Veritula – Meta
#4513·Dennis HackethalOP, 8 months agoIdea: ability to lock an idea to prevent edits. If you submit the first version, you get to lock the idea. Useful especially on your own profile that you might use as more of a blog and don’t necessarily want others changing your ideas.
Locking isn’t needed. Ideas are already immutable: other people can only add versions. The real problem was which version your profile shows. As of e3507e6f, the wall shows each post as its author last revised it, so other people’s revisions no longer speak for you there, and nobody has to be stopped from improving your ideas.
This criticism applies to #4520 as well.
#5143·Tyler Mills, 3 months agoMy profile shows my revision to #5126 under Wall and under Activity, but not the post itself under the Wall. The revision is a jumble of red and green highlighted text (in this case, because the revision was significant), hard to read. Wall should only show latest versions of posts, not edits to them. Edits should go under Activity. And/or have the previous post versions viewable with the little arrows, as usual (and as done in the idea-focused view, after you click on the idea itself). Always show latest versions of ideas on the Wall so it's clear and easy to read.
Fixed as of 1a588356. Check your profile:
#5729·Dennis HackethalOP, 24 days agoOffer easy way to link to latest version of an idea. The ability already exists – an idea link +
/latestwill always go to the latest version – but isn’t directly exposed in the form of a link or button yet.
Done as of a7a529b5.
#4614·Dennis HackethalOP, 7 months agoNeed rate limiting for new users to prevent excessive posting.
Done as of a while ago (c1f33a63).
#6013·Dennis HackethalOP, 5 days agoOne thing I haven’t decided yet: each circle in the graphic links to its idea, but it could instead link to its own page of incoming links.
Most links won’t have incoming links themselves.
#6012·Dennis HackethalOP, 5 days agoDone as of
14003625. Each idea now has a separate page listing all the ideas that link to it. For example: https://veritula.com/ideas/5546-how-does-veritula-work-veritula-latin-for/linksThe page features a ring with discussions and profiles grouping the referring ideas:
The page as a whole looks like this, listing the ideas in text form as well:
Last but not least, an idea with referring links gets a new pill badge:
Let me know if this is along the lines of what you had in mind.
One thing I haven’t decided yet: each circle in the graphic links to its idea, but it could instead link to its own page of incoming links.
#2818·Benjamin Davies, 12 months agoIdea: Links within Veritula could be made bidirectional. While viewing an idea, users could see all the ideas that refer to it. This could be displayed as a list of backlinks at the bottom of the idea’s page.
Done as of 14003625. Each idea now has a separate page listing all the ideas that link to it. For example: https://veritula.com/ideas/5546-how-does-veritula-work-veritula-latin-for/links
The page features a ring with discussions and profiles grouping the referring ideas:
The page as a whole looks like this, listing the ideas in text form as well:
Last but not least, an idea with referring links gets a new pill badge:
Let me know if this is along the lines of what you had in mind.
#4727·Dennis HackethalOP, 7 months agoNeed summaries at top of discussions. Could be AI generated.
Related: #6007
#6006·Michael Briffa, 6 days ago"Veritula could be a place where people break news stories and others can quickly fact-check and improve upon reports by revising them."
I ask myself where I go when I want 'answers' to such problems and immediately I think prediction markets. It's mainly because I think the financial incentives and outcome based 'test' serve as highly reliable error correction. I wonder what different utility Veritula would add in this regard.
The criticism chains? I know of no other site that has them.
#2752·Benjamin Davies, 12 months agoTop-level ideas in a discussion thread are not standalone pages.
One thing that Wikipedia does well is having a structured, high level page for each idea/subject. This enables readers to get a good sense of an idea quickly.
Right now, to get a good sense of an idea on Veritula, a user often has to study a branching discussion, which can take a lot of work depending on how the discussion played out. A discussion also emphasises things that were relevant to the disagreements that took place in the discussion, rather than distilling the most important elements of an idea into a hierarchy, regardless of disagreements that took place in getting to it (like an encyclopedia entry does).
How I find myself using Veritula at the moment is looking at the latest developing threads. Catching up on the context of that thread through clicking “Activity” is not time-effective; it reminds me of trying to catch up with a group chat full of messages. Threads naturally become messy, and not all points serve to advance the problem (some can be misunderstandings or micro-corrections). For this reason, there should be some summary that considers the following as context:
- The thread problem + metadata
- The discussion points under that thread (considering different branches) that relate to the problem.
