Frequently Asked Questions

What is this thing anyway?

Argulator is a site that allows people to debate each other over the world wide web.

What's the point? What's wrong with a message board or blog comments?

Think of Argulator as being the moderator of a debate. It doesn't know the meaning of anything, so it's perfectly impartial. Unlike message boards and blog comments, Argulator can actually keep track of which arguments have been refuted and which are still in contention. The idea is that (much like a human moderator) it helps to keep the signal to noise ratio high, the discussion on-topic and prevent devolution into insults and personal attacks.

How does it work?

The most important things in Argulator are statements. A statement is a self-contained sentence which makes some assertion, like 1C: The sky is blue. Statements in Argulator are always displayed like this, with a box surrounding them and an identifying number. Clicking on the number will take you to that statement's page (try it now, then use your browser's back button to return here). Each statement also has a triangle to collapse or expand it (try it now) and occasionally some other elements.

For each statement on Argulator, you can agree with it or disagree with it. You can also argue for it (corroborating it) or against it (refuting it). Argulator keeps track of which statements and arguments have been refuted or corroborated, so you can tell where you need to concentrate your energies to prove your point without repeating yourself. Argulator also keeps track of your opinions and lets you know if they contradict each other.

How do you give your opinion on a statement?

There are radio buttons on each statement's page. Just select the one corresponding to your opinion. You can change your opinion at any time, if you change your mind about a statement. Changing your mind is not a sign of weakness and it doesn't mean that you have "lost" - rational people often change their minds about things when presented with new points of view or new evidence.

What do the different options for opinions mean?

Agree and Disagree - these should be self-explanatory.

Neither - use this if you think the statement is valid as a statement and you have an opinion about it but your opinion is too nuanced to be accurately described by Agree or Disagree (e.g. "it depends", "sometimes", "I haven't made up my mind yet" or "the real answer is not black or white").

None - you haven't expressed an opinion on this statement yet, or you expressed an opinion but withdrew it. Use this is if you genuinely don't know or don't care about the statement, or you think it is not a valid statement and should be deleted.

The colour-coded dots are used as the radio buttons and also appear next to statements that you have expressed an opinion on, to remind you of what opinion you have expressed on each statement.

Why are the statements' backgrounds in different colours?

White backgrounds are for normal statements - statements about the real world. Red, green and blue backgrounds are used for meta-statements (statements about statements).

Green backgrounds are used for statements which are arguments for a particular statement. Red backgrounds are used for statements which are arguments against a particular statement. Blue backgrounds are statements which say that a particular statement should be deleted. In each case, the substatements in question appear in boxes inside these statements' boxes, so it should be easy to tell which statements are being referred to.

Why are the statements' numbers in different colours?

These colours represent the opinions that people have about that statement. It is an easy way to see at a glance what opinions about a statement are generally like:

Mostly "agree" (uncontroversial)	green
Mostly "disagree" (unpopular)	red
Mostly "neither" (complex)	blue
Mostly "agree" or "disagree" (polarizing)	yellow
Mostly "agree" or "neither" (few disagree)	cyan
Mostly "disagree" or "neither" (few agree)	magenta
Equal combination of "agree", "disagree" and "neither" (no consensus)	grey
No opinions expressed	black
Few opinions expressed	darker colours
Many opinions expressed	lighter colours

I have tried to ensure that all possible statement number colours are readable on all possible statement background colours. If you find an illegible combination, you can select it with the mouse to make it more readable.

I am colour blind - can I still use this site?

Yes. You do not need to be able to see in colour to use the site. The colours are a nice addition for those who can use them, but are not essential - all the information given by the colours is available in other formats:

• The text of a statement tells you if it is an argument for, an argument against or a proposal to delete,
• You can see the breakdown of opinions for a statement by clicking on the statement's number to go to that statement's page and
• You can hover over the opinion indicator with the mouse to see your opinion on any statement.

What does it mean when a statement's number is negative?

