How Does Veritula Work?

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #5667.

should_adopt? and pending_criticisms are implemented in terms of each other. Doesn’t that cause a vicious cycle?

#5667​·​Dennis HackethalOP, 5 days ago

No because as they call each other, they traverse the tree, going down it each step of the way. They don’t remain at the same level.

  Dennis Hackethal criticized idea #5114.

Recursive Epistemology

Veritula implements a recursive epistemology. For a criticism to be pending, it can’t have any pending criticisms itself, and so on, in a deeply nested fashion.

ruby
def should_adopt? idea

  pending_criticisms(idea).none?

end



def pending_criticisms idea

  criticisms(idea).filter { |c| should_adopt?(c) }

end



def criticisms idea

  children(idea).filter(&:criticism?)

end

This approach is different from non-recursive epistemologies, which handle criticisms differently. For example, they might not consider deeply nested criticisms when determining whether an idea is currently criticized.

#5114​·​Dennis HackethalOP revised about 2 months ago

should_adopt? and pending_criticisms are implemented in terms of each other. Doesn’t that cause a vicious cycle?

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #2138.

What reason could you have to ignore the pending criticisms and adopt [the criticized idea] anyway?

Maybe the criticisms aren’t decisive.

#2138​·​Dennis HackethalOP revised 12 months ago

They must be decisive, since pending criticisms and rational adoptability are defined in terms of each other (see #5114). If a criticism is pending, we must by definition adopt it (if we want to be rational). These two concepts are a package deal.

  Dennis Hackethal revised idea #5640.

Link to explanation about why being a meat proxy is bad

Forum Rules

Veritula welcomes a wide range of discussion topics. Generally speaking, people have free speech here. Unpopular topics will not automatically get people banned. The goal of moderation is to preserve productive, truth-seeking discussion.

Behavior that is intended, or likely, to sabotage debate or prevent progress is a bannable offense. Such behavior includes, but is not limited to, harassment, brigading, rage baiting, public shaming, and persistent bad-faith argumentation or refusal to engage substantively.

Veritula takes intellectual property seriously and reserves the right to take down content that infringes on others’ intellectual property.

Veritula also reserves the right to take down obscene content such as pornography.

AI-generated content may be submitted, but only if disclosed prominently enough so a reasonable person can tell right away. Veritula is a place for genuine discussion and truth-seeking, so we’d prefer to avoid talking to meat proxies without realizing it. AI content is notoriously verbose – don’t flood discussions with it. In addition, it’s your responsibility to ensure that AI detectors give negative results for your content. Repeat submission of AI-generated content that is not disclosed and/or overly verbose is a bannable offense.

Serious instances of off-platform behavior that clearly would have violated these rules on-platform may result in removal.

Depending on the severity of an infraction, moderators may issue a warning, temporarily lock an account, or permanently ban the account.

Looking for loopholes in these rules, or abusing the letter to violate the spirit of these rules, is a bannable offense.

Moderation decisions are at the discretion of Veritula.

Users may appeal moderation decisions by contacting the moderators within a reasonable time after a decision. Appeals should explain why the decision was wrong. Appeals are reviewed at the moderators’ discretion. The same decision may be appealed only once.

Talks with moderators should remain respectful and constructive. Changes to these rules should be proposed by criticizing this idea before issues arise. Changes are generally not retroactive unless specified otherwise.

Site-wide terms apply as well.

Forum Rules

Veritula welcomes a wide range of discussion topics. Generally speaking, people have free speech here. Unpopular topics will not automatically get people banned. The goal of moderation is to preserve productive, truth-seeking discussion.

Behavior that is intended, or likely, to sabotage debate or prevent progress is a bannable offense. Such behavior includes, but is not limited to, harassment, brigading, rage baiting, public shaming, and persistent bad-faith argumentation or refusal to engage substantively.

Veritula takes intellectual property seriously and reserves the right to take down content that infringes on others’ intellectual property.

Veritula also reserves the right to take down obscene content such as pornography.

AI-generated content may be submitted, but only if disclosed prominently enough so a reasonable person can tell right away. Veritula is a place for genuine discussion and truth-seeking, so we’d prefer to avoid talking to meat proxies without realizing it. AI content is notoriously verbose – don’t flood discussions with it. In addition, it’s your responsibility to ensure that AI detectors give negative results for your content. Repeat submission of AI-generated content that is not disclosed and/or overly verbose is a bannable offense.

Serious instances of off-platform behavior that clearly would have violated these rules on-platform may result in removal.

Depending on the severity of an infraction, moderators may issue a warning, temporarily lock an account, or permanently ban the account.

Looking for loopholes in these rules, or abusing the letter to violate the spirit of these rules, is a bannable offense.

Moderation decisions are at the discretion of Veritula.

Users may appeal moderation decisions by contacting the moderators within a reasonable time after a decision. Appeals should explain why the decision was wrong. Appeals are reviewed at the moderators’ discretion. The same decision may be appealed only once.

Talks with moderators should remain respectful and constructive. Changes to these rules should be proposed by criticizing this idea before issues arise. Changes are generally not retroactive unless specified otherwise.

Site-wide terms apply as well.

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #5116.

should_adopt? and pending_criticisms are implemented in terms of each other. Doesn’t that cause an infinite regress?

#5116​·​Dennis HackethalOP, about 2 months ago

No because the discussion graph is acyclic.

  Dennis Hackethal revised criticism #5117. The revision addresses idea #5642.

No because 1) there’s always a finite amount of deeply nested criticisms, and 2) the discussion graph is acyclic.

No because there’s always a finite amount of deeply nested criticisms.

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #5117.

No because 1) there’s always a finite amount of deeply nested criticisms, and 2) the discussion graph is acyclic.

#5117​·​Dennis HackethalOP, about 2 months ago

Bulk

  Dennis Hackethal revised idea #5511. The revision addresses idea #5639.

Forum Rules

Veritula welcomes a wide range of discussion topics. Generally speaking, people have free speech here. Unpopular topics will not automatically get people banned. The goal of moderation is to preserve productive, truth-seeking discussion.

Behavior that is intended, or likely, to sabotage debate or prevent progress is a bannable offense. Such behavior includes, but is not limited to, harassment, brigading, rage baiting, public shaming, and persistent bad-faith argumentation or refusal to engage substantively.

Veritula takes intellectual property seriously and reserves the right to take down content that infringes on others’ intellectual property.

Veritula also reserves the right to take down obscene content such as pornography.

Serious instances of off-platform behavior that clearly would have violated these rules on-platform may result in removal.

Depending on the severity of an infraction, moderators may issue a warning, temporarily lock an account, or permanently ban the account.

Looking for loopholes in these rules, or abusing the letter to violate the spirit of these rules, is a bannable offense.

Moderation decisions are at the discretion of Veritula.

Users may appeal moderation decisions by contacting the moderators within a reasonable time after a decision. Appeals should explain why the decision was wrong. Appeals are reviewed at the moderators’ discretion. The same decision may be appealed only once.

Talks with moderators should remain respectful and constructive. Changes to these rules should be proposed by criticizing this idea before issues arise. Changes are generally not retroactive unless specified otherwise.

Site-wide terms apply as well.

Forum Rules

Veritula welcomes a wide range of discussion topics. Generally speaking, people have free speech here. Unpopular topics will not automatically get people banned. The goal of moderation is to preserve productive, truth-seeking discussion.

Behavior that is intended, or likely, to sabotage debate or prevent progress is a bannable offense. Such behavior includes, but is not limited to, harassment, brigading, rage baiting, public shaming, and persistent bad-faith argumentation or refusal to engage substantively.

Veritula takes intellectual property seriously and reserves the right to take down content that infringes on others’ intellectual property.

Veritula also reserves the right to take down obscene content such as pornography.

AI-generated content may be submitted, but only if disclosed prominently enough so a reasonable person can tell right away. Veritula is a place for genuine discussion and truth-seeking, so we’d prefer to avoid talking to meat proxies without realizing it. AI content is notoriously verbose – don’t flood discussions with it. In addition, it’s your responsibility to ensure that AI detectors give negative results for your content. Repeat submission of AI-generated content that is not disclosed and/or overly verbose is a bannable offense.

Serious instances of off-platform behavior that clearly would have violated these rules on-platform may result in removal.

Depending on the severity of an infraction, moderators may issue a warning, temporarily lock an account, or permanently ban the account.

Looking for loopholes in these rules, or abusing the letter to violate the spirit of these rules, is a bannable offense.

Moderation decisions are at the discretion of Veritula.

Users may appeal moderation decisions by contacting the moderators within a reasonable time after a decision. Appeals should explain why the decision was wrong. Appeals are reviewed at the moderators’ discretion. The same decision may be appealed only once.

Talks with moderators should remain respectful and constructive. Changes to these rules should be proposed by criticizing this idea before issues arise. Changes are generally not retroactive unless specified otherwise.

Site-wide terms apply as well.

  Dennis Hackethal criticized idea #5511.

Forum Rules

Veritula welcomes a wide range of discussion topics. Generally speaking, people have free speech here. Unpopular topics will not automatically get people banned. The goal of moderation is to preserve productive, truth-seeking discussion.

Behavior that is intended, or likely, to sabotage debate or prevent progress is a bannable offense. Such behavior includes, but is not limited to, harassment, brigading, rage baiting, public shaming, and persistent bad-faith argumentation or refusal to engage substantively.

Veritula takes intellectual property seriously and reserves the right to take down content that infringes on others’ intellectual property.

Veritula also reserves the right to take down obscene content such as pornography.

Serious instances of off-platform behavior that clearly would have violated these rules on-platform may result in removal.

