Post Links to Facebook with the Rational Button

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Do you like to post links to Facebook?  If you do, the Rational Button makes it really easy for you to post anything you see on the web to Facebook.  Get the Rational Button here.  Here’s how it works:

While browsing the internet, you come across an article, video, etc. that you think is a well thought out, rational source for your opinions.  Click the Rational Button on your browser toolbar to bring up a window to post it:

Choose which Opinion Board to post to, enter some comments if you want and click the Add Post button

If your account is connected to Facebook, you can post the article to Facebook right from here!  In the screenshot above, the Facebook icon is checked, so the link will be posted on Facebook.  Don’t want to post the article to Facebook?  Simple, just uncheck the Facebook icon.

If you decide to post to Facebook, here’s what it will look like on your timeline:

Here’s what the post will look like on Facebook.  The ‘R’ icon is my Facebook profile picture.  If you post, your profile pic will be there instead of the ‘R’.

It will look exactly the same as if you copied and pasted the URL in your status update bar on Facebook.  The only difference is the ‘via TheRationalDebate’ text at the bottom.

If you already have an account on TheRationalDebate but haven’t connected to Facebook yet, use the Rational Button to post something.  The window will give you the option to connect your account:

if you haven’t connected to Facebook, click the Facebook icon to connect!

If you don’t have an account on TheRationalDebate and you want to get started, the easiest way is to sign up using the ‘Sign In with Facebook’ button.  Click the Facebook button to sign up and connect your account to Facebook in one step!

Hit the Rational Button

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When you’re browsing the web and you read or watch something that you want to remember as a source for your opinions, what do you do?  You’d like to remember it and organize it somehow, but how can you do that so it’s separate from all the other bookmarks that you have?  The answer is simple – post it to your Opinion Board on TheRationalDebate.  This is now easier than ever: you can click a Rational button on your browser toolbar to post it directly to your Opinion Board.  Get the Rational button here!  Here’s an example of how it works:

A friend of mine posted an article to Twitter from The Economist, and while reading it I thought it was really good article that I will want to remember as a source for my opinion on vaccines.  So, to add this article to my Opinion Board, I can simply click the Rational button on my browser toolbar:

Check out the Rational button

Clicking the Rational button causes a window to appear right on the page:

I can post the article to my board without even leaving the webpage!

Now I simply pick the Opinion Board I want to post the article to (or I can create a new board if I want), add my comments and click the ‘Add Post’ button and it’s done!

Wow – that was easy!

Once the post is created, I can either click the link to check out my Opinion Board, or simply close the window to go back to reading the article.  Easy!  The screenshots above show the Rational button in Firefox, but it’s also been tested with Internet Explorer 8+, Chrome, Safari, and Opera.

Get the Rational button for your browser and start bookmarking rational sources out on the web today!

If you’re curious about seeing my Opinion Board on vaccines, check it out here.  If you agree with me, sign in or sign up and repost my sources to your board to get started.  If you disagree, I’ve yet to see any rational arguments against vaccinations, so let’s see your Opinion Board!

Organize Your Sources and Opinions on TheRationalDebate

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It’s really tough to compose a well thought out rational argument without choosing reliable sources and organizing them somehow.  With that in mind, how do you organize your sources and opinions?  While thinking about this after TheRationalDebate launched earlier this year, I realized that a great addition to the site would be something that lets you organize your sources and opinions.  I’m happy to announce that you can now use TheRationalDebate to do exactly this by using the new Opinion Board feature!

How Opinion Boards Work

You can post any URL to your boards on TheRationalDebate.  It can be a blog article, a YouTube video, or even an argument that you find on TheRationalDebate. If it has a URL, it can be posted.  For example, let’s say you want to organize your opinion on global warming.  So you’re browsing the web, and you come across a great article from NOAA on some recently published research.   Simply post the URL of the article to your global warming board.  You can do this by copying and pasting the URL, but in the future, you’ll be able to use a browser toolbar icon.  As you do this for other pages on the web, your board will help you cultivate your sources and learn more about the subject.

The homepage on TheRationalDebate has changed to show a site-wide feed of Opinion Board posts. As you’re reading what other people have posted, you may find something that you want to post too.  You can do this really easily by reposting the URL to your board.  Just click the  icon to repost.

