rbutr - Inter-website rebuttal tool for skeptics

Aegist

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Hey everyone,
I want to introduce you all to rbutr, a new project I am working on which I will be taking to TAM with me to introduce to the Skeptic Community at large as best I can!

The goal of rbutr is to alert regular internet users to the existence of counter-arguments written against the specific webpage they happen to be viewing.

That is the goal, and the vision which drives me. An internet where every scam page, every woo page, and every dodgy argument online has a single click method to access a counter-argument via a browser extension or iFrame system.

For more information about rbutr specifics, please look at our Press Information Page, or, for an outside perspective from a well known and trusted JREF Research Fellow, see Tim Farley's review of rbutr.
Our rbutr FAQ is another great starting point :)

If you look at those links, then you should have a pretty good idea what we are about, how we work, and what we are doing to achieve our ultimate goal.

The reason I wanted to start this thread, is simply to give all of you the opportunity to ask questions, talk to us about rbutr, and provide feedback. We want a strong skeptic core to our community, and with that, a solid rational and evidence based foundation to the rebuttals in the system. So you guys are the key to the success or failure of this project (no pressure) :D

Thank you... AMA....
 
It looks like a good tool. I wait the time when someone puts up a rbutr for a website and the owner finds out and does not like the idea!

I think you will have to sell this to the fence sitters. Otherwise you are just preaching to the choir. And get a big enough group to rbutr pages.

Good luck. Hope it is successful.
 
rjh01 said:
It looks like a good tool. I wait the time when someone puts up a rbutr for a website and the owner finds out and does not like the idea!
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In a way this is precisely the point of rbutr - to allow links from pages which the owners wouldn't want placed there. I don't see too many problems with this though, and I could speculate on why for many pages, but it is something which is just going to have to play out in order to really know how it is going to be received.

rjh01 said:
I think you will have to sell this to the fence sitters. Otherwise you are just preaching to the choir. And get a big enough group to rbutr pages.
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That is exactly our two main goals - in reverse order. We need to get the big group adding pages - this is you guys. We need skeptics to see the power of this tool for skepticism, and start participating on the promise that we will reach everyone else as soon as we have some content coming through.

It is a bit of a chicken/egg problem, but it really isn't a bad one. We need rebuttals in the system in order for our users to see rbutr as worthwhile. But we need users in order for bloggers etc to see it as worthwhile to add their rebuttals to rbutr.

The good news though, is that we can manufacture a crowdsourcing community to work on adding rebuttals for us, and as soon as we have a small collection of key bloggers and columnists covered, we will have sufficient rebuttals coming in on a regular basis to keep up with topical issues and media stories. As soon as we have a constant stream of current rebuttals being added to the system every day, then we can start marketing to 'everyone else' - and the best news there, is that with minimal effort so far, that looks like it will be easier than expected. This idea seems to capture the imagination of the public. Many people seem to like this idea, and want to give it a try. We just have to make sure there is something there for them to try!

And one more thing on breaking out of preaching to the choir - this is EXACTLY what rbutr is about. The whole point of it is to get, for example, Skeptical articles in front of people reading a homeopathy article. People who read homeopathy articles do NOT read skeptical articles.

The reason the homeopathic article reader would install rbutr though, is because they happen to be... democrats and they want to add democratic rebuttals to republican homepages. Or see rebuttals to republican arguments (again, just as an example).

So in this way, people will install rbutr or find rbutr appealing for one area of their life, and then it will serve as a critical-thinking tool for EVERY area of their life.

The first task though, is to build a small core of dedicated active volunteers to curate quality rebuttal blogs for us, so we can get rebuttals straight in to the system as soon as they are written. We just launched 'Adopt a Blogger' for this yesterday.
rjh01 said:
Good luck. Hope it is successful.
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Me too :) Thanks!
 
wombatwal said:
Have joined.
But really try and work on having it work in FireFox and Internet Explorer.
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This is the first time IE has been requested! :)

We currently have two possible plans in action. Either we work through a small list of updates we need to make in order for rbutr to look really good for TAM, and then at the end of those updates, we hopefully still have enough time to get a Firefox version made. OR, we get a couple of volunteers to work on making a Firefox/IE/Safari/Opera extension for us, and we make an API for them to work with.

We posted the other day asking for expressions of interest from people who would be willing to commit to working on other browser extensions from an API, but have so far only had one person say they would if they have the time. Making the API will take time, so we need to make sure someone is going to use it before we invest the limited time we have in to making it.

Either way, we will get more browsers covered. It just isn't the most pressing thing... To qualify that statement, while adding firefox will possibly double our active usership numbers over night, working on our website's browse page so that the rebuttal requests, and recently added rebuttals are interactive and meaningful open the website up to everyone as a decent community portal with an actual function (a way of tracking topical debates across websites, and a way of identifying topical articles which people want to see information on).