Depending on the severity of an infraction, moderators may issue a warning, temporarily lock an account, or permanently ban the account.

Looking for loopholes in these rules, or abusing the letter to violate the spirit of these rules, is a bannable offense.

Moderation decisions are at the discretion of Veritula.

Users may appeal moderation decisions by contacting the moderators within a reasonable time after a decision. Appeals should explain why the decision was wrong. Appeals are reviewed at the moderators’ discretion. The same decision may be appealed only once.

Talks with moderators should remain respectful and constructive. Changes to these rules should be proposed by criticizing this idea before issues arise. Changes are generally not retroactive unless specified otherwise.

Site-wide terms apply as well.

#5511​·​Dennis HackethalOP revised 25 days ago

The rules should say whether AI-generated content is okay to submit or not.

  Dennis Hackethal revised idea #4325.

Reflect new badge requirement

How Do Bounties Work?

Bounties let you invite criticism and reward high-quality contributions with real money.

Bounties are in beta. Expect things to break.

How do I participate?

First, log in or sign up.

Next, browse the list of bounties. Click a bounty’s dollar amount to view its page, review the bountied idea and the terms, and submit a criticism of that idea.

That’s it – you’re in.

How do I get paid?

The bounty owner reviews submissions for eligibility against his bounty terms.

To be eligible for a payout, all of the following must be true:

  1. Your submission is a direct criticism of the bountied idea.
  2. Your submission has no pending counter-criticisms by the deadline. (For temporary bounties, that’s when the review period ends; for standing bounties, it’s seven days after submission.)
  3. Your submission meets the bounty terms and the site-wide terms.
  4. You’ve connected a Stripe account in good standing before the deadline.
  5. You’ve not contributed funds to the bounty.

The bounty owner is never eligible to receive payouts from their own bounty.

Note that counter-criticisms are not constrained by the bounty-specific terms. Only direct criticisms of the bountied idea are.

How much will I get paid?

For temporary bounties, the amount is prorated among eligible participants based on contribution. For example, if there are ten eligible criticisms and you contributed two of them, you receive 20% of the amount when the bounty ends.

For standing bounties, amounts are assigned on a per-submission basis. For example, funders may indicate that they will pay a total of USD 100 for the first eligible submission, a total of USD 50 for the second eligible submission, and so on. Each eligible submission has its own payout date.

Fractions of cents are not paid out.

How do I run a bounty?

Click the megaphone button next to an idea (near the buttons to bookmark, archive, etc.).

Set a bounty amount and write clear terms describing the kinds of criticisms you’re willing to pay for. Then enter your credit-card details to authorize the amount plus a 5% bounty fee.

Your card is at most authorized, but not charged, when the bounty starts.

A temporary bounty typically runs for five to seven days, depending on your card’s authorization window. You may review submissions during the entire bounty period. Toward the end, a 24-hour grace period begins during which no new submissions can be made but you may continue your review. Reject any submissions that don’t meet your terms. Submissions you don’t reject are automatically accepted at the end of the review period and become eligible for payout. Your card is then charged the full authorization.

A standing bounty runs for as long as funds last. Each submission has its own seven-day review period. Again, reject any submissions that don’t meet your terms. Submissions you don’t reject are automatically accepted seven days after submission. Your card is then charged as indicated in your funding allocation.

If you reject all submissions, your card is never charged.

What’s the difference between a temporary and a standing bounty?

A temporary bounty has a fixed duration, typically between five and seven days. The bounty amount is prorated among eligible participants at the end. Standing bounties, on the other hand, don’t have a fixed duration; they run as long as funds last. Funds are paid out continuously and on a per-submission basis, as described above.

Temporary bounties are ideal when you have limited time and a smaller budget. Standing bounties are ideal for the long term with a larger budget. However, you can mix and match based on your own unique preferences and circumstances: for example, it’s possible to use a larger budget on a temporary bounty.

Can I fund an existing bounty?

Yes. Review the bounty terms. If you agree with them, click the ‘Add funding’ button on the bounty page and follow the next steps. At this point, your card is at most authorized but not charged.

Your card is charged for any submissions the bounty owner does not reject. If he rejects all submissions, your card is never charged.

Funders are never eligible to receive payouts from a bounty they funded.

Start a bounty today. Terms apply.

How Do Bounties Work?

Bounties let you invite criticism and reward high-quality contributions with real money.

Bounties are in beta. Expect things to break.

How do I participate?

Only users with a Beginner, Engager, and Defender badge can participate in bounties. Find a list of all badges and how to get them here.

To participate in a bounty, start by logging in or sign up.

Next, browse the list of bounties. Click a bounty’s dollar amount to view its page, review the bountied idea and the terms, and submit a criticism of that idea.

That’s it – you’re in.

How do I get paid?

The bounty owner reviews submissions for eligibility against his bounty terms.

To be eligible for a payout, all of the following must be true:

  1. Your submission is a direct criticism of the bountied idea.
  2. Your submission has no pending counter-criticisms by the deadline. (For temporary bounties, that’s when the review period ends; for standing bounties, it’s seven days after submission.)
  3. Your submission meets the bounty terms and the site-wide terms.
  4. You’ve connected a Stripe account in good standing before the deadline.
  5. You’ve not contributed funds to the bounty.

The bounty owner is never eligible to receive payouts from their own bounty.

Note that counter-criticisms are not constrained by the bounty-specific terms. Only direct criticisms of the bountied idea are.

How much will I get paid?

For temporary bounties, the amount is prorated among eligible participants based on contribution. For example, if there are ten eligible criticisms and you contributed two of them, you receive 20% of the amount when the bounty ends.

For standing bounties, amounts are assigned on a per-submission basis. For example, funders may indicate that they will pay a total of USD 100 for the first eligible submission, a total of USD 50 for the second eligible submission, and so on. Each eligible submission has its own payout date.

Fractions of cents are not paid out.

How do I run a bounty?

Click the megaphone button next to an idea (near the buttons to bookmark, archive, etc.).

Set a bounty amount and write clear terms describing the kinds of criticisms you’re willing to pay for. Then enter your credit-card details to authorize the amount plus a 5% bounty fee.

Your card is at most authorized, but not charged, when the bounty starts.

A temporary bounty typically runs for five to seven days, depending on your card’s authorization window. You may review submissions during the entire bounty period. Toward the end, a 24-hour grace period begins during which no new submissions can be made but you may continue your review. Reject any submissions that don’t meet your terms. Submissions you don’t reject are automatically accepted at the end of the review period and become eligible for payout. Your card is then charged the full authorization.

A standing bounty runs for as long as funds last. Each submission has its own seven-day review period. Again, reject any submissions that don’t meet your terms. Submissions you don’t reject are automatically accepted seven days after submission. Your card is then charged as indicated in your funding allocation.

If you reject all submissions, your card is never charged.

What’s the difference between a temporary and a standing bounty?

A temporary bounty has a fixed duration, typically between five and seven days. The bounty amount is prorated among eligible participants at the end. Standing bounties, on the other hand, don’t have a fixed duration; they run as long as funds last. Funds are paid out continuously and on a per-submission basis, as described above.

Temporary bounties are ideal when you have limited time and a smaller budget. Standing bounties are ideal for the long term with a larger budget. However, you can mix and match based on your own unique preferences and circumstances: for example, it’s possible to use a larger budget on a temporary bounty.

Can I fund an existing bounty?

Yes. Review the bounty terms. If you agree with them, click the ‘Add funding’ button on the bounty page and follow the next steps. At this point, your card is at most authorized but not charged.

Your card is charged for any submissions the bounty owner does not reject. If he rejects all submissions, your card is never charged.

Funders are never eligible to receive payouts from a bounty they funded.

Start a bounty today. Terms apply.

  Dennis Hackethal revised idea #5519.

Make purpose of revisions vs counter-criticism clearer

How Does Veritula Work?

Veritula (Latin for ‘a bit of truth’) can help you live a life guided exclusively by reason.

To reason, within any well-defined epistemology, means to follow and apply that epistemology. Unreason, or whim, is an undue departure from it. Epistemology is the study of knowledge – basically, the study of what helps knowledge grow, what hinders its growth, and related questions.

Veritula follows, and helps you apply, Karl Popper’s epistemology, Critical Rationalism. It’s a continuation of the Athenian tradition of criticism and the only known epistemology without major flaws.1

Critical Rationalism says that ideas are assumed true until refuted. This approach leaves us free to make bold guesses and use the full arsenal at our disposal to criticize these guesses in order to solve problems, correct errors, and seek truth. It’s a creative and critical approach. Critical Rationalism is a fallibilist philosophy: there is no criterion of truth to determine with certainty whether some idea is true or false. We all make mistakes, and by an effort, we can correct them to get a little closer to the truth. Rejecting all forms of mysticism and the supernatural, Veritula recognizes that progress is both possible and desirable, and that rational means are the only way to make ongoing progress.

Veritula is a programmatic implementation of Popper’s epistemology.

Veritula provides an objective, partly automated way to tentatively determine whether a given idea is problematic. It does not tell you what to think – it teaches you how to think.

On Veritula, ideas are discrete and immutable. Consider an idea I:

plaintext
              I

Since it has no criticisms, we tentatively consider I unproblematic. It is rational to adopt it and act in accordance with it. Conversely, it would be irrational to reject it, consider it problematic, or act counter to it. (See #2281 for more details on rational decision-making.)

Next, someone submits a criticism C1:

plaintext
              I

              |

              C1

The idea I is now considered problematic so long as criticism C1 is not addressed. How do you address it? You can revise I so that C1 doesn’t apply anymore, which restores the previous state with just the standalone I (now called I2 to indicate the revision):

plaintext
                   Revise

              I ------------> I2

              |

              C1

To track changes, Veritula offers beautiful diffing and version control for ideas.

