In an effort to make rbutr more inclusive of all opinions, we are going to revise some of our language.
I have noticed, particularly when using the Tweet Reply Widget, that the phrase “has been rebutted” tends to be a little more confronting than we really want it to be. Even though ‘rebutted’ is technically correct – ie: Someone has responded with an attempt to prove it wrong using evidence and/or logic (as opposed to refuted, which implies they have succeeded in their attempt) – most people don’t dig on getting in to linguistic nuances in twitter. Also, people tend to react emotionally on first impressions, rather than taking the time to check intentions…
So from now on, instead of tweeting “The page you just shared has been rebutted”, we’re going to change it to “Someone has responded to the page you just tweeted”. This is clearly much more inviting to the person receiving the tweet, and conveys an inclusion in the discussion, inviting them to read and perhaps even respond themselves. The prior, on the other hand, would make most feel judged for sharing a page which ‘we’ have obviously judged as wrong.
So this is the most obvious and direct change which we are implementing because it is our main interaction with non-rbutr-users. In general though, we are going to start watching ourselves and start trying to avoid ever using the word ‘rebuttal’. Again, even though it is completely accurate on a technical sense, it just isn’t inclusive. Instead we will always refer to how one page responds to the other.
What about ‘rbutr’ though – doesn’t it mean Rebutter?
Yes, so rebuttals will still forever be a part of our identity, but we will capture that with some new terminology which we will start using. Now we will refer to the two halves of a rbutr link as ‘the rbutd’, and ‘the rbutl’. The rbutl responds to the claims made in the rbutd.
So yes, these terms are clearly revealing the intention of the app, but just obfuscating it within rbutr terminology within our system. They also don’t refer to the content of the URLs being linked to, they refer to the entities within our system. This nuance will almost certainly be lost on most people, but it works for us, and helps us keep things separated.
We can also refer to the submitter of the link as the rbutr. Though I also wonder if we should call the link itself ‘the rbutr’; ie: a rbutr consists of a rbutl which responds to a rbutd. But that is really getting away from the real meaning of rebutter (which would be the the person or tool who/which rebuts).
Yes I spend too much time thinking about crap like this 🙂
Speaking of rbuts, we have just revised our use of the word rebuttal at rbutr…
http://t.co/Yvxd7068gt
Is it possible to disable that great big rbutr alert that pops up? Or at least have it not show up after the first time? Some idiot has posted one for Reddit and now every time I go there I get an annoying notification that I’ve already seen way too many times.
Sorry, my bad. We need to fix that, and it has been in our list for a long time – I’ll get the reddit one deactivated until we do fix it.
It already has 3 downvotes – as soon as it reaches 4? or 5? it will stop being displayed. Clearly you aren’t the only person annoyed by it 🙂
Seriously though, I’ve been pulling for a limit on displays per page per account because there are so many arguments out there against broad companies – against Google, against PayPal etc. We want to be able to list all of them too, but we haven’t added any for the same reasons as we just saw with Reddit – because it will get annoying.
PS: Problem solved. Downvoted off the homepage.
“PS: Problem solved. Downvoted off the homepage.”
Which is a shame because it’s actually a reasonable point, and the little red subscript on the rbutr icon is very handy. It’s just the popup that’s the problem. Needs to be for “New Rebuttal” rather than “Rebuttals Exist”.
Yes, absolutely, which is what we want to implement, but these days, even the smallest changes have unintended consequences and take forever to implement. (this will require setting up a system which counts how many times you have viewed a page to determine whether it is new or not).
We’re moving servers soon (another thing which has had unexpected complications) and as soon as that roadblock is done, hopefully we will suddenly have a heap of new patches released (and firefox too!)
Sweet, glad you’re on it.
hi shane I found a new Rbutr issue and ended up here 😉
Example is link #6727: http://rbutr.com/rbutr/WebsiteServlet?requestType=showLink&linkId=6727
zappos (Apr 2012) is pre- “responded to” by fayerplay (Feb 2012)
The non-linguistical issue is that “response” link at fayerplay has moved.
From: fayerplay.com/2012/02/lets-get-personal/
To: http://fayerplay.com/lets-get-personal/ [no date in URL anymore]
Rbutr will want a way to report these dead rebuttals/responses. Pls 🙂
For now I just commented on the link. I think maybe that (only) notifies the user who linked it last year — hopefully that user is still active! Rbut doesnt look like it to me.
Cheers & gl with thinking more about this stuff 😀
– @blamer on twitter ..
new thought: On terminology.
You’ve cleverly ended with “the tool who rebuts” — oh sweet irony, this is exactly your point I think. ie, the accidental (almost) name-calling 😛
Imho here’s 1 possible “euphemistic” side-step to our close-to unavoidable rbutr.com “taunt” of: a rbutR has rbutD with a rbutL !!!
i) the rebutL is our “counter-point”, be it a specific criticism Vs a general skepticism
ii) which makes the rebutD the original blogger’s “point”
iii) the rebutR could well be the person or post taking issue via rbutr.com.. though as a community we might want our language to focus on the rbutR is the posts (arguments) that disagree with each other, rather than the posters (people) using rbutr.com to fling evidence/criticism at each “rbutR” (post/person inside the rbutr system)
peace.