Also, adding a website based submission system is a single thing we can do which opens up a crucial part of rbutr to everyone, regardles of browser. So atm, they are the two things which are being prioritised over new browser plugins.
 
rjh01 said:
This is similar to http://www.mywot.com/. This website says which pages are safe and warn about unsafe pages. Many woo sites are unsafe. You can also comment on such websites. This includes links.
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I guess there is some overlap in some sense, but the application is significantly different. The fact that comments 'can' include links does not create a system which invites links, nor the delivers link specific references to people viewing those pages. Besides, rbutr makes no effort to really evaluate the trust-ability of the page being rebutted, it merely says "Someone somewhere else has rebutted the content of this page - Click here to read what they have said" which I think is much more engaging than saying 'Bad page!', which doesn't really explain anything about the content, or the ideas on the page.

And allowing comments to do that explaining really puts way too much responsibility on a simple comment field. The rebuttals already exist on the web. People have gone to extensive efforts to research their rebuttals, to create diagrams, to make videos etc. Why create new paragraph long rebuttal comments "this page is stupid", when you can just bring the viewers attention to the existence of a high quality rebuttal?
 
I take it this is a Wiki-style thing, with rebuttals written by anyone who feels like doing so? What kind of checks will be in place to prevent it being filled up with exactly the sort of nonsense it's supposed to be rebutting?
 
Cuddles said:
I take it this is a Wiki-style thing, with rebuttals written by anyone who feels like doing so? What kind of checks will be in place to prevent it being filled up with exactly the sort of nonsense it's supposed to be rebutting?
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Not wiki like at all. rbutr is not about creating more content. It is about connecting the relevant content so that users get 'the best rebuttals' available on the internet delivered to them based on the specific page they are looking at.

This is the key difference, rbutr is about organising what is already there in to a more usable discussion format, rather than trying to add to the cacophony of noise already present.
 
We are going to talk about how to use RBUTR in my workshop on Crowdsourcing Skepticism at TAM2012. It's a great example of the type of online tool that I think skeptics can use to make a difference.
 
krelnik said:
We are going to talk about how to use RBUTR in my workshop on Crowdsourcing Skepticism at TAM2012. It's a great example of the type of online tool that I think skeptics can use to make a difference.
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Cool--looking forward to it.

Thanks for the info.
 
krelnik said:
We are going to talk about how to use RBUTR in my workshop on Crowdsourcing Skepticism at TAM2012. It's a great example of the type of online tool that I think skeptics can use to make a difference.
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Thanks Tim. Can't wait for it :)
 
krelnik said:
We are going to talk about how to use RBUTR in my workshop on Crowdsourcing Skepticism at TAM2012. It's a great example of the type of online tool that I think skeptics can use to make a difference.
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How about it if you put something on your website, maybe on this page http://whatstheharm.net/resources.html ? Then use rbutr to link from woo sites (source) to your site as a rebuttal? You might need a volunteer to help in this later step.

Rbutr needs lots of skeptics like krelnik to make it work. Maybe also Aegist should try to get a SWIFT blog written about rbutr.
 
rjh01 said:
How about it if you put something on your website, maybe on this page http://whatstheharm.net/resources.html ? Then use rbutr to link from woo sites (source) to your site as a rebuttal? You might need a volunteer to help in this later step.
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I'm not sure I understand exactly what you are suggesting, but I'll have a guess: If you are saying to use http://whatstheharm.net/resources.html as a rebuttal to various woo pages, then that is not really capturing the idea of a rebuttal. Resources don't directly address the claims raised, and that page doesn't even in general provide contradictory evidence - it simply provides the ability for people to find more information.

As for needing a volunteer, well, anyone can add rebuttals, but we are looking for people to volunteer to help promote their favourite bloggers and rebuttals by adding them to rbutr. So in this case, anyone who wants to support Tim could find an article which claims that something like "Homeopathy doesn't do any harm" and then link that page to the Homeopathy section of What's The Harm as a general rebuttal. etc.

rjh01 said:
Rbutr needs lots of skeptics like krelnik to make it work. Maybe also Aegist should try to get a SWIFT blog written about rbutr.
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Absolutely. This is going to be our biggest stepping stone to success - finding people passionate about destroying nonsense on the internet, and motivating them to build a thriving rebuttal network. An article in SWIFT would be absolutely awesome. We need as much press as we can get at the moment :)
 