Whenever you create a statement, you actually create two statements - the statement itself (for example 1C: The sky is blue.) and the negated statement (for example -1R: It is not the case that: The sky is blue.). You can refer to the negated statement corresponding to a statement by adding the minus sign or removing it if it is already there. In a negated statement, the arguments for and against are reversed, the "agree" and "disagree" opinions are swapped and "refuted" is switched with "corroborated".

How do you argue for or against a statement?

You argue for or against a statement by creating arguments. Each argument is itself a statement, and contains one or more sub-statements. For example, if you're making an argument for the statement "The sky is blue," you might say "The sky is blue because it looks blue." In Argulator, this argument looks like this: 3: The statement: 1C: The sky is blue. is true if all these statements are true: 2: The sky looks blue.

Suppose you wish to refute this argument. There are two ways to go about it, you could refute 2, the assertion that the sky looks blue (perhaps it is night time where you are) or you could refute 3, the argument itself (just because the sky looks blue to somebody, it doesn't mean that the sky is blue for everyone).

What does it mean when a statement is "refuted" or "corroborated"?

A statement is refuted if there is at least one unrefuted non-circular argument against it and all arguments for it have been refuted.

A statement is corroborated if there is at least one unrefuted non-circular argument for it and all arguments against it have been refuted.

An argument is refuted if any of its component statements are refuted.

One way to think about this is to imagine that the Argulator itself has an opinion about each statement. These opinions aren't based on any real-world facts or feelings - they come about from accepting any statements which have no arguments for or against them, and making logical deductions based on these.

Another way to think about it is to use this information to determine whether or not a particular side is "losing the debate". If a statement you believe is false is corroborated, you should refute it by refuting the arguments for it, adding a new argument against it or unrefuting one of the existing arguments against it. Conversely, if a statement you believe is true is refuted, you should unrefute it by refuting the arguments against it, adding a new argument for it or unrefuting one of the existing arguments for it. Either way, you need to make more arguments to convince people (and Argulator itself) that you are right.

How do you create a new statement or argument?

There are "new for argument" and "new against argument" boxes on each statement's page - you can just start typing statements into these to create statements and arguments for or against a particular statement. You can also create a new statement that is not part of an argument by typing it into the statement box on the home page. In either case, this brings up a search results pane - in case somebody else has already made that statement you can use this existing statement in your argument instead of creating a new one. You should always use an existing statement instead of creating a new one if the statement you want already exists in order to avoid duplicating arguments.

If none of the search results match what you want, you can create a new statement with the text that you typed.

If you know that the statement you want already exists, you can just type a few key words of it, rather than typing the entire statement.

If you know that the statement you want already exists and you know its number, you can just type that number and the statement text will be filled in automatically - no need to look through the search results.

When creating a new statement or choosing one from the search results, you can either choose the original statement or the negated statement. To avoid double negatives (like "It is not the case that: The sky isn't blue") avoid creating statements with negative clauses.

Can you change a statement once it has been created?

No. This is a deliberate design choice, not a limitation of the software. Suppose this were possible - then you could make a statement, wait for people to express opinions on it and then change the statement so those opinions were no longer valid. Even just fixing a spelling error might cause the meaning of the statement to change as far as some people are concerned. If a statement needs to be changed for whatever reason, propose a deletion and create a new statement instead.

Can you create circular arguments?

Yes. This is deliberate. Removing the ability to create circular arguments would not eliminate circular arguments - people would just create duplicate statements to achieve the same thing. Argument chains would become long and repetitive.

Circular arguments are also useful sometimes - "x implies y" and "y implies x" can both be true if the statements reinforce each other.

In order to make it possible to refute circular arguments, cycles are broken when computing refutation/corroboration status. This is achieved by discounting arguments that include the statement whose refutation/corroboration status is being computed.

What is the process for deleting a statement?