- A prompt that aims at addressing “messiness” minimisation.
The summary should preserve substantive developments, competing answers and unresolved criticisms, while compressing resolved misunderstandings and linking back to the relevant posts.
If such a setup, including the summary, prompt and rules for what gets included, were kept open and criticiazable, we should arrive at a good system (so there should be a thread where we can iterate on ideas).
#628·Dennis HackethalOP, about 2 years agoI agree that Veritula deserves to scale to something huge.
Looking through the history of Wikipedia, I see that its core concept is that of “compiling the world's knowledge in a single location […]”. To be clear, I think the core concept of Veritula is to be a programmatic implementation of Popper’s rational discussion methodology; it then becomes a dictionary for ideas as a result. It’s also less about listing facts and more about listing ideas and their logical relationship (though criticisms do provide built-in fact-checking mechanisms). That said, with enough users, Veritula could become a place with a lot of knowledge.
The linked site traces some of the success of Wikipedia to volunteers: “The use of volunteers was integral in making and maintaining Wikipedia.” So early adopters such as yourself are crucial.
In addition, 9/11 apparently played a role in making Wikipedia famous:
The September 11 attacks spurred the appearance of breaking news stories on the homepage, as well as information boxes linking related articles. At the time, approximately 100 articles related to 9/11 had been created. After the September 11 attacks, a link to the Wikipedia article on the attacks appeared on Yahoo!'s home page, resulting in a spike in traffic.
Veritula could be a place where people break news stories and others can quickly fact-check and improve upon reports by revising them. An urgent story would draw a lot of users to the site, too.
Something like Wikipedia’s arbitration process could be interesting, too.
Something similar to Wikipedia’s page-protection feature to combat “edit warring” and “prevent vandalism” could address the issue of people posting criticisms in rapid succession to protect their pet ideas.
Your suggestion to look to Wikipedia for inspiration is spot on. Thanks.
"Veritula could be a place where people break news stories and others can quickly fact-check and improve upon reports by revising them."
I ask myself where I go when I want 'answers' to such problems and immediately I think prediction markets. It's mainly because I think the financial incentives and outcome based 'test' serve as highly reliable error correction. I wonder what different utility Veritula would add in this regard.
#6002·Moritz Wallawitsch, 6 days ago·AI-assistedFair, but if the discussion itself is clear and concise, it doesn’t need an AI summary either. I agree that a long discussion could benefit even when each individual idea is concise.
… if the discussion itself is clear and concise …
Sure but often they’re not…
#5982·Dennis HackethalOP, 7 days agoSummary feature proposed in #4727 is for discussions not ideas.
Fair, but if the discussion itself is clear and concise, it doesn’t need an AI summary either. I agree that a long discussion could benefit even when each individual idea is concise.
#5978·Moritz Wallawitsch, 7 days agoHow is this a criticism? My point was not about preventing long discussions but that we don't need to ai-summarize ideas that are already super concise.
Summary feature proposed in #4727 is for discussions not ideas.
#4727·Dennis HackethalOP, 7 months agoNeed summaries at top of discussions. Could be AI generated.
I think this is actually more urgent for the new crit tree view on the right side.
For ex., this just shows:
- Not if the...
- A discussion can...
- How is this a...
It could say something like:
- Not if concise
- Long discussions
- No real criticism
#4734·Dennis HackethalOP, 7 months agoA discussion can get long even if each criticism is concise.
How is this a criticism? My point was not about preventing long discussions but that we don't need to ai-summarize ideas that are already super concise.
Mark as AI-assisted
A sticky button can't work here: the main content area has to be a horizontal scroll container so deeply nested trees can grow sideways, and that stops position: sticky from sticking. The workarounds (reworking the global layout, or JavaScript positioning that jitters on mobile) are too risky for such a small benefit.
(Generated with Claude.)
A sticky button can't work here: the main content area has to be a horizontal scroll container so deeply nested trees can grow sideways, and that stops position: sticky from sticking. The workarounds (reworking the global layout, or JavaScript positioning that jitters on mobile) are too risky for such a small benefit.