Veritula – Meta

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #2242.

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

#2242·Dennis HackethalOP, 4 months ago

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

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #2466.

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

#2466·Dennis HackethalOP, 3 months ago

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

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #2912.

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

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

#2912·Dennis HackethalOP, 3 months ago

‘Board’

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #4126.

Feature idea: pay people to criticize an idea.

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

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

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

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

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

#4126·Dennis HackethalOP revised 2 days ago

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

  Dennis Hackethal revised criticism #4003.

Feature idea: pay people to criticize an idea.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Feature idea: pay people to criticize an idea.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Dennis Hackethal revised criticism #4120.

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

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

  Dennis Hackethal revised criticism #2169.

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

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

  Dennis Hackethal revised criticism #4114.

Posting arbitrary emojis doesn’t achieve that purpose.

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


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

Posting arbitrary emojis doesn’t achieve that purpose.

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

  Dennis Hackethal revised criticism #2892.

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

Posting arbitrary emojis doesn’t achieve that purpose.

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

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

Posting arbitrary emojis doesn’t achieve that purpose.

  Dennis Hackethal revised criticism #4102.

Posting arbitrary emojis doesn’t achieve that purpose.

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


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

Posting arbitrary emojis doesn’t achieve that purpose.

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


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

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #4107.

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

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

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

#4107·Benjamin Davies revised 2 days ago

Edit: …

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

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #4107.

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

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

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

#4107·Benjamin Davies revised 2 days ago

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

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

  Dennis Hackethal revised criticism #4105.

This seems both complicated and restrictive.

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

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #2458.

I could implement reactions on a per-paragraph basis.

#2458·Dennis HackethalOP, 3 months ago

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

  Benjamin Davies revised criticism #4104.

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

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

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

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

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

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #2166.

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

#2166·Dennis HackethalOP, 4 months ago

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

  Dennis Hackethal criticized idea #3121.

The Effective Altruism forum has an interesting way to react to posts.

There’s an ‘Agree’ button and a ‘Disagree’ button. Those are apparently anonymous. Then separately, there’s a button to ‘Add a reaction’ of either ‘Heart’, ‘Helpful’, ‘Insightful’, ‘Changed my mind’, or ‘Made me laugh’. And those are apparently not anonymous.

I wonder why they chose to make some reactions anonymous but not others. I don’t think I’d want a ‘Heart’ or ‘Made me laugh’ button, they seem too social-network-y. Also, ‘Heart’ seems like a duplicate of ‘Agree’. But ‘Insightful’ and ‘Changed my mind’ seem epistemologically relevant. Maybe ‘Helpful’, too.

If I did decide to go with ‘Agree’ and ‘Disagree’ buttons, I wouldn’t make them anonymous, though.

#3121·Dennis HackethalOP, 2 months ago

This seems both complicated and restrictive.

  Benjamin Davies addressed criticism #2892.

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

Posting arbitrary emojis doesn’t achieve that purpose.

#2892·Dennis HackethalOP, 3 months ago

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

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

  Benjamin Davies commented on criticism #4102.

Posting arbitrary emojis doesn’t achieve that purpose.

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


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

#4102·Dennis HackethalOP, 2 days ago

I like the acknowledged/unacknowledged idea.

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #2892.

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

Posting arbitrary emojis doesn’t achieve that purpose.

#2892·Dennis HackethalOP, 3 months ago

Posting arbitrary emojis doesn’t achieve that purpose.

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


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

  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #2465.

The way I picture it, as you hover over different paragraphs, a reaction button appears and moves between paragraphs. So it would always be clear that reactions are on specific paragraphs. The user would pick whatever paragraph they most wish to react to.

#2465·Dennis HackethalOP, 3 months ago

But this doesn’t address the scenario where someone wants to react to no particular paragraph but the idea as a whole.

  Dennis Hackethal commented on criticism #2628.

Feature idea: page at /ideas/:id/guide which shows you an idea and helps you address all pending criticisms one by one, if any. At the end, it shows a message ‘You’re all set!’ or something like that.

#2628·Dennis HackethalOP revised 3 months ago

Maybe there could be some type of guide for a user’s ideas generally. It takes him through all of his controversial ideas and let’s him either counter-criticize pending criticisms or revise his ideas, one at a time. And maybe the user could also choose to ‘abandon’ a controversial idea, in which case the guide would not show the idea again (unless maybe there was some new activity on the idea?).

  Dennis Hackethal archived idea #419 along with any revisions.
  Dennis Hackethal addressed criticism #4056.

Now that there are user profiles (#408), the search page can have an option to filter ideas by user. That way, we can see that user’s uncontroversial ideas, meaning ideas of his that he can rationally hold, and controversial ones, meaning ideas of his that he cannot rationally hold.

#4056·Dennis HackethalOP revised 2 days ago

Implemented as of 39c2686.