If you see a statement that you feel should be deleted, press the "delete" button on its page. Or, if there is already a deletion statement in a blue box on the page, change your opinion on this deletion statement to "Agree". Some statements cannot be deleted.

If a deletion statement has been created and the number of "agree" opinions minus the number of "disagree" opinions on it is greater than the number of opinions on the parent statement, the statement is deleted.

When deleting a statement:

• The child deletion statement and any other child deletion statements or child arguments of it are also deleted.
• Any arguments containing the statement are deleted.
• Other statements which might only be accessible from it are not deleted - they can be used for other arguments.

What are the acceptable reasons for deleting a statement?

1. It's not actually a statement ("Eat at Joes" is not allowed. "Joes is the best place to eat" is allowed, though Argulator might not be the best place to advertise, since people might disagree with your advertisement).
2. It's a duplicate of another statement.
3. It's misspelled (you can't change a statement once it's been created, so you have to delete it and create a new one that is spelled correctly).
4. It's badly worded.
5. It's ambiguous.
6. It's phrased in the negative sense, so the negated statement has a double negative.
7. It's not self-contained.

What does "I" or "me" in a statement mean?

The first person is the person reading the statement, not the person writing it. This means you can use statements and opinions to find out about people - for instance, you can create a statement that says "I like the music of Bob Dylan" and people can agree or disagree depending on their musical tastes. This makes subjective statements possible. Most statements are objective (e.g. "The music of Bob Dylan is the best in the world") which can be argued with.

What if I want to refer to a particular Argulator user in a statement?

You can do this by including that user's username in the text of the statement, like this: "{anonymous} creates a lot of statements."

How does Argulator determine whether opinions are contradictory or not?

If you agree with all the statements that make up an argument (including the argument statement itself) then Argulator records a special, hidden opinion for the statement that is being argued for or against ("agree" if the argument is a "for" argument and "disagree" if the argument is an "against" argument). These hidden opinions do not appear in the radio buttons on that statement's page, but do count in the opinion statistics, are shown on the statement's page as "Argulator thinks your opinion on this statement should be x", and do count in the computation of other hidden opinions. If your real opinion on a statement does not match this hidden opinion, it is a contradiction.

What happens if you have contradictory opinions?

There will be a bar at the top of the screen pointing out that you have contradictory opinions and telling you what you need to do to fix them. You have to fix the contradiction. Until you do, none of your opinions will count and you won't be able to create any new statements or arguments. If you look closely at the contradictory statements and think about what they mean, you're sure to find at least one that you've changed your mind on, or that you said "agree" or "disagree" to when you really meant "neither agree nor disagree".

This treatment may seem harsh, but we want to force people to really think about their opinions - if someone has contradictory opinions it means that they haven't really thought things through.

How do you link to information outside Argulator from a statement?

Just include the URL as part of the statement text - Argulator will turn it into a clickable link. When referring to external sites, please bear in mind that information on external sites is not under Argulator's control, and can be changed, potentially changing the meaning of a statement and invalidating both opinions expressed on it and arguments for or against it. For this reason, it is recommended to link to a site via an archive such as:
The Internet Archive (doesn't include recent changes to a page)
WebCite
backupURL
FreezePage

What do you aim to achieve with this site?

Ideally, we'd like to create world peace and harmony for all humankind.

Failing that, we'd like to change some peoples' minds about some things.

Failing that, we'd like to make it possible for two people who disagree about something to figure out exactly where they disagree and why, and to suggest how they could resolve that difference, and to do all this without the debate devolving into personal attacks, insults or violence.

Why "argulator"?

Web 2.0 has been defined as "a living term describing changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web". But we really know that it means "all the good domain names were gone, so we had to make up silly words to call our websites instead".

Argulator is a portmanteau word from "arguing" (meaning "arguing") and "turboencabulator" (meaning "contraption"). Other names I liked were "Heart of the Matter", "Debatabase", "Common Ground" and "The Great Debate" but these were all taken. I think and hope that this name is memorable and searchable.