to #4062, making any part of the drug trade illegal just gives gangs and cartels a leg up over law-abiding citizens.

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #4131.

Getting someone hooked on an addictive substance to get repeat business is predatory. It’s not an honest way to do business. Even if consuming drugs was legal, maybe the selling of drugs should still be illegal.

#4131·Dennis Hackethal, about 4 hours ago

But that way, you pretty much ensure that only scumbags sell drugs. And they definitely don’t care about their customers.

  Dennis Hackethal criticized idea #4058.

All drugs should be legal because people have a right to do what they want, as long as it isn’t violating the rights of others.

#4058·Benjamin DaviesOP, about 19 hours ago

Getting someone hooked on an addictive substance to get repeat business is predatory. It’s not an honest way to do business. Even if consuming drugs was legal, maybe the selling of drugs should still be illegal.

  Tyler Mills commented on criticism #4094.

You could think up a design for a self-replicating machine and then build it. Assuming you made no critical mistakes, you have made a self-replicator that hasn’t self-replicated yet.

It is considered a replicator based on what it can do, rather than on what it has done.

#4094·Benjamin Davies, about 17 hours ago

Agreed. Thanks.

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #2912.

‘Discussions’ are too narrow a term for a collection of ideas. See #2878.

While ideas should always be ‘discussable’, that doesn’t mean everyone who wants to share an idea always wants to start a discussion. Maybe they just want to put some information out there.

#2912·Dennis HackethalOP, 3 months ago

‘Board’

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #4126.

Feature idea: pay people to criticize an idea.

You start a ‘bounty’ of an arbitrary amount (min. USD 5), which is prorated among eligible critics after some deadline.

There could then be a page for bounties at /bounties. And a page listing a user’s bounties at /:username/bounties.

When starting a bounty, the user writes terms for the kinds of criticism they want. This way, they avoid having to pay people pointing out typos or other unwanted criticisms.

Anyone can start a bounty on any idea. There can only be one bounty per idea at a time.

To ensure a criticism is worthy of the bounty, the initiator gets a grace period of 24 hours at the end to review pending criticisms. Inaction automatically awards the bounty to all pending criticisms at the end of the grace period.

#4126·Dennis HackethalOP revised about 15 hours ago

Need ‘standing’ bounties: they don’t expire. I keep finding myself wanting a standing bounty for #3069 so I don’t have to re-run expiring bounties.

  Dennis Hackethal revised criticism #4003.

Feature idea: pay people to criticize an idea.

You start a ‘criticism bounty’ of 100 bucks, say, which is prorated among eligible critics after some deadline.

The amount should be arbitrarily customizable (while covering transaction costs). Minimum of $5.

There could then be a page for bounties at /bounties. And a page listing a user’s bounties at /:username/bounties.

When starting a bounty, the user indicates terms such as what kinds of criticism they want. This way, they avoid having to pay people pointing out typos, say.

Anyone can start a bounty on any idea. There can only be one bounty per idea at a time.

To ensure a criticism is worthy of the bounty, the initiator gets a grace period of 24 hours at the end to review pending criticisms. Inaction automatically awards the bounty to all pending criticisms at the end of the grace period.

Feature idea: pay people to criticize an idea.

You start a ‘bounty’ of an arbitrary amount (min. USD 5), which is prorated among eligible critics after some deadline.

There could then be a page for bounties at /bounties. And a page listing a user’s bounties at /:username/bounties.

When starting a bounty, the user writes terms for the kinds of criticism they want. This way, they avoid having to pay people pointing out typos or other unwanted criticisms.

Anyone can start a bounty on any idea. There can only be one bounty per idea at a time.

To ensure a criticism is worthy of the bounty, the initiator gets a grace period of 24 hours at the end to review pending criticisms. Inaction automatically awards the bounty to all pending criticisms at the end of the grace period.

  Dennis Hackethal revised criticism #4122. The revision addresses idea #2157.

Veritula should have some way to acknowledge an idea, including a way to show that a thread is resolved, at least for the time being, without having to comment.

Veritula should have some way to acknowledge an idea, including a way to show that a thread is resolved, at least for the time being, without having to comment.

  Dennis Hackethal revised criticism #4120.

Veritula should have some way to acknowledge an idea, including a way to show that a thread is resolved, at least for the time being.

Veritula should have some way to acknowledge an idea, including a way to show that a thread is resolved, at least for the time being, without having to comment.

  Dennis Hackethal revised criticism #2169.