If you cannot think of a way to revise I, you can counter-criticize C1, thereby neutralizing it with a new criticism, C2:

plaintext
              I

              |

              C1

              |

              C2

Now, I is considered unproblematic again, since C1 is problematic and thus can’t be a decisive criticism anymore.

If you can think of neither a revision of I nor counter-criticism to C1, your only option is to accept that I has been (tentatively) defeated. You should therefore abandon it, which means: stop acting in accordance with it, considering it to be unproblematic, etc.

Since there can be many criticisms (which are also just ideas) and deeply nested counter-criticisms, the result is a tree structure. For example, as a discussion progresses, one of its trees might look like this:

plaintext
              I

           /  |  \

         C11 C12 C13

         / \       \

       C21 C22     C23

                   / \

                 C31 C32

In this tree, I is considered problematic. Although C11 has been neutralized by C21 and C22, C12 still needs to be addressed. In addition, C23 would have neutralized C13, but C31 and C32 make C23 problematic, so C13 makes I problematic as well.

You don’t need to keep track of these relationships manually. Veritula automatically marks ideas accordingly.

Since decision-making follows the same logic as truth-seeking, you can use these trees to make decisions, too. Veritula implements unanimous consent as defined by Taking Children Seriously, a parenting philosophy that builds on Popper’s epistemology. When you’re planning your next move but can’t decide on a city, say, Veritula helps you criticize your ideas and make a rational decision – meaning a decision you’ll be happy with. Again, it’s rational to act in accordance with ideas that have no pending criticisms.

All ideas, including criticisms, should be formulated as concisely as possible, and separate ideas should be submitted separately, even if they’re related. Otherwise, you run the risk of receiving ‘bulk’ criticisms, where a single criticism seems to apply to more content than it actually does.

Again, criticisms are also just ideas, so the same is true for criticisms. Submitting each criticism separately has the benefit of requiring the proponent of an idea to address each criticism individually, not in bulk. If he fails to address even a single criticism, the idea remains problematic and should be rejected.

The more you discuss a given topic, the deeper and wider the tree grows. Some criticisms can apply to multiple ideas in the tree, but that needs to be made explicit by submitting them repeatedly.

Comments that aren’t criticisms – eg follow-up questions or otherwise neutral comments – are considered ancillary ideas. Unlike criticisms, ancillary ideas do not invert their respective parents’ statuses. They are neutral.

One of the main benefits of Veritula is that the status of any idea in a discussion can be seen at a glance. If you are new to a much-discussed topic, adopt the displayed status of the ideas involved: if they are marked problematic, reject them; if they are not, adopt them.

Therefore, Veritula acts as a dictionary for ideas.

One of the problems of our age is that people have same discussions over and over again. Part of the reason is widespread irrationality, expressed in the unwillingness to change one’s mind; another is that it’s simply difficult to remember or know what’s true and what isn’t. Discussion trees can get complex, so people shouldn’t blindly trust their judgment of whether some idea is true or problematic, whether nested criticisms have been neutralized or not. Going off of memory is too error prone.

Veritula solves this problem: it makes discussion trees explicit so you don’t have to remember each idea and its relation to other ideas. Veritula therefore also enables you to hold irrational people accountable: if an idea has pending criticisms, the rational approach is to either abandon it or to save it by revising it or addressing all pending criticisms.

Many people don’t like to concede an argument. But with Veritula, no concessions are necessary. The site just shows you who’s right.

Using Veritula, we may discover a bit of truth.

Still have questions about rationality? Read the technical paper, learn about Veritula’s recursive epistemology and how to structure discussions, or read the quick guide to rational decision-making.

Want personalized help tailored to your own specific needs? Hire Dennis, founder of Veritula, for personal tutoring, or run a bounty.

  1. Popperian epistemology has some flaws, like verisimilitude, but Veritula doesn’t implement those.

How Does Veritula Work?

Veritula (Latin for ‘a bit of truth’) can help you live a life guided exclusively by reason.

To reason, within any well-defined epistemology, means to follow and apply that epistemology. Unreason, or whim, is an undue departure from it. Epistemology is the study of knowledge – basically, the study of what helps knowledge grow, what hinders its growth, and related questions.

Veritula follows, and helps you apply, Karl Popper’s epistemology, Critical Rationalism. It’s a continuation of the Athenian tradition of criticism and the only known epistemology without major flaws.1

Critical Rationalism says that ideas are assumed true until refuted. This approach leaves us free to make bold guesses and use the full arsenal at our disposal to criticize these guesses in order to solve problems, correct errors, and seek truth. It’s a creative and critical approach. Critical Rationalism is a fallibilist philosophy: there is no general criterion of truth to determine with certainty whether any given idea is true or false (Tarski). We all make mistakes, and by an effort, we can correct them to get a little closer to the truth. Rejecting all forms of mysticism and the supernatural, Veritula recognizes that progress is both possible and desirable, and that rational means are the only way to make ongoing progress.

Veritula is a programmatic implementation of Popper’s epistemology.

Veritula provides an objective, partly automated way to tentatively determine whether a given idea is problematic. It does not tell you what to think – it teaches you how to think.

On Veritula, ideas are discrete and immutable. Consider an idea I:

plaintext
              I

Since it has no criticisms, we tentatively consider I unproblematic. It is rational to adopt it and act in accordance with it. Conversely, it would be irrational to reject it, consider it problematic, or act counter to it. (See this quick guide for more details on rational decision-making.)

Next, someone submits a criticism C1:

plaintext
              I

              |

              C1

The idea I is now considered problematic so long as criticism C1 is not addressed. How do you address it? If you agree with the criticism, you can revise I so that C1 doesn’t apply anymore, which restores the previous state with just the standalone I (now called I2 to indicate the revision):

plaintext
                   Revise

              I ------------> I2

              |

              C1

To track changes, Veritula offers beautiful diffing and version control for ideas.

If you disagree with C, you can counter-criticize it instead, thereby neutralizing it with a new criticism, C2:

plaintext
              I

              |

              C1

              |

              C2

Now, I is considered unproblematic again, since C1 is problematic and thus can’t be a decisive criticism anymore.

If you can think of neither a revision of I nor counter-criticism to C1, your only option is to accept that I has been (tentatively) defeated. You should therefore abandon it, which means: stop acting in accordance with it, viewing it as unproblematic, etc.

Since there can be many criticisms (which are also just ideas) and deeply nested counter-criticisms, the result is a tree structure. For example, as a discussion progresses, one of its trees might look like this:

plaintext
              I

           /  |  \

         C11 C12 C13

         / \       \

       C21 C22     C23

                   / \

                 C31 C32

In this tree, I is considered problematic. Although C11 has been neutralized by C21 and C22, C12 still needs to be addressed. In addition, C23 would have neutralized C13, but C31 and C32 make C23 problematic, so C13 makes I problematic as well.

You don’t need to keep track of these relationships manually. Veritula automatically marks ideas accordingly.

Since decision-making follows the same logic as truth-seeking, you can use these trees to make decisions, too. Veritula implements unanimous consent as defined by Taking Children Seriously, a parenting philosophy that builds on Popper’s epistemology. When you’re planning your next move but can’t decide on a city, say, Veritula helps you criticize your ideas and make a rational decision – meaning a decision you’ll be happy with. Again, it’s rational to act in accordance with ideas that have no pending criticisms.

All ideas, including criticisms, should be formulated as concisely as possible, and separate ideas should be submitted separately, even if they’re related. Otherwise, you run the risk of receiving ‘bulk’ criticisms, where a single criticism seems to apply to more content than it actually does.

Again, criticisms are also just ideas, so the same is true for criticisms. Submitting each criticism separately has the benefit of requiring the proponent of an idea to address each criticism individually, not in bulk. If he fails to address even a single criticism, the idea remains problematic and should be rejected.

The more you discuss a given topic, the deeper and wider the tree grows. Some criticisms can apply to multiple ideas in the tree, but that needs to be made explicit by submitting them repeatedly.

Comments that aren’t criticisms – eg follow-up questions or otherwise neutral comments – are considered ancillary ideas. Unlike criticisms, ancillary ideas do not invert their respective parents’ statuses. They are neutral.

One of the main benefits of Veritula is that the status of any idea in a discussion can be seen at a glance. If you are new to a much-discussed topic, adopt the displayed status of the ideas involved: if they are marked problematic, reject them; if they are not, adopt them.

Therefore, Veritula acts as a dictionary for ideas.

One of the problems of our age is that people have same discussions over and over again. Part of the reason is widespread irrationality, expressed in the unwillingness to change one’s mind; another is that it’s simply difficult to remember or know what’s true and what isn’t. Discussion trees can get complex, so people shouldn’t blindly trust their judgment of whether some idea is true or problematic, whether nested criticisms have been neutralized or not. Going off of memory is too error prone.

Veritula solves this problem: it makes discussion trees explicit so you don’t have to remember each idea and its relation to other ideas. Veritula therefore also enables you to hold irrational people accountable: if an idea has pending criticisms, the rational approach is to either abandon it or to save it by revising it or addressing all pending criticisms.

Many people don’t like to concede an argument. But with Veritula, no concessions are necessary. The site just shows you who’s right.

Using Veritula, we may discover a bit of truth.

Still have questions about rationality? Read the technical paper, learn about Veritula’s recursive epistemology and how to structure discussions, or read the quick guide to rational decision-making.

Want personalized help tailored to your own specific needs? Hire Dennis, founder of Veritula, for personal tutoring, or run a bounty.

