arguments.com - Collaborators wanted

[RealP]

I want to create a profitable web platform for a community of people who want to:

• structure Arguments in a visually attractive way
• share Arguments with other members
• comment or rebutt other members' Arguments

 

My vision is a fun tool that people can use to learn to think more rigorously, find joy in a learning process that can be very frustrating at times, and learn to see other members as fellow seekers of truth.

 

My mission is to save civilization by making the Argument accessible and engaging to as many people as possible, particularly people with low IQ.

 

I am looking for people with technical abilities and ideas to help me with this project. Thank you for your consideration.

[Frederik]

What's the difference to http://www.debate.org/ ?

[Fashus Maximus]

What's the difference to fdr?

[RealP]

On 11/8/2017 at 12:29 AM, Fred Black Fox said:

What's the difference to http://www.debate.org/ ?

The difference is that my app would be for making arguments, not debates. You would make an argument in a visual way (I'm thinking some form of mind mapping), and then other people would provide supporting or contradicting evidence to your propositions, or point logical errors out.

[RealP]

On 11/8/2017 at 2:07 AM, Fashus Maximus said:

What's the difference to fdr?

The format. I believe - and have yet to test - that a more visual format, such as a mind map of some sort, would be more useful in clarifying thoughts than plain text.

[Fashus Maximus]

5 hours ago, RealP said:

The format. I believe - and have yet to test - that a more visual format, such as a mind map of some sort, would be more useful in clarifying thoughts than plain text.

oh wow, I see what you're getting at. That sounds like a very interesting concept. Have you considered that maybe you can create it as a plugin for the FDR forum? I believe they are using CKEditor as the word processor, so I'd say add a tab to the bar, and run your plugin when clicked. 

Cuz that would definitely be more efficient than investing a lot of money to gain the user base that you already have right here...

[RealP]

3 hours ago, Fashus Maximus said:

oh wow, I see what you're getting at. That sounds like a very interesting concept. Have you considered that maybe you can create it as a plugin for the FDR forum? I believe they are using CKEditor as the word processor, so I'd say add a tab to the bar, and run your plugin when clicked. 

Cuz that would definitely be more efficient than investing a lot of money to gain the user base that you already have right here...

Thank you. I did consider integrating into the FDR forum, but I'd rather it were a separate platform, because not only do I want to attract FDR people, but a wider subset of society.

I want to hire or partner with a programmer to create a MVP.

[Frederik]

I am curious about your project.

What would the arguments be about? Do you intend a focus on politics, metaphysics, ethics, etc.?

What is your reasoning behind your goal to save western civilization with arguments as opposed to, say, peaceful parenting, therapy, etc.? I'm not trying to criticize, I am just curious about your thoughts on it

Through which channels do you intend to gain income?

Thanks!

[RealP]

20 hours ago, Fred Black Fox said:

I am curious about your project.

What would the arguments be about? Do you intend a focus on politics, metaphysics, ethics, etc.?

What is your reasoning behind your goal to save western civilization with arguments as opposed to, say, peaceful parenting, therapy, etc.? I'm not trying to criticize, I am just curious about your thoughts on it

Through which channels do you intend to gain income?

Thanks!

Thank you for your curiosity about my project, and your questions, Fred.

Users will decide which arguments to make, on whichever topic they choose.

The idea is to facilitate a collaborative process of finding truth, making it fun for everybody involved. Fun, to pierce through our defense mechanisms and do something productive.

Regarding income, it could either be donation-based, or a freemium system.

If this sounds interesting to you, I invite you to join me. 

[barn]

Hi @RealP

I'm not trying to sound like a naysayer by saying a 'watered down simili' isn't needed currently... am I?

Perhaps I am, nevertheless it can be useful to you in solidifying your concept you're considering...

The reason (amongst others) for why visual mindmap-like concept wouldn't work / why videos-podcasts-presentations with a narrative are a greater success; lies in their more suitable format regarding the needs of the community, taste.... as I see it.

You can't transmit non-verbal cues, indicators of word-stress&intonation and while it could serve as a great brain storming in formulating an argument = wouldn't it be lacking in reach for it's shortfalls?

How many and to what degree similar apps have attracted a considerable amount of people? (there's already a free mindmap creator for presentations, isn't highly popular amongst 'the thinkers' but works like a charm in creating cloud-based = mobility visuals, - prezi. com-)

Would your app stand out enough to not appear as somewhat a semi-novel variation of a crossover to a great degree?

many more questions I could ask...

Have you done your market research?

Prototypes?

All the best,

more power to you!

Barnsley

Edited November 22, 2017 by barn
dooh... grammar mistakes, 1 reference

[RealP]

8 hours ago, barn said:

Hi @RealP

I'm not trying to sound like a naysayer by saying a 'watered down simili' isn't needed currently... am I?