Veritula should have some way to indicate agreement; some way to indicate that a particular thread of a discussion is resolved, at least for the time being.

Veritula should have some way to acknowledge an idea, including a way to show that a thread is resolved, at least for the time being.

  Dennis Hackethal revised criticism #4114.

Posting arbitrary emojis doesn’t achieve that purpose.

Maybe it does. Any kind of reaction is a response that turns a criticism from ‘pending’1 to not ‘pending’ anymore.


  1. ‘Acknowledged’ vs ‘unacknowledged’ may be better terminology here, to avoid overlap with the current notion of pending criticisms.

Posting arbitrary emojis doesn’t achieve that purpose.

Maybe it does. Any kind of reaction is a response that turns a criticism from unacknowledged to acknowledged.

  Dennis Hackethal revised criticism #2892.

The purpose of the reaction would be to record a kind of agreement or acknowledgment.
That way, Veritula could show ‘pending’ criticisms to users, say – ‘pending’ in the sense that they haven’t responded to those criticisms. So in addition to revising or counter-criticizing, they get a chance to accept a criticism without it remaining in a ‘pending’ state.

Posting arbitrary emojis doesn’t achieve that purpose.

The purpose of the reaction would be to record a kind of agreement or acknowledgment.

That way, Veritula could show unacknowledged criticisms to users. So in addition to revising or counter-criticizing, they get a chance to acknowledge a criticism without having to comment.

Posting arbitrary emojis doesn’t achieve that purpose.

  Dennis Hackethal revised criticism #4102.

Posting arbitrary emojis doesn’t achieve that purpose.

Maybe it does. Any kind of reaction is a response that turns a criticism from ‘pending’1 to not ‘pending’ anymore.


  1. ‘Acknowledged’ vs ‘unacknowledged’ may be better terminology here, to avoid overlap with the current notion of pending criticisms.)

Posting arbitrary emojis doesn’t achieve that purpose.

Maybe it does. Any kind of reaction is a response that turns a criticism from ‘pending’1 to not ‘pending’ anymore.


  1. ‘Acknowledged’ vs ‘unacknowledged’ may be better terminology here, to avoid overlap with the current notion of pending criticisms.

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #4107.

Doesn’t need to be arbitrary emojis, it could just be a handful that you choose, each being a different flavour of acknowledgement.

Thumbs up,
Thinking emoji,
Mind-blown emoji,
Etc.

Edit: X spaces are an example of a limited set of emojis working well.

#4107·Benjamin Davies revised about 16 hours ago

Edit: …

Pointing out changes is discouraged. Version history and diffing take care of that for you.

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #4107.

Doesn’t need to be arbitrary emojis, it could just be a handful that you choose, each being a different flavour of acknowledgement.

Thumbs up,
Thinking emoji,
Mind-blown emoji,
Etc.

Edit: X spaces are an example of a limited set of emojis working well.

#4107·Benjamin Davies revised about 16 hours ago

I think the reason the limited set works well in X spaces is that there’s no text input. So there’s no way to sidestep the restriction.

For Veritula, it would be more like an emoji restriction on tweets. That wouldn’t work because you couldn’t stop people from posting arbitrary emojis in tweets by just typing them with their keyboards.

  Dennis Hackethal revised criticism #4105.

This seems both complicated and restrictive.

This seems both complicated and restrictive. People could easily sidestep the restriction anyway: nothing stops someone from leaving a comment with only a single emoji in it.

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #2458.

I could implement reactions on a per-paragraph basis.

#2458·Dennis HackethalOP, 3 months ago

Too complicated/ambitious for a first implementation. Start piecemeal. But could be a promising approach if reactions to ideas as a whole end up being ambiguous (#2166).

  Benjamin Davies revised criticism #4104.

Doesn’t need to be arbitrary emojis, it could just be a handful that you choose, each being a different flavour of acknowledgement.

Thumbs up,
Thinking emoji,
Mind-blown emoji,
Etc.

Doesn’t need to be arbitrary emojis, it could just be a handful that you choose, each being a different flavour of acknowledgement.

Thumbs up,
Thinking emoji,
Mind-blown emoji,
Etc.

Edit: X spaces are an example of a limited set of emojis working well.

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #2166.

Reactions can be ambiguous. It wouldn’t always be clear which part of an idea someone is reacting to.

#2166·Dennis HackethalOP, 4 months ago

I can speculate ahead of time, but I might implement reactions and find that this is not an issue after all. And if it is, I can either retire the feature or improve it.