  1. Popperian epistemology has some flaws, like verisimilitude, but Veritula doesn’t implement those.

  Dennis Hackethal commented on criticism #5486.

The proposal should require the statement and claimed match to be recorded and open to criticism before they can support a warning.

#5486​·​Benjamin Davies, 25 days ago

Fair, revision #5521 now incorporates this suggestion.

  Dennis Hackethal revised idea #5512. The revision addresses idea #5464.

Proposal for new rule

TL;DR: repeat irrationality (as defined below) should be a bannable offense.

Since Popper seemed so agreeable, I mentioned that one of his former students had accused him of not tolerating criticism of his own ideas. Popper's eyes blazed. “It is completely untrue! I was happy when I got criticism! Of course, not when I would answer the criticism… and the person would still go on with it. That is the thing which I found uninteresting and would not tolerate.” In that case, Popper would throw the student out of his class.

… so long as the proponents of our best theories … have to expend their intellectual energies in futile refutation and re-refutation of theories long known to be false, the state of our deepest knowledge cannot improve.

David Deutsch, The Fabric of Reality, chapter 13

Our forum rules (#4460) include a rule against “Behavior that is intended, or likely, to sabotage debate or prevent progress…” In light of recent, mostly off-platform discussions, I’m thinking about extending it. Or maybe it already applies to the behavior I’m about to describe.

Veritula is built to help people seek truth by criticizing ideas and addressing criticism. More generally, it’s meant to help people live a life guided by reason (#2844) and make progress. That includes the rejection of ideas with pending criticisms.

One of the core insights of Veritula is that people should not rely on memory to decide whether to adopt an idea (#4471). They shouldn’t rely on memory to recall the outcome of a discussion. They shouldn’t track the outcome of a discussion manually (unless they’ve practiced that skill extensively). They should instead feed ideas into Veritula, put them in the proper relationship with each other, and then simply look up which ideas they should adopt or reject. Or, if the discussion has already happened, then they should simply look up its current state instead of duplicating it. (The list of discussions and search function should help with that.) Any idea with a red label showing a count of pending criticisms should be abandoned; any idea without that label should be adopted.

This way, people can avoid having the same discussions over and over again. But some people aren’t willing to do the required work even once and change their mind. They’d rather repeat the same discussions, and repeatedly advocate the same mistaken ideas, like those Easter Islanders who kept building hideous statues with no purpose.

I think members on Veritula should be expected to follow through and update their stances when they’re shown to be wrong. After all, Veritula offers them a way to tell objectively that they’re wrong. We have a criterion of rationality, so why not use it? And if they can’t remember what their updated stance should be, they should get in the habit of simply looking it up. If their old stance has pending criticisms, they should stop advocating it.

But people conveniently ‘forget’ discussion outcomes they view as unfavorable, let a few months pass (at which point they think nobody could reasonably blame them for forgetting), and then go right back to advocating a stance that’s already known to be false.

Mistakes happen; again, memory isn’t perfect. Or sometimes we have a nagging feeling that something about the outcome of a discussion just isn’t quite right, but we can’t put our finger on it. In such a situation, when asked about one’s stance, it’s rational to say something like: ‘Although I personally disagree, at the current state of the discussion, idea X (link to the idea on V) is (or is not) rationally adoptable.’

A good example of how to do this right in a similar situation is @dirk-meulenbelt’s recent post on X:

I wrote a proof/argument on my blog that the challenge is impossible for "two strings" alone, though Dennis has [since] clarified that it's OK to have more than just two strings, and a person may be prompted within reason.

The specific content isn’t important here. What matters is that Dirk shared an objection and then immediately explained why it wasn’t valid anymore. That’s honest. It’s unlike so many dishonest interlocutors who would only mention the objection but not that it’s been addressed already.

As I’ve written before:

The catalog of ideas can be vast – much too big for any one man to hold in his mind. Memory is error-prone. We should not rely on memory to see which ideas we should adopt or reject. We should look them up, dispassionately, in the database [on Veritula], the way a judge would look up a law in a legal text. Rationality is an impersonal thing. Advocacy and rejection of ideas is impersonal as well.

A judge preparing a verdict may personally disagree with a law. For example, he may think it’s too strict or not strict enough. In his ruling, he may even personally distance himself from a specific law. But that doesn’t mean he can just ignore it and act on whim instead.

Yet that is essentially how people treat the advocacy and rejection of ideas more generally. They do it based on whim. If such people participate on Veritula long-term, they will duplicate ideas or even entire discussions. But maintaining discussion trees is no simple task; it takes care and effort. If there are no consequences for such people, one would have to refute and re-refute ideas long known to be false. And that’s time we could spend advocating and improving ideas not known to be false. In short, such people sabotage progress.

Therefore, I suggest that members who are repeatedly found to advocate ideas with pending criticisms, or reject ideas without pending criticisms, or to have duplicate discussions due to undue reversals to previous, mistaken stances – in short, members who act irrationally in this way, on or off-platform, when they should know better – be given warnings. If it happens once, it’s no big deal. If it happens twice, it may warrant a warning. Members may be asked to explain how they plan to avoid this outcome in the future (eg see #5176). They could run a bounty that will charge their card a small but non-negligible amount if they don’t address a criticism. If it happens a third time, especially if it’s about the same topic as before, their account may be temporarily locked or banned permanently. More leeway can be given if a lot of time passes between offenses or due to other extenuating circumstances, case by case.

Non-members who wish to join Veritula, but who’ve been found to act irrationally in this way off-platform, will need to make a convincing case that they want to improve. Evidence that they’ve changed their mind on some issue, eg some written public record of that change, including some evidence that they remember that change over time, would be a good start.

This rule wouldn’t be retroactive for bans, but once effective, past ‘offenders’ may be warned if their behavior is expected to continue. Past warnings will count toward the decision for future bans.

I want people who take ideas, reason, and progress seriously. Others can go goof off on other platforms, there’s plenty of those around. People who take reason seriously need a way to protect their time against people who don’t.

Proposal for new rule

TL;DR: repeat irrationality (as defined below) should be a bannable offense.

Since Popper seemed so agreeable, I mentioned that one of his former students had accused him of not tolerating criticism of his own ideas. Popper's eyes blazed. “It is completely untrue! I was happy when I got criticism! Of course, not when I would answer the criticism… and the person would still go on with it. That is the thing which I found uninteresting and would not tolerate.” In that case, Popper would throw the student out of his class.

… so long as the proponents of our best theories … have to expend their intellectual energies in futile refutation and re-refutation of theories long known to be false, the state of our deepest knowledge cannot improve.

David Deutsch, The Fabric of Reality, chapter 13

Our forum rules (#4460) include a rule against “Behavior that is intended, or likely, to sabotage debate or prevent progress…” In light of recent, mostly off-platform discussions, I’m thinking about extending it. Or maybe it already applies to the behavior I’m about to describe.

Veritula is built to help people seek truth by criticizing ideas and addressing criticism. More generally, it’s meant to help people live a life guided by reason (#2844) and make progress. That includes the rejection of ideas with pending criticisms.

One of the core insights of Veritula is that people should not rely on memory to decide whether to adopt an idea (#4471). They shouldn’t rely on memory to recall the outcome of a discussion. They shouldn’t track the outcome of a discussion manually (unless they’ve practiced that skill extensively). They should instead feed ideas into Veritula, put them in the proper relationship with each other, and then simply look up which ideas they should adopt or reject. Or, if the discussion has already happened, then they should simply look up its current state instead of duplicating it. (The list of discussions and search function should help with that.) Any idea with a red label showing a count of pending criticisms should be abandoned; any idea without that label should be adopted.

This way, people can avoid having the same discussions over and over again. But some people aren’t willing to do the required work even once and change their mind. They’d rather repeat the same discussions, and repeatedly advocate the same mistaken ideas, like those Easter Islanders who kept building hideous statues with no purpose.

I think members on Veritula should be expected to follow through and update their stances when they’re shown to be wrong. After all, Veritula offers them a way to tell objectively that they’re wrong. We have a criterion of rationality, so why not use it? And if they can’t remember what their updated stance should be, they should get in the habit of simply looking it up. If their old stance has pending criticisms, they should stop advocating it.

But people conveniently ‘forget’ discussion outcomes they view as unfavorable, let a few months pass (at which point they think nobody could reasonably blame them for forgetting), and then go right back to advocating a stance that’s already known to be false.

Mistakes happen; again, memory isn’t perfect. Or sometimes we have a nagging feeling that something about the outcome of a discussion just isn’t quite right, but we can’t put our finger on it. In such a situation, when asked about one’s stance, it’s rational to say something like: ‘Although I personally disagree, at the current state of the discussion, idea X (link to the idea on V) is (or is not) rationally adoptable.’

A good example of how to do this right in a similar situation is @dirk-meulenbelt’s recent post on X:

I wrote a proof/argument on my blog that the challenge is impossible for "two strings" alone, though Dennis has [since] clarified that it's OK to have more than just two strings, and a person may be prompted within reason.

The specific content isn’t important here. What matters is that Dirk shared an objection and then immediately explained why it wasn’t valid anymore. That’s honest. It’s unlike so many dishonest interlocutors who would only mention the objection but not that it’s been addressed already.

As I’ve written before:

The catalog of ideas can be vast – much too big for any one man to hold in his mind. Memory is error-prone. We should not rely on memory to see which ideas we should adopt or reject. We should look them up, dispassionately, in the database [on Veritula], the way a judge would look up a law in a legal text. Rationality is an impersonal thing. Advocacy and rejection of ideas is impersonal as well.

A judge preparing a verdict may personally disagree with a law. For example, he may think it’s too strict or not strict enough. In his ruling, he may even personally distance himself from a specific law. But that doesn’t mean he can just ignore it and act on whim instead.