Aegist said:
I'm not sure I understand exactly what you are suggesting, but I'll have a guess: If you are saying to use http://whatstheharm.net/resources.html as a rebuttal to various woo pages, then that is not really capturing the idea of a rebuttal. Resources don't directly address the claims raised, and that page doesn't even in general provide contradictory evidence - it simply provides the ability for people to find more information.
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Sorry my post was not clear. I was trying to suggest that krelnik put a link to your site in this page http://whatstheharm.net/resources.html. Then use various pages from the site to rebut various woo sites. For example to link these pages together http://www.essenzzahealth.com/content/page/ear-candles-ear-wax-candle-candling-coning.html and http://whatstheharm.net/earcandling.html


As for needing a volunteer, well, anyone can add rebuttals, but we are looking for people to volunteer to help promote their favourite bloggers and rebuttals by adding them to rbutr. So in this case, anyone who wants to support Tim could find an article which claims that something like "Homeopathy doesn't do any harm" and then link that page to the Homeopathy section of What's The Harm as a general rebuttal. etc.


Absolutely. This is going to be our biggest stepping stone to success - finding people passionate about destroying nonsense on the internet, and motivating them to build a thriving rebuttal network. An article in SWIFT would be absolutely awesome. We need as much press as we can get at the moment :)
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An article in SWIFT will not write or publish itself. It is something only Aegist can organise.
 
Aegist said:
Not wiki like at all.
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It certainly sounds like it:
Aegist said:
anyone can add rebuttals
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Sure, they're linking to existing stuff rather than creating their own content, but that's all Wikipedia, and most other wikis, do. The point I was making is that allowing anyone and everyone to contribute means that the people you're trying to rebut can simply add their own rebuttals. How are you going to distinguish people between people adding valid rebuttals to nonsense, and people linking to their nonsense as a rebuttal to valid science?
 
Cuddles said:
The point I was making is that allowing anyone and everyone to contribute means that the people you're trying to rebut can simply add their own rebuttals. How are you going to distinguish people between people adding valid rebuttals to nonsense, and people linking to their nonsense as a rebuttal to valid science?
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Absolutely they can, and rbutr won't distinguish. It is up to the users to distinguish, because as much as we all like to think that we are the only ones who can see the truth, so too do the people we disagree with. So who I am to assert that my version of the truth is dominant over theirs? Fox News?

No, rbutr must be, and always will be a neutral tool to be used by people to facilitate genuinely fair discussions stemming from claims made on webpages. Stressing that people will use rbutr to spread disinformation is like stressing that the internet will be used to spread disinformation. The fact that it happens doesn't even come close to undermining the overwhelming value of the tool as a means for education.

In fact, the main value here of rbutr (unlike the internet at large) is that rbutr actually forces the collision of opposing perspectives, while the internet allows people to surround themselves with agreement on whatever perspective they want. It is easy to feel like everyone thinks 9/11 was an inside job if you just select your websites carefully. It is easy to make the one or two people who think the Moon Landing was real look like crazy people, when there are 30 or 40 other people laughing at them.

rbutr on the other hand requires opposing perspectives to be used. So in order to spread disinformation, the submitter must go to an information resource. The person using rbutr to access the disinformation, must click through to it from information. They necessarily have to see at least two different perspectives on the issue.

IMO, this is a huge improvement from the current model of "pick your side, and now reaffirm your beliefs repeatedly!" The risk that rbutr will somehow allow people to be converted from neutral ignorant positions on various subjects to a position in line with agenda driven disinformers, is much less than the chance of that happening through Twitter, Facebook, Google etc. In a world where less than 50% of Americans believe in Evolution, the social pressures in place to deny evolution already exist, and most of the times when someone is originally broaching the topic in that sort of environment, the information they are being presented with is completely one sided.

rbutr wants to fix that, and create a genuine debate where there previously was none, and where there is no room for bias.

And while the Balance Fallacy applies in an editorial environment, where someone has to decide what qualifies as quality information to be shown to the audience, rbutr is not an editorial environment - it is a discussion between crowds of individuals. It represents what is already being said - just finally allowing them to interact, rather than sitting side by side in isolated internet website colonies.

For more answers to this question, see the rbutr FAQ.

Also, Christpopher Hitchens' best speech ever: http://youtu.be/X3Hg-Y7MugU?t=3m50s

and Sagan:
"John Stuart Mill argued that silencing an opinion is "a peculiar evil." If the opinion is right, we are robbed of the "opportunity of exchanging error for truth"; and if it's wrong, we are deprived of a deeper understanding of the truth in its "collision with error." If we know only our own side of the argument, we hardly know even that: it becomes stale, soon learned by rote, untested, a pallid and lifeless truth."​
- Carl Sagan
 
One difference between Wiki-style and this is that in rbutr one person cannot decide that something is rubbish and delete it as they can in Wikipedia. Nor does the rbutr have to be "neutral."
 
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