Perhaps I am, nevertheless it can be useful to you in solidifying your concept you're considering...

The reason (amongst others) for why visual mindmap-like concept wouldn't work / why videos-podcasts-presentations with a narrative are a greater success; lies in their more suitable format regarding the needs of the community, taste.... as I see it.

You can't transmit non-verbal cues, indicators of word-stress&intonation and while it could serve as a great brain storming in formulating an argument = wouldn't it be lacking in reach for it's shortfalls?

How many and to what degree similar apps have attracted a considerable amount of people? (there's already a free mindmap creator for presentations, isn't highly popular amongst 'the thinkers' but works like a charm in creating cloud-based = mobility visuals, - prezi. com-)

Would your app stand out enough to not appear as somewhat a semi-novel variation of a crossover to a great degree?

many more questions I could ask...

Have you done your market research?

Prototypes?

All the best,

more power to you!

Barnsley

Thank you for your questions, Barnsley.

It wouldn't be a mindmap per se, but a graphical representation of premises and the actual logical reasoning. The challenge is to make all of this entertaining enough to be engaging. Even if it were a mindmap with general applications, I think that marketing it as a tool for rational argumentation would be a good idea.

With regard to market research, I'm open to ideas. I'm thinking of creating a poll here in the FDR Boards, Facebook group, etc. Just FDR listeners alone are a huge potential market.

Prototypes - I'm in contact with some software people interested in the project with the objective of partnering to create a MVP.

Any other questions, suggestions, criticisms are more than welcome!

Thank you again.

[Jot]

Did you check the availability and price of the domain? .com stuff is usually crazy expensive 

[barn]

8 hours ago, RealP said:

It wouldn't be a mindmap per se, but a graphical representation of premises and the actual logical reasoning. The challenge is to make all of this entertaining enough to be engaging. Even if it were a mindmap with general applications, I think that marketing it as a tool for rational argumentation would be a good idea.

Good luck cracking that issue!

8 hours ago, RealP said:

With regard to market research, I'm open to ideas.

Dooh... Haven't done it yet? Ookei?!

8 hours ago, RealP said:

Prototypes - I'm in contact with some software people interested in the project with the objective of partnering to create a MVP.

I might be reading it wrong, but are you saying basically = not yet, as of a prototype?

Hmmm... adding up all the prior... would my assertion as to the stage you're in being, well, sort of, as a matter of wording.... initial, very much? (no intention to sound or be condescending, just a bit disappointed and worry some)

8 hours ago, RealP said:

Any other questions, suggestions, criticisms are more than welcome!

Would it help if I asked you :

8 hours ago, RealP said:

How many and to what degree similar apps have attracted a considerable amount of people?

and

Have you made a marketing plan?

also

Have you developed a prototype?

furthermore

Is this a hobby of yours?

I hope I could ask meaningful questions.

Barnsley

 

[Spladam]

Just now, Jot said:

Did you check the availability and price of the domain? .com stuff is usually crazy expensive 

Yeah, .com domains are pretty expensive, but if it's a freemium or donations based site, then something like a .net or .act could be used. Also, .co as opposed to .com could also be a cheaper option.

[Frederik]

How are .com domains expensive? I bought mine for 5 or 10 bucks I think.

I believe it's more about what kind of domain name it is, right?

How much have you guys paid?

[Jot]

4 hours ago, Fred Black Fox said:

How are .com domains expensive? I bought mine for 5 or 10 bucks I think.

I believe it's more about what kind of domain name it is, right?

How much have you guys paid?

That is really interesting, is your domain name a common noun?. Frankly, I am not an expert on domains but I think .com domains are almost always more expensive than .net, .info, .(anything)

Apparently, arguments.com is not available, it is owned by someone but it is parked which usually means that the owner is disposed to sell it and if we are really interested in this we should ask for a quote from the guy but I am afraid he will ask for quite a big sum since it is such an incredibly common and relatively short word.

[Frederik]

40 minutes ago, Jot said:

That is really interesting, is your domain name a common noun?. Frankly, I am not an expert on domains but I think .com domains are almost always more expensive than .net, .info, .(anything)

No, it's not a common noun. For as long as your name is unique, domains will not have to cost you more than 20 bucks.

I don't even think it is particularly clever to set up a website without a unique name for reasons of brand recognition.

 

Examples of prices from iPage:

[Jot]

1 hour ago, Fred Black Fox said:

No, it's not a common noun. For as long as your name is unique, domains will not have to cost you more than 20 bucks.

I don't even think it is particularly clever to set up a website without a unique name for reasons of brand recognition.