Yet that is essentially how people treat the advocacy and rejection of ideas more generally. They do it based on whim. If such people participate on Veritula long-term, they will duplicate ideas or even entire discussions. But maintaining discussion trees is no simple task; it takes care and effort. If there are no consequences for such people, one would have to refute and re-refute ideas long known to be false. And that’s time we could spend advocating and improving ideas not known to be false. In short, such people sabotage progress.

Therefore, I suggest that members who are repeatedly found to advocate ideas with pending criticisms, or to reject ideas without pending criticisms, or to have duplicate discussions due to undue reversals to previous, mistaken stances – in short, members who act irrationally in this way, on or off-platform, when they should know better – be given warnings.

If it happens once, it’s no big deal. If it happens twice, it may warrant a warning. Mods should reference both the offending statement and presumed match so the presumed offender can explain any discrepancy. If positive, they may also be asked to explain how they plan to avoid this outcome in the future (eg see #5176). They could run a bounty that will charge their card a small but non-negligible amount if they don’t address a criticism. If it happens a third time, especially if it’s about the same topic as before, their account may be temporarily locked or banned permanently. More leeway can be given if a lot of time passes between offenses or due to other extenuating circumstances, case by case.

Non-members who wish to join Veritula, but who’ve been found to act irrationally in this way off-platform, will need to make a convincing case that they want to improve. Evidence that they’ve changed their mind on some issue, eg some written public record of that change, including some evidence that they remember that change over time, would be a good start.

This rule wouldn’t be retroactive for bans, but once effective, past ‘offenders’ may be warned if their behavior is expected to continue. Past warnings will count toward the decision for future bans.

I want people who take ideas, reason, and progress seriously. Others can go goof off on other platforms, there’s plenty of those around. People who take reason seriously need a way to protect their time against people who don’t.

  Dennis Hackethal revised idea #4471.

How Does Veritula Work?

Veritula (Latin for ‘a bit of truth’) can help you live a life guided exclusively by reason.

To reason, within any well-defined epistemology, means to follow and apply that epistemology. Unreason, or whim, is an undue departure from it. Epistemology is the study of knowledge – basically, the study of what helps knowledge grow, what hinders its growth, and related questions.

Veritula follows, and helps you apply, Karl Popper’s epistemology, Critical Rationalism. It’s a continuation of the Athenian tradition of criticism and the only known epistemology without major flaws.1

Critical Rationalism says that ideas are assumed true until refuted. This approach leaves us free to make bold guesses and use the full arsenal at our disposal to criticize these guesses in order to solve problems, correct errors, and seek truth. It’s a creative and critical approach. Critical Rationalism is a fallibilist philosophy: there is no criterion of truth to determine with certainty whether some idea is true or false. We all make mistakes, and by an effort, we can correct them to get a little closer to the truth. Rejecting all forms of mysticism and the supernatural, Veritula recognizes that progress is both possible and desirable, and that rational means are the only way to make ongoing progress.

Veritula is a programmatic implementation of Popper’s epistemology.

Veritula provides an objective, partly automated way to tentatively determine whether a given idea is problematic. It does not tell you what to think – it teaches you how to think.

On Veritula, ideas are discrete and immutable. Consider an idea I:

plaintext
              I

Since it has no criticisms, we tentatively consider I unproblematic. It is rational to adopt it and act in accordance with it. Conversely, it would be irrational to reject it, consider it problematic, or act counter to it. (See #2281 for more details on rational decision-making.)

Next, someone submits a criticism C1:

plaintext
              I

              |

              C1

The idea I is now considered problematic so long as criticism C1 is not addressed. How do you address it? You can revise I so that C1 doesn’t apply anymore, which restores the previous state with just the standalone I (now called I2 to indicate the revision):

plaintext
                   Revise

              I ------------> I2

              |

              C1

To track changes, Veritula offers beautiful diffing and version control for ideas.

If you cannot think of a way to revise I, you can counter-criticize C1, thereby neutralizing it with a new criticism, C2:

plaintext
              I

              |

              C1

              |

              C2

Now, I is considered unproblematic again, since C1 is problematic and thus can’t be a decisive criticism anymore.

If you can think of neither a revision of I nor counter-criticism to C1, your only option is to accept that I has been (tentatively) defeated. You should therefore abandon it, which means: stop acting in accordance with it, considering it to be unproblematic, etc.

Since there can be many criticisms (which are also just ideas) and deeply nested counter-criticisms, the result is a tree structure. For example, as a discussion progresses, one of its trees might look like this:

plaintext
              I

           /  |  \

         C11 C12 C13

         / \       \

       C21 C22     C23

                   / \

                 C31 C32

In this tree, I is considered problematic. Although C11 has been neutralized by C21 and C22, C12 still needs to be addressed. In addition, C23 would have neutralized C13, but C31 and C32 make C23 problematic, so C13 makes I problematic as well.

You don’t need to keep track of these relationships manually. Veritula automatically marks ideas accordingly.

Since decision-making follows the same logic as truth-seeking, you can use these trees to make decisions, too. Veritula implements unanimous consent as defined by Taking Children Seriously, a parenting philosophy that builds on Popper’s epistemology. When you’re planning your next move but can’t decide on a city, say, Veritula helps you criticize your ideas and make a rational decision – meaning a decision you’ll be happy with. Again, it’s rational to act in accordance with ideas that have no pending criticisms.

All ideas, including criticisms, should be formulated as concisely as possible, and separate ideas should be submitted separately, even if they’re related. Otherwise, you run the risk of receiving ‘bulk’ criticisms, where a single criticism seems to apply to more content than it actually does.

Again, criticisms are also just ideas, so the same is true for criticisms. Submitting each criticism separately has the benefit of requiring the proponent of an idea to address each criticism individually, not in bulk. If he fails to address even a single criticism, the idea remains problematic and should be rejected.

The more you discuss a given topic, the deeper and wider the tree grows. Some criticisms can apply to multiple ideas in the tree, but that needs to be made explicit by submitting them repeatedly.

Comments that aren’t criticisms – eg follow-up questions or otherwise neutral comments – are considered ancillary ideas. Unlike criticisms, ancillary ideas do not invert their respective parents’ statuses. They are neutral.

One of the main benefits of Veritula is that the status of any idea in a discussion can be seen at a glance. If you are new to a much-discussed topic, adopt the displayed status of the ideas involved: if they are marked problematic, reject them; if they are not, adopt them.

Therefore, Veritula acts as a dictionary for ideas.

One of the problems of our age is that people have same discussions over and over again. Part of the reason is widespread irrationality, expressed in the unwillingness to change one’s mind; another is that it’s simply difficult to remember or know what’s true and what isn’t. Discussion trees can get complex, so people shouldn’t blindly trust their judgment of whether some idea is true or problematic, whether nested criticisms have been neutralized or not. Going off of memory is too error prone.

Veritula solves this problem: it makes discussion trees explicit so you don’t have to remember each idea and its relation to other ideas. Veritula therefore also enables you to hold irrational people accountable: if an idea has pending criticisms, the rational approach is to either abandon it or to save it by revising it or addressing all pending criticisms.

Many people don’t like to concede an argument. But with Veritula, no concessions are necessary. The site just shows you who’s right.

Using Veritula, we may discover a bit of truth.

  1. Popperian epistemology has some flaws, like verisimilitude, but Veritula doesn’t implement those.

How Does Veritula Work?

Veritula (Latin for ‘a bit of truth’) can help you live a life guided exclusively by reason.

To reason, within any well-defined epistemology, means to follow and apply that epistemology. Unreason, or whim, is an undue departure from it. Epistemology is the study of knowledge – basically, the study of what helps knowledge grow, what hinders its growth, and related questions.

Veritula follows, and helps you apply, Karl Popper’s epistemology, Critical Rationalism. It’s a continuation of the Athenian tradition of criticism and the only known epistemology without major flaws.1

Critical Rationalism says that ideas are assumed true until refuted. This approach leaves us free to make bold guesses and use the full arsenal at our disposal to criticize these guesses in order to solve problems, correct errors, and seek truth. It’s a creative and critical approach. Critical Rationalism is a fallibilist philosophy: there is no criterion of truth to determine with certainty whether some idea is true or false. We all make mistakes, and by an effort, we can correct them to get a little closer to the truth. Rejecting all forms of mysticism and the supernatural, Veritula recognizes that progress is both possible and desirable, and that rational means are the only way to make ongoing progress.

Veritula is a programmatic implementation of Popper’s epistemology.

Veritula provides an objective, partly automated way to tentatively determine whether a given idea is problematic. It does not tell you what to think – it teaches you how to think.

On Veritula, ideas are discrete and immutable. Consider an idea I:

plaintext
              I

Since it has no criticisms, we tentatively consider I unproblematic. It is rational to adopt it and act in accordance with it. Conversely, it would be irrational to reject it, consider it problematic, or act counter to it. (See #2281 for more details on rational decision-making.)

Next, someone submits a criticism C1:

plaintext
              I

              |

              C1

The idea I is now considered problematic so long as criticism C1 is not addressed. How do you address it? You can revise I so that C1 doesn’t apply anymore, which restores the previous state with just the standalone I (now called I2 to indicate the revision):

plaintext
                   Revise

              I ------------> I2

              |

              C1

To track changes, Veritula offers beautiful diffing and version control for ideas.

If you cannot think of a way to revise I, you can counter-criticize C1, thereby neutralizing it with a new criticism, C2:

plaintext
              I

              |

              C1

              |

              C2

Now, I is considered unproblematic again, since C1 is problematic and thus can’t be a decisive criticism anymore.

