Counterpointy is broken

[Ben Williamson]

Well, probably broken, at least a bit, somewhere. I've just released some big changes, and there are no doubt bugs.

In short, you can now edit stuff. If you don't want to read this email, just go try it. Go on.

1. Point text can now be edited. Click on the text, make your changes, and Save.

When you edit a point, you edit it for you, not for everybody else. However your new wording is suggested to everyone else as an "Alternative wording" from the original text, which they can choose to Adopt.

Here's an example: http://counterpointy.org/point/01b37c73354

My edit adds a fullstop at the end. Try adopting it. (Click the checkbox first.)

The Adopt button has exactly the same effect as if you had typed in that same text yourself. Either way, Counterpointy does its best to carry your supporting and opposing points along with the change.

One of my main principles is that nobody else can edit your beliefs for you. I've documented that here: https://github.com/benw/counterpointy/wiki/Fundamentals

Editing is a tricky area - I want Counterpointy to facilitate cooperation in making arguments better / clearer / more specific; but the content is contentious (hmm, that has a ring to it) and I want to make it easy for anyone to maintain their own beliefs undisturbed by those who might rabidly disagree and edit in unhelpful ways. So everyone has their own version of everything, but the design aims to make it easy for people to stay in sync if they choose to.

As well as the Adopt button, I intend to provide the option to Reject alternative wordings, to remove them from the list you see, so you only have to read and think about them once.

Editing is intended for making clarifications, fixing spelling and punctuation, and generally making changes that do not substantially alter the meaning of the point. When you edit a point, you create a new point that has the same supporting and opposing points as the original. If you want to make a different point, don't do it by editing an existing one. Either "Make your point" from the main screen, or enter it as a supporting or opposing point somewhere relevant. If you change the meaning when you edit an existing point, you'll probably end up with irrelevant supporting and opposing points attached to it, and others will be unlikely to Adopt it.

When you click the text of a point to edit it, the text is selected. This is intended to make it easy to copy the point to the clipboard, for pasting as a supporting or opposing point somewhere else.

2. Supporting and Opposing point lists can now be edited, by Keeping or Removing points.

Points turn up in the Supporting and Opposing lists whenever anyone adds them. If you didn't add it, you'll see an orange highlight around the checkbox. This tells you that it could disappear again from the list if other users Remove it. If you think it is relevant, you should check the box and hit Keep. If you think it is irrelevant, you can check the box and hit Remove.

For the sake of discussion I'll use the word "conclusion" for the main point at the top of the page, and the word "premise" for a point listed beneath under Supporting or Opposing. Whether or not a particular premise is relevant to (and should appear in the list beneath) a particular conclusion - is something that we might agree or disagree on.

Keeping is like up-voting the relevance of a premise, and Removing is like down-voting it.

The same checkboxes can be used to Agree or Disagree with points; this is a shortcut for visiting each point and fiddling with the pulldown selector.

In testing this stuff out, please be fearless. When you edit a point, you edit it for you only. When you remove a supporting or opposing point, you remove it from your view only. You won't mess it up for everyone else. Go forth and type/click on stuff.

Even though this is fresh and most likely broken in important ways, I'm excited to see some of the original ideas for Counterpointy coming together. It's getting to the point of maybe even being a little bit useful.

Phew. There's no way I'd write all this down if there weren't some folks subscribed to the list who I think will read it and try stuff out, so thanks for getting this far.

Questions and comments welcome. More coming soon.

- Ben.