2010-08-10 17:00:26Suggestion - "launching" each basic rebuttal as a blog post
John Cook

john@skepticalscience...
121.222.17.49

Quick status report - over next day, am looking to update the Rebuttal List page so you can all start adding your basic rebuttals to the database. Next step after that, reprogram the front end so they can go live. So not that far away from this all hitting the cold hard light of day :-)

What does everyone think of this idea - when a new Basic rebuttal is ready to go live, we also post it up as a blog post. Some of the benefits of this:

  • Let's people know a basic version is now available for that particular argument
  • Blog posts are another form of useful "blog review" (eg - peer-review) as Stephan Lewandowsky found out, posting a preview of his radio podcast then using comments to review his content
  • You can never be too repetitive in getting the message across so this is another way of getting it out there - plus the inevitable retweeting, facebooking, links from other blogs, etc will further reinforce the messages in the rebuttal
  • It's a way to remind people what we're doing. Start each basic rebuttal blog post with "This is the basic version of the "Skeptic argument title" rebuttal" then perhaps at the bottom, I could put a green box explaining the whole process further, perhaps request for more authors.

Just some thoughts running through my head. Any other comments on the blog post idea?

2010-08-10 17:26:46I'm for it personally
gpwayne
Graham Wayne
graham@gpwayne...
81.132.177.33
Yup - think that's a good idea. The basic versions may be helpful to those unclear about the issues, or those arguing them may like a concise version they can send on to others or repost.
2010-08-13 05:42:19Yes!
doug_bostrom

dbostrom@clearwire...
184.77.83.151

Particularly like the \"tempering by fire\" notion. If there are any little problems we can be sure volunteer reviewers will point them out.

One thought/reservation is, what happens to the comments thread? There was some discussion about whether threads from various levels of treatment should be forked or monolithic. I strongly lean to \"monolithic.\" Can comment threads from the blog posts be unified w/the static topics? (I mean, Iÿ'm sure they can be if somebody grinds on code long enough but...)