If you can think of neither a revision of I nor counter-criticism to C1, your only option is to accept that I has been (tentatively) defeated. You should therefore abandon it, which means: stop acting in accordance with it, considering it to be unproblematic, etc.

Since there can be many criticisms (which are also just ideas) and deeply nested counter-criticisms, the result is a tree structure. For example, as a discussion progresses, one of its trees might look like this:

plaintext
              I

           /  |  \

         C11 C12 C13

         / \       \

       C21 C22     C23

                   / \

                 C31 C32

In this tree, I is considered problematic. Although C11 has been neutralized by C21 and C22, C12 still needs to be addressed. In addition, C23 would have neutralized C13, but C31 and C32 make C23 problematic, so C13 makes I problematic as well.

You don’t need to keep track of these relationships manually. Veritula automatically marks ideas accordingly.

Since decision-making follows the same logic as truth-seeking, you can use these trees to make decisions, too. Veritula implements unanimous consent as defined by Taking Children Seriously, a parenting philosophy that builds on Popper’s epistemology. When you’re planning your next move but can’t decide on a city, say, Veritula helps you criticize your ideas and make a rational decision – meaning a decision you’ll be happy with. Again, it’s rational to act in accordance with ideas that have no pending criticisms.

All ideas, including criticisms, should be formulated as concisely as possible, and separate ideas should be submitted separately, even if they’re related. Otherwise, you run the risk of receiving ‘bulk’ criticisms, where a single criticism seems to apply to more content than it actually does.

Again, criticisms are also just ideas, so the same is true for criticisms. Submitting each criticism separately has the benefit of requiring the proponent of an idea to address each criticism individually, not in bulk. If he fails to address even a single criticism, the idea remains problematic and should be rejected.

The more you discuss a given topic, the deeper and wider the tree grows. Some criticisms can apply to multiple ideas in the tree, but that needs to be made explicit by submitting them repeatedly.

Comments that aren’t criticisms – eg follow-up questions or otherwise neutral comments – are considered ancillary ideas. Unlike criticisms, ancillary ideas do not invert their respective parents’ statuses. They are neutral.

One of the main benefits of Veritula is that the status of any idea in a discussion can be seen at a glance. If you are new to a much-discussed topic, adopt the displayed status of the ideas involved: if they are marked problematic, reject them; if they are not, adopt them.

Therefore, Veritula acts as a dictionary for ideas.

One of the problems of our age is that people have same discussions over and over again. Part of the reason is widespread irrationality, expressed in the unwillingness to change one’s mind; another is that it’s simply difficult to remember or know what’s true and what isn’t. Discussion trees can get complex, so people shouldn’t blindly trust their judgment of whether some idea is true or problematic, whether nested criticisms have been neutralized or not. Going off of memory is too error prone.

Veritula solves this problem: it makes discussion trees explicit so you don’t have to remember each idea and its relation to other ideas. Veritula therefore also enables you to hold irrational people accountable: if an idea has pending criticisms, the rational approach is to either abandon it or to save it by revising it or addressing all pending criticisms.

Many people don’t like to concede an argument. But with Veritula, no concessions are necessary. The site just shows you who’s right.

Using Veritula, we may discover a bit of truth.

Still have questions about rationality? Read the technical paper, learn about Veritula’s recursive epistemology and how to structure discussions, or read the quick guide to rational decision-making.

Want personalized help tailored to your own specific needs? Hire Dennis, founder of Veritula, for personal tutoring, or run a bounty.

  1. Popperian epistemology has some flaws, like verisimilitude, but Veritula doesn’t implement those.

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #5516.

What about people who want to learn about V and rationality but whose life is currently half reason half unreason? Like religious people, for example. They can’t just switch over all at once. It takes time and practice, and even then they may fail. I’m not 100% rational all the time either. Should I be banned from V?

#5516​·​Dennis HackethalOP, 25 days ago

The rule is meant to address blatant disregard for rationality. If someone honestly tries to be rational but fails, the rule doesn’t apply.

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #5516.

What about people who want to learn about V and rationality but whose life is currently half reason half unreason? Like religious people, for example. They can’t just switch over all at once. It takes time and practice, and even then they may fail. I’m not 100% rational all the time either. Should I be banned from V?

#5516​·​Dennis HackethalOP, 25 days ago

That’s already covered by the recommendation to separate one’s personal stance from what can be objectively & rationally advocated: “‘Although I personally disagree, at the current state of the discussion, idea X (link to the idea on V) is (or is not) rationally adoptable.’” That can be changed slightly to: ‘Although I’m not yet able to do it fully myself, at the current state of the discussion, idea X should be adopted.’

  Dennis Hackethal criticized idea #5512.

Proposal for new rule

TL;DR: repeat irrationality (as defined below) should be a bannable offense.

Since Popper seemed so agreeable, I mentioned that one of his former students had accused him of not tolerating criticism of his own ideas. Popper's eyes blazed. “It is completely untrue! I was happy when I got criticism! Of course, not when I would answer the criticism… and the person would still go on with it. That is the thing which I found uninteresting and would not tolerate.” In that case, Popper would throw the student out of his class.

… so long as the proponents of our best theories … have to expend their intellectual energies in futile refutation and re-refutation of theories long known to be false, the state of our deepest knowledge cannot improve.

David Deutsch, The Fabric of Reality, chapter 13

Our forum rules (#4460) include a rule against “Behavior that is intended, or likely, to sabotage debate or prevent progress…” In light of recent, mostly off-platform discussions, I’m thinking about extending it. Or maybe it already applies to the behavior I’m about to describe.

Veritula is built to help people seek truth by criticizing ideas and addressing criticism. More generally, it’s meant to help people live a life guided by reason (#2844) and make progress. That includes the rejection of ideas with pending criticisms.

One of the core insights of Veritula is that people should not rely on memory to decide whether to adopt an idea (#4471). They shouldn’t rely on memory to recall the outcome of a discussion. They shouldn’t track the outcome of a discussion manually (unless they’ve practiced that skill extensively). They should instead feed ideas into Veritula, put them in the proper relationship with each other, and then simply look up which ideas they should adopt or reject. Or, if the discussion has already happened, then they should simply look up its current state instead of duplicating it. (The list of discussions and search function should help with that.) Any idea with a red label showing a count of pending criticisms should be abandoned; any idea without that label should be adopted.

This way, people can avoid having the same discussions over and over again. But some people aren’t willing to do the required work even once and change their mind. They’d rather repeat the same discussions, and repeatedly advocate the same mistaken ideas, like those Easter Islanders who kept building hideous statues with no purpose.

I think members on Veritula should be expected to follow through and update their stances when they’re shown to be wrong. After all, Veritula offers them a way to tell objectively that they’re wrong. We have a criterion of rationality, so why not use it? And if they can’t remember what their updated stance should be, they should get in the habit of simply looking it up. If their old stance has pending criticisms, they should stop advocating it.

But people conveniently ‘forget’ discussion outcomes they view as unfavorable, let a few months pass (at which point they think nobody could reasonably blame them for forgetting), and then go right back to advocating a stance that’s already known to be false.

Mistakes happen; again, memory isn’t perfect. Or sometimes we have a nagging feeling that something about the outcome of a discussion just isn’t quite right, but we can’t put our finger on it. In such a situation, when asked about one’s stance, it’s rational to say something like: ‘Although I personally disagree, at the current state of the discussion, idea X (link to the idea on V) is (or is not) rationally adoptable.’

A good example of how to do this right in a similar situation is @dirk-meulenbelt’s recent post on X:

I wrote a proof/argument on my blog that the challenge is impossible for "two strings" alone, though Dennis has [since] clarified that it's OK to have more than just two strings, and a person may be prompted within reason.

The specific content isn’t important here. What matters is that Dirk shared an objection and then immediately explained why it wasn’t valid anymore. That’s honest. It’s unlike so many dishonest interlocutors who would only mention the objection but not that it’s been addressed already.

As I’ve written before:

The catalog of ideas can be vast – much too big for any one man to hold in his mind. Memory is error-prone. We should not rely on memory to see which ideas we should adopt or reject. We should look them up, dispassionately, in the database [on Veritula], the way a judge would look up a law in a legal text. Rationality is an impersonal thing. Advocacy and rejection of ideas is impersonal as well.

A judge preparing a verdict may personally disagree with a law. For example, he may think it’s too strict or not strict enough. In his ruling, he may even personally distance himself from a specific law. But that doesn’t mean he can just ignore it and act on whim instead.

Yet that is essentially how people treat the advocacy and rejection of ideas more generally. They do it based on whim. If such people participate on Veritula long-term, they will duplicate ideas or even entire discussions. But maintaining discussion trees is no simple task; it takes care and effort. If there are no consequences for such people, one would have to refute and re-refute ideas long known to be false. And that’s time we could spend advocating and improving ideas not known to be false. In short, such people sabotage progress.

Therefore, I suggest that members who are repeatedly found to advocate ideas with pending criticisms, or reject ideas without pending criticisms, or to have duplicate discussions due to undue reversals to previous, mistaken stances – in short, members who act irrationally in this way, on or off-platform, when they should know better – be given warnings. If it happens once, it’s no big deal. If it happens twice, it may warrant a warning. Members may be asked to explain how they plan to avoid this outcome in the future (eg see #5176). They could run a bounty that will charge their card a small but non-negligible amount if they don’t address a criticism. If it happens a third time, especially if it’s about the same topic as before, their account may be temporarily locked or banned permanently. More leeway can be given if a lot of time passes between offenses or due to other extenuating circumstances, case by case.