Using Opinion Boards to Organize and Share Your Opinions

Use your boards to bolster your opinions before creating a rational argument, or use the board to help form your opinion if you’re not yet sure.  Either way, now that you’ve organized your sources, the next time you’re discussing global warming with a friend, all of the sources that help form your opinion will be organized in one spot.  You can even share your board with your friend on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook.  The basic building block of a rational, well thought out argument is credible sources based on facts.  The next time you’re arguing an issue with someone, ask to see your friend’s opinion board when they cite facts they heard “somewhere”.  And be ready with sources on your boards.

Opinion Boards are not limited to global warming or politics.  You can create as many boards as you want for whatever you want.  Are you a teacher?  Create education boards that track sources for how you think your school can be improved. Do you love sports? Create a board on why you think the Cubs will be a contender in the next few years.  It’s really up to you – create Opinion Boards for anything.

What’s Next for Opinion Boards

There are many updates planned for Opinion Boards, including Facebook integration, the ability to ‘follow’ another person’s boards, and a browser plugin that will let you post to your boards right from you browser toolbar.  As you’re using your new Opinion Boards, I’d love to hear your thoughts on what we should add. Get started creating your Opinion Boards and then let us know what you’d suggest to make it better.  Let us know in the comments, or contact us.

Creating Issues on TheRationalDebate.com

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While browsing issues on TheRationalDebate.com, you may think of an issue that doesn’t exist yet on the site.  If you’re a member of the site, you can create any issue you want to debate!  TheRationalDebate allows you to debate any issue that matters to you.  On the site now, there are issues ranging from who should win the presidential election in 2012, health care, global warming, college tuition costs, and steroids in baseball. If you can  debate it rationally, then it can be created on TheRationalDebate.

First, just so you’re sure that the issue you want to debate doesn’t already exist, run a few searches to see if someone else already created the issue you want to debate.  Searching is easy.  At the top of every page, you’ll see a search box:

Just type what you want to search for, hit enter and the search results page will appear with your results.  If you can’t find what you’re looking for, there’s a link at the top of the page that will let you create a new issue:

That link will bring up a page that will let you create your issue to debate.  That’s it!  Once you’ve created your issue, use the sharing controls at the top of the page to get the word out on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook.  If you have an argument you want to add to your issue, check out this post on how to create arguments!

Creating Arguments on TheRationalDebate.com

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Today, I’m going to briefly overview how to create arguments on TheRationalDebate. It’s easy! First, if you haven’t watched it already, there is a video on the about page that will show you how to find issues that interest you.

While you’re browsing these issues, start to think about the reactions you have for the different topics, positions, and arguments. For a lot of the issues, you may already know which position you will vote for. The more important question though, is why? For example, if someone came up to you and said, “Why should (or shouldn’t) Senator / Congressperson / Governor X be president”, what would you tell him/her? The answer to this question is the basis for your argument. In today’s society, where people argue issues via sound bites, attack ads, or fallacious arguments, I think that well thought out arguments are much more convincing and worthwhile. This isn’t only true for the presidential election this year, but also for global warming, the energy crisis, and whether or not the government should be doing more to reduce the rich/poor gap.

If you’ve made it this far, the hard part is over.  Actually creating the argument on TheRationalDebate is easy. For the sake of this article, let’s say you want to argue for a candidate for the 2012 presidential election. To start creating your argument, simply go to the issue page and click the ‘Add an Argument’ button below the voting area:

The page that appears will give you some pointers on how to create a good argument, and a link will be available to show the argument form. The first piece of information to fill out is what side you’re arguing for:

The select box will default for you based on what you were reading previously, but you can change it. Next, give your argument any title you like. Your actual argument will go in the box labeled ‘Text’ below.

While writing your argument, you may find it helpful for you to use the formatting buttons available in the toolbar. Beyond the typical bold, italics, and underline formatting tools, you can also add links, bulleted lists, numbered lists and quotes. Use the  button to quote text from other sources. This way we’ll know to display the quoted text differently in the context of your argument. While writing your argument, you can also use the  button to put the editor in full screen! Just click it again to go back to normal. When you’re finished, click the ‘Add Argument’ button to save and add your argument to the site.

Once your argument is on the site, you’ll want to get other members to award it. We’ll keep track of your awards count next to a trophy icon like this:  x 23.  Why is this important?  If there’s more than one argument on the page, we order the arguments based on the number of awards, so use the Twitter, Google+, and Facebook sharing controls to share your argument with your friends!

TheRationalDebate and the Irrational Icon

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When I talk about how TheRationalDebate works, the question invariably comes up – “That sounds great, but what if someone marks my comment as irrational just because they don’t agree with me?”  It’s a valid concern, but also one that I’ve thought through a lot while designing how the site works.  If you haven’t yet, check out what TheRationalDebate is all about and read about how site members can mark arguments as irrational.  To recap, if you see an argument that is irrational, meaning it contains fallacies or is not citing sources for facts, you can add an irrational flag to the argument by clicking the  icon and indicating why.  If enough people agree with you, the argument is hidden from the site.