 

Examples of prices from iPage:

 

I am confused what you mean by "name". From the little that I know about domains I am under the impression that domain names cannot be anything else but unique. For example, it is impossible for someone to buy google.com or freedomainradio.com because someone else already owns them.

[Frederik]

18 minutes ago, Jot said:

I am confused what you mean by "name". From the little that I know about domains I am under the impression that domain names cannot be anything else but unique. For example, it is impossible for someone to buy google.com or freedomainradio.com because someone else already owns them.

Oh, sure. I have not expressed myself very clearly.

I meant that a simple noun generally has less potential to become a recognized brand. Successful beverages are not called "Sprinkly" or "Refreshing", but "Coke" and "Pepsi" – invented words.

I'm sure you now get what I mean

[Jot]

13 minutes ago, Fred Black Fox said:

Oh, sure. I have not expressed myself very clearly.

I meant that a simple noun generally has less potential to become a recognized brand. Successful beverages are not called "Sprinkly" or "Refreshing", but "Coke" and "Pepsi" – invented words.

I'm sure you now get what I mean

Yeah, I do and thank you for bringing this up, it is quite interesting to think about. It does seem to me that the most successful brands and websites have non-generic brand names/website names. The example of "videos.com" vs "youtube.com" comes to mind...

I am wondering what accounts for that...on the flipside, I can think of counterexamples as well. "dictionary.com" appears to be the most successful online dictionary and has the most generic name possible, also apparently all the successful online dictionaries appear to have struggled to incorporate the word "dictionary" in their name. 

[Frederik]

On 11/24/2017 at 7:29 PM, Jot said:

Yeah, I do and thank you for bringing this up, it is quite interesting to think about. It does seem to me that the most successful brands and websites have non-generic brand names/website names. The example of "videos.com" vs "youtube.com" comes to mind...

I am wondering what accounts for that...on the flipside, I can think of counterexamples as well. "dictionary.com" appears to be the most successful online dictionary and has the most generic name possible, also apparently all the successful online dictionaries appear to have struggled to incorporate the word "dictionary" in their name. 

Well, I think we first have to recognize that there are only so many words in the dictionary itself, right? And the percentage of words which could potentially serve as a brand name is miniscule I would assume.

What I mean so say by that is we can't tell from the empiricism of brand names whether companies actually prefer unique words or common words, right?

But for example, I find Freedomain Radio a very good name. It's actually describing many qualities of what it is, and I associate..

Free Domain ~ We, the community within this domain, are free, and we share freely. Freedom is important to us.

Radio ~ It's kind of a Radio show, which it is.

Plus, it doesn't have too many syllables because I find Radio goes off as one (Free-Do-main-Radio), which I think is very important (note how few syllables there are in Coke, Pepsi, Apple, Tesla, Fanta, Ford, Bayer, even Mercedes or Microsoft). Proctor & Gamble on the other hand is too long, which is why they make P&G out of it...

I know I am by no means proving anything and in that sense it's a bit ridiculous, because I could just as well choose very long and unfortunate brand names that are still well known... But I just think that these catchy brands have the most potential to become literally branded into the collective unconscious.

That being said, I think just as debate.org is a good brand name for that, arguments.com were suiting for this project, too.

[Jot]

On 11/26/2017 at 12:23 PM, Fred Black Fox said:

Well, I think we first have to recognize that there are only so many words in the dictionary itself, right? And the percentage of words which could potentially serve as a brand name is miniscule I would assume.

What I mean so say by that is we can't tell from the empiricism of brand names whether companies actually prefer unique words or common words, right?

But for example, I find Freedomain Radio a very good name. It's actually describing many qualities of what it is, and I associate..

Free Domain ~ We, the community within this domain, are free, and we share freely. Freedom is important to us.

Radio ~ It's kind of a Radio show, which it is.

Plus, it doesn't have too many syllables because I find Radio goes off as one (Free-Do-main-Radio), which I think is very important (note how few syllables there are in Coke, Pepsi, Apple, Tesla, Fanta, Ford, Bayer, even Mercedes or Microsoft). Proctor & Gamble on the other hand is too long, which is why they make P&G out of it...

I know I am by no means proving anything and in that sense it's a bit ridiculous, because I could just as well choose very long and unfortunate brand names that are still well known... But I just think that these catchy brands have the most potential to become literally branded into the collective unconscious.

That being said, I think just as debate.org is a good brand name for that, arguments.com were suiting for this project, too.

I understood your reasoning for why you think freedomainradio is a good domain name but I will tell you why I disagree. 

I think that if you are a someone whose business is created around his personality/intellect people firstly associate any service or content you are creating with your name since your mind/personality/charisma is why people are interested in you, you literally are "the brand" in contrast with business whose products/services/content is not dependent on who the leader is; everyone knows about Coca-cola but how many know who the CEO is? A really small