Non-members who wish to join Veritula, but who’ve been found to act irrationally in this way off-platform, will need to make a convincing case that they want to improve. Evidence that they’ve changed their mind on some issue, eg some written public record of that change, including some evidence that they remember that change over time, would be a good start.

This rule wouldn’t be retroactive for bans, but once effective, past ‘offenders’ may be warned if their behavior is expected to continue. Past warnings will count toward the decision for future bans.

I want people who take ideas, reason, and progress seriously. Others can go goof off on other platforms, there’s plenty of those around. People who take reason seriously need a way to protect their time against people who don’t.

#5512​·​Dennis HackethalOP revised 25 days ago

What about people who want to learn about V and rationality but whose life is currently half reason half unreason? Like religious people, for example. They can’t just switch over all at once. It takes time and practice, and even then they may fail. I’m not 100% rational all the time either. Should I be banned from V?

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #5488.

#4460 says moderation aims to preserve productive, truth-seeking discussion. Being free to avoid someone does not show that excluding them helps that goal. A valuable contributor might advocate elsewhere an idea that has pending criticisms on Veritula, without affecting Veritula or its members. Banning them would sacrifice useful contributions without protecting any discussion. Off-platform conduct should count only when it burdens Veritula or its members.

#5488​·​Benjamin Davies, 25 days ago

A valuable contributor might advocate elsewhere an idea that has pending criticisms on Veritula, without affecting Veritula or its members.

Irrationally spreading ideas affects everyone. Culture can’t be neatly contained like that. I think that’s one of the reasons Deutsch and Popper voiced their frustrations. And I want members of V to be known for not spreading ideas irrationally. I want them to have a reputation for (fallibly) acting rationally. (I add the proviso ‘fallibly’ to appreciate that members may sometimes struggle to act rationally, but as long as they make an honest try, they’re fine in my book.)

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #5488.

#4460 says moderation aims to preserve productive, truth-seeking discussion. Being free to avoid someone does not show that excluding them helps that goal. A valuable contributor might advocate elsewhere an idea that has pending criticisms on Veritula, without affecting Veritula or its members. Banning them would sacrifice useful contributions without protecting any discussion. Off-platform conduct should count only when it burdens Veritula or its members.

#5488​·​Benjamin Davies, 25 days ago

A valuable contributor might advocate elsewhere an idea that has pending criticisms on Veritula, without affecting Veritula or its members.

If they’re valuable, mods can take that into account when making a decision. Since multiple warnings would be given first, it’s not like we’d suddenly lose valuable members left and right.

  Dennis Hackethal commented on criticism #5487.

The proposal does not say whether conduct from before the rule is adopted can count as an offence for existing members. Without a prospective effective date, members could be warned or banned for conduct that was not covered by this rule when it occurred.

#5487​·​Benjamin Davies, 25 days ago

Fair. I’ve since revised both the existing rules and the proposed rule.

  Dennis Hackethal revised idea #5482. The revision addresses idea #5487.

Proposal for new rule

TL;DR: repeat irrationality (as defined below) should be a bannable offense.

Since Popper seemed so agreeable, I mentioned that one of his former students had accused him of not tolerating criticism of his own ideas. Popper's eyes blazed. “It is completely untrue! I was happy when I got criticism! Of course, not when I would answer the criticism… and the person would still go on with it. That is the thing which I found uninteresting and would not tolerate.” In that case, Popper would throw the student out of his class.

… so long as the proponents of our best theories … have to expend their intellectual energies in futile refutation and re-refutation of theories long known to be false, the state of our deepest knowledge cannot improve.

David Deutsch, The Fabric of Reality, chapter 13

Our forum rules (#4460) include a rule against “Behavior that is intended, or likely, to sabotage debate or prevent progress…” In light of recent, mostly off-platform discussions, I’m thinking about extending it. Or maybe it already applies to the behavior I’m about to describe.

Veritula is built to help people seek truth by criticizing ideas and addressing criticism. More generally, it’s meant to help people live a life guided by reason (#2844) and make progress. That includes the rejection of ideas with pending criticisms.

One of the core insights of Veritula is that people should not rely on memory to decide whether to adopt an idea (#4471). They shouldn’t rely on memory to recall the outcome of a discussion. They shouldn’t track the outcome of a discussion manually (unless they’ve practiced that skill extensively). They should instead feed ideas into Veritula, put them in the proper relationship with each other, and then simply look up which ideas they should adopt or reject. Or, if the discussion has already happened, then they should simply look up its current state instead of duplicating it. (The list of discussions and search function should help with that.) Any idea with a red label showing a count of pending criticisms should be abandoned; any idea without that label should be adopted.

This way, people can avoid having the same discussions over and over again. But some people aren’t willing to do the required work even once and change their mind. They’d rather repeat the same discussions, and repeatedly advocate the same mistaken ideas, like those Easter Islanders who kept building hideous statues with no purpose.

I think members on Veritula should be expected to follow through and update their stances when they’re shown to be wrong. After all, Veritula offers them a way to tell objectively that they’re wrong. We have a criterion of rationality, so why not use it? And if they can’t remember what their updated stance should be, they should get in the habit of simply looking it up. If their old stance has pending criticisms, they should stop advocating it.

But people conveniently ‘forget’ discussion outcomes they view as unfavorable, let a few months pass (at which point they think nobody could reasonably blame them for forgetting), and then go right back to advocating a stance that’s already known to be false.

Mistakes happen; again, memory isn’t perfect. Or sometimes we have a nagging feeling that something about the outcome of a discussion just isn’t quite right, but we can’t put our finger on it. In such a situation, when asked about one’s stance, it’s rational to say something like: ‘Although I personally disagree, at the current state of the discussion, idea X (link to the idea on V) is (or is not) rationally adoptable.’

A good example of how to do this right in a similar situation is @dirk-meulenbelt’s recent post on X:

I wrote a proof/argument on my blog that the challenge is impossible for "two strings" alone, though Dennis has [since] clarified that it's OK to have more than just two strings, and a person may be prompted within reason.

The specific content isn’t important here. What matters is that Dirk shared an objection and then immediately explained why it wasn’t valid anymore. That’s honest. It’s unlike so many dishonest interlocutors who would only mention the objection but not that it’s been addressed already.

As I’ve written before:

The catalog of ideas can be vast – much too big for any one man to hold in his mind. Memory is error-prone. We should not rely on memory to see which ideas we should adopt or reject. We should look them up, dispassionately, in the database [on Veritula], the way a judge would look up a law in a legal text. Rationality is an impersonal thing. Advocacy and rejection of ideas is impersonal as well.

A judge preparing a verdict may personally disagree with a law. For example, he may think it’s too strict or not strict enough. In his ruling, he may even personally distance himself from a specific law. But that doesn’t mean he can just ignore it and act on whim instead.

Yet that is essentially how people treat the advocacy and rejection of ideas more generally. They do it based on whim. If such people participate on Veritula long-term, they will duplicate ideas or even entire discussions. But maintaining discussion trees is no simple task; it takes care and effort. If there are no consequences for such people, one would have to refute and re-refute ideas long known to be false. And that’s time we could spend advocating and improving ideas not known to be false. In short, such people sabotage progress.

Therefore, I suggest that members who are repeatedly found to advocate ideas with pending criticisms, or reject ideas without pending criticisms, or to have duplicate discussions due to undue reversals to previous, mistaken stances – in short, members who act irrationally in this way, on or off-platform, when they should know better – be given warnings. If it happens once, it’s no big deal. If it happens twice, it may warrant a warning. Members may be asked to explain how they plan to avoid this outcome in the future (eg see #5176). They could run a bounty that will charge their card a small but non-negligible amount if they don’t address a criticism. If it happens a third time, especially if it’s about the same topic as before, their account may be temporarily locked or banned permanently. More leeway can be given if a lot of time passes between offenses or due to other extenuating circumstances, case by case.

Non-members who wish to join Veritula, but who’ve been found to act irrationally in this way off-platform, will need to make a convincing case that they want to improve. Evidence that they’ve changed their mind on some issue, eg some written public record of that change, including some evidence that they remember that change over time, would be a good start.

I want people who take ideas, reason, and progress seriously. Others can go goof off on other platforms, there’s plenty of those around. People who take reason seriously need a way to protect their time against people who don’t.

Proposal for new rule

TL;DR: repeat irrationality (as defined below) should be a bannable offense.

Since Popper seemed so agreeable, I mentioned that one of his former students had accused him of not tolerating criticism of his own ideas. Popper's eyes blazed. “It is completely untrue! I was happy when I got criticism! Of course, not when I would answer the criticism… and the person would still go on with it. That is the thing which I found uninteresting and would not tolerate.” In that case, Popper would throw the student out of his class.

… so long as the proponents of our best theories … have to expend their intellectual energies in futile refutation and re-refutation of theories long known to be false, the state of our deepest knowledge cannot improve.

David Deutsch, The Fabric of Reality, chapter 13

Our forum rules (#4460) include a rule against “Behavior that is intended, or likely, to sabotage debate or prevent progress…” In light of recent, mostly off-platform discussions, I’m thinking about extending it. Or maybe it already applies to the behavior I’m about to describe.

Veritula is built to help people seek truth by criticizing ideas and addressing criticism. More generally, it’s meant to help people live a life guided by reason (#2844) and make progress. That includes the rejection of ideas with pending criticisms.

One of the core insights of Veritula is that people should not rely on memory to decide whether to adopt an idea (#4471). They shouldn’t rely on memory to recall the outcome of a discussion. They shouldn’t track the outcome of a discussion manually (unless they’ve practiced that skill extensively). They should instead feed ideas into Veritula, put them in the proper relationship with each other, and then simply look up which ideas they should adopt or reject. Or, if the discussion has already happened, then they should simply look up its current state instead of duplicating it. (The list of discussions and search function should help with that.) Any idea with a red label showing a count of pending criticisms should be abandoned; any idea without that label should be adopted.