So the question is, how am I preventing someone from marking your argument as irrational if it’s not?  First, I’d like to think that this isn’t a problem that we’ll encounter a lot.  If you’ve read about what TheRationalDebate is all about, you can see that I’m trying to appeal to rational people and build a community of people who respect other’s opinions, even if they disagree.  You wouldn’t mark an argument irrational even if it isn’t, right?  I think we can build a community of rational people that value good arguments and understand that an argument, even if it contradicts their own views, is a good argument if it cites reputable sources and avoids fallacies.

But, as we all know – this is the internet, right?  As much as I’d like to rely solely on the community, I know the site needs to have safeguards in place to prevent people from abusing the irrational icon:

  1. If only one person marks an argument as irrational, the argument is not hidden.  The site employs an algorithm to figure out when an argument is actually hidden from view.  I can tweak how this works easily over time.  This way, if we find that arguments are being hidden too soon, or not soon enough, we can change some settings to make the site respond better to the community.
  2. If your argument is hidden, you can make an appeal.  If you’re interested in how this works, check out the about page again.  There’s even a video that shows you how to make an appeal.  If your argument isn’t irrational in the first place, then appealing will be an easy, quick process.  But, maybe your argument does actually contain a fallacy or two, or maybe you forgot to cite a source.  If this is the case, make some edits to improve your argument, appeal, and once your appeal is approved your argument will be shown again.

Let me know what you think in the comments.  Do you have any concerns that the irrationality feature of the site will be a problem?

Are We the Real Problem with Media Today?

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Larry Womack wrote an article earlier this week over at the Huffington Post titled: The Real Problem With Media Today? The Audience.  One of the main points of the article is that most reporters and media outlets don’t actually go through that much effort, if any at all, to check facts that their sources give them.  The reason?  Because it’s much more profitable not to, and we (the public) don’t really want the facts anyway.

But none of this would matter if delivering hard news actually made financial sense. If people made money reporting real news, believe me, they’d report it. The real problem is there’s no money in truth. And the fault for that lies with the you and me, the audience.

The article triggered a Google Alert I have set up, and while reading it I thought “Hey – a lot of the points he’s bringing up in this article are reasons why I created TheRationalDebate in the first place!”  Whether or not you agree with Larry, I’d like to focus on some quotes from his article, and post my thoughts on how it relates to why I created TheRationalDebate.

All quotes in this article are from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-womack/the-real-problem-with-the_1_b_1207888.html

… you’ve probably noticed that a great many people on [the internet] respond to correction or presentation of fact with anger and even more deeply entrenched — if demonstrably incorrect — views. Just take a look at the comments on any given web site; the angrier or more dismissive one is, the less likely it is to be based in reality.  Just take a look at the comments on any given web site; the angrier or more dismissive one is, the less likely it is to be based in reality.

The last part of this quote is exactly what I’m trying to avoid.  With TheRationalDebate, I think we can have a community of people who rationally discuss issues and can comment on opposing arguments without resorting to irrational behavior.  The community having the power to hide irrational arguments and comments, no anonymous arguing and commenting, and the overall tone of the site are a key components to what we’re trying to do at TheRationalDebate.

That is what the most profitable news sources too often provide: a steady stream of reinforcement without fear of making the audience ever genuinely feel like they might be wrong about some political opinion.

…too many of us seek out only that information (be it true or untrue) that reinforces our prejudices, reassuring our fantasy selves that we are, indeed, champions of all that is right and just.

It’s hard today to find really good arguments on all sides of an issue.  Most media outlets will try to appear non-biased by throwing a line or two dedicated to the other site, but usually it’s pretty clear which side is “correct” in their opinion.  Media outlets know that it’s easier, cheaper, and more profitable to simply tell you what you want to hear.  At TheRationalDebate, this is exactly what I’m trying to fix by building a community of rational people providing really great arguments for all sides of an issue in one spot.

So – what can you do?  If you have some really great arguments on important issues today, sign up and post them!  If you don’t want to create arguments, that’s ok!  You can still sign up to vote and comment on issues. If you know someone who does have really great arguments invite them to join in.  My last post has instructions on how you can invite others to TheRationalDebate.

I believe that we can make discussing issues better on the internet today, let’s get started!