This way, people can avoid having the same discussions over and over again. But some people aren’t willing to do the required work even once and change their mind. They’d rather repeat the same discussions, and repeatedly advocate the same mistaken ideas, like those Easter Islanders who kept building hideous statues with no purpose.

I think members on Veritula should be expected to follow through and update their stances when they’re shown to be wrong. After all, Veritula offers them a way to tell objectively that they’re wrong. We have a criterion of rationality, so why not use it? And if they can’t remember what their updated stance should be, they should get in the habit of simply looking it up. If their old stance has pending criticisms, they should stop advocating it.

But people conveniently ‘forget’ discussion outcomes they view as unfavorable, let a few months pass (at which point they think nobody could reasonably blame them for forgetting), and then go right back to advocating a stance that’s already known to be false.

Mistakes happen; again, memory isn’t perfect. Or sometimes we have a nagging feeling that something about the outcome of a discussion just isn’t quite right, but we can’t put our finger on it. In such a situation, when asked about one’s stance, it’s rational to say something like: ‘Although I personally disagree, at the current state of the discussion, idea X (link to the idea on V) is (or is not) rationally adoptable.’

A good example of how to do this right in a similar situation is @dirk-meulenbelt’s recent post on X:

I wrote a proof/argument on my blog that the challenge is impossible for "two strings" alone, though Dennis has [since] clarified that it's OK to have more than just two strings, and a person may be prompted within reason.

The specific content isn’t important here. What matters is that Dirk shared an objection and then immediately explained why it wasn’t valid anymore. That’s honest. It’s unlike so many dishonest interlocutors who would only mention the objection but not that it’s been addressed already.

As I’ve written before:

The catalog of ideas can be vast – much too big for any one man to hold in his mind. Memory is error-prone. We should not rely on memory to see which ideas we should adopt or reject. We should look them up, dispassionately, in the database [on Veritula], the way a judge would look up a law in a legal text. Rationality is an impersonal thing. Advocacy and rejection of ideas is impersonal as well.

A judge preparing a verdict may personally disagree with a law. For example, he may think it’s too strict or not strict enough. In his ruling, he may even personally distance himself from a specific law. But that doesn’t mean he can just ignore it and act on whim instead.

Yet that is essentially how people treat the advocacy and rejection of ideas more generally. They do it based on whim. If such people participate on Veritula long-term, they will duplicate ideas or even entire discussions. But maintaining discussion trees is no simple task; it takes care and effort. If there are no consequences for such people, one would have to refute and re-refute ideas long known to be false. And that’s time we could spend advocating and improving ideas not known to be false. In short, such people sabotage progress.

Therefore, I suggest that members who are repeatedly found to advocate ideas with pending criticisms, or reject ideas without pending criticisms, or to have duplicate discussions due to undue reversals to previous, mistaken stances – in short, members who act irrationally in this way, on or off-platform, when they should know better – be given warnings. If it happens once, it’s no big deal. If it happens twice, it may warrant a warning. Members may be asked to explain how they plan to avoid this outcome in the future (eg see #5176). They could run a bounty that will charge their card a small but non-negligible amount if they don’t address a criticism. If it happens a third time, especially if it’s about the same topic as before, their account may be temporarily locked or banned permanently. More leeway can be given if a lot of time passes between offenses or due to other extenuating circumstances, case by case.

Non-members who wish to join Veritula, but who’ve been found to act irrationally in this way off-platform, will need to make a convincing case that they want to improve. Evidence that they’ve changed their mind on some issue, eg some written public record of that change, including some evidence that they remember that change over time, would be a good start.

This rule wouldn’t be retroactive for bans, but once effective, past ‘offenders’ may be warned if their behavior is expected to continue. Past warnings will count toward the decision for future bans.

I want people who take ideas, reason, and progress seriously. Others can go goof off on other platforms, there’s plenty of those around. People who take reason seriously need a way to protect their time against people who don’t.

  Dennis Hackethal revised idea #4460. The revision addresses idea #5510.

Forum Rules

Veritula welcomes a wide range of discussion topics. Generally speaking, people have free speech here. Unpopular topics will not automatically get people banned. The goal of moderation is to preserve productive, truth-seeking discussion.

Behavior that is intended, or likely, to sabotage debate or prevent progress is a bannable offense. Such behavior includes, but is not limited to, harassment, brigading, rage baiting, public shaming, and persistent bad-faith argumentation or refusal to engage substantively.

Veritula takes intellectual property seriously and reserves the right to take down content that infringes on others’ intellectual property.

Veritula also reserves the right to take down obscene content such as pornography.

Serious instances of off-platform behavior that clearly would have violated these rules on-platform may result in removal.

Depending on the severity of an infraction, moderators may issue a warning, temporarily lock an account, or permanently ban the account.

Looking for loopholes in these rules, or abusing the letter to violate the spirit of these rules, is a bannable offense.

Moderation decisions are at the discretion of Veritula.

Users may appeal moderation decisions by contacting the moderators within a reasonable time after a decision. Appeals should explain why the decision was wrong. Appeals are reviewed at the moderators’ discretion. The same decision may be appealed only once.

Talks with moderators should remain respectful and constructive. Changes to these rules should be proposed by criticizing this idea before issues arise.

Site-wide terms apply as well.

Forum Rules

Veritula welcomes a wide range of discussion topics. Generally speaking, people have free speech here. Unpopular topics will not automatically get people banned. The goal of moderation is to preserve productive, truth-seeking discussion.

Behavior that is intended, or likely, to sabotage debate or prevent progress is a bannable offense. Such behavior includes, but is not limited to, harassment, brigading, rage baiting, public shaming, and persistent bad-faith argumentation or refusal to engage substantively.

Veritula takes intellectual property seriously and reserves the right to take down content that infringes on others’ intellectual property.

Veritula also reserves the right to take down obscene content such as pornography.

Serious instances of off-platform behavior that clearly would have violated these rules on-platform may result in removal.

Depending on the severity of an infraction, moderators may issue a warning, temporarily lock an account, or permanently ban the account.

Looking for loopholes in these rules, or abusing the letter to violate the spirit of these rules, is a bannable offense.

Moderation decisions are at the discretion of Veritula.

Users may appeal moderation decisions by contacting the moderators within a reasonable time after a decision. Appeals should explain why the decision was wrong. Appeals are reviewed at the moderators’ discretion. The same decision may be appealed only once.

Talks with moderators should remain respectful and constructive. Changes to these rules should be proposed by criticizing this idea before issues arise. Changes are generally not retroactive unless specified otherwise.

Site-wide terms apply as well.

  Dennis Hackethal criticized idea #4460.

Forum Rules

Veritula welcomes a wide range of discussion topics. Generally speaking, people have free speech here. Unpopular topics will not automatically get people banned. The goal of moderation is to preserve productive, truth-seeking discussion.

Behavior that is intended, or likely, to sabotage debate or prevent progress is a bannable offense. Such behavior includes, but is not limited to, harassment, brigading, rage baiting, public shaming, and persistent bad-faith argumentation or refusal to engage substantively.

Veritula takes intellectual property seriously and reserves the right to take down content that infringes on others’ intellectual property.

Veritula also reserves the right to take down obscene content such as pornography.

Serious instances of off-platform behavior that clearly would have violated these rules on-platform may result in removal.

Depending on the severity of an infraction, moderators may issue a warning, temporarily lock an account, or permanently ban the account.

Looking for loopholes in these rules, or abusing the letter to violate the spirit of these rules, is a bannable offense.

Moderation decisions are at the discretion of Veritula.

Users may appeal moderation decisions by contacting the moderators within a reasonable time after a decision. Appeals should explain why the decision was wrong. Appeals are reviewed at the moderators’ discretion. The same decision may be appealed only once.

Talks with moderators should remain respectful and constructive. Changes to these rules should be proposed by criticizing this idea before issues arise.

Site-wide terms apply as well.

#4460​·​Dennis HackethalOP revised 7 months ago

The rules aren’t clear about whether changes can apply retroactively.

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #5485.

#5471 and #5472 defend this proposal as applying when someone participated in the relevant discussion or was directly shown the relevant ideas and then repeatedly ignored them. The proposal itself only says “when they should know better”. That could cover much more. If actual notice is the intended threshold, should an occurrence count only after the person has been shown the particular idea and its pending criticism?

#5485​·​Benjamin Davies, 25 days ago

If actual notice is the intended threshold, should an occurrence count only after the person has been shown the particular idea and its pending criticism?

I think that’s included (#5508), but it’s probably better in any case to refer to some standard of reasonableness: given the user’s and the mod’s actions, would an otherwise reasonable person agree that the user should have acted differently.

There’s a risk in being more specific about these conditions because it encourages trolls and other bad actors to look for loopholes. Whereas a standard of reasonableness encourages people to be good actors instead.

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #5485.

#5471 and #5472 defend this proposal as applying when someone participated in the relevant discussion or was directly shown the relevant ideas and then repeatedly ignored them. The proposal itself only says “when they should know better”. That could cover much more. If actual notice is the intended threshold, should an occurrence count only after the person has been shown the particular idea and its pending criticism?

#5485​·​Benjamin Davies, 25 days ago

The proposal itself only says “when they should know better”.

It doesn’t only say that. It also says “If it happens twice, it may warrant a warning.” Meaning by that time, a mod will have talked to them. And: “They could run a bounty that will charge their card a small but non-negligible amount if they don’t address a criticism.” They wouldn’t know to run a bounty unless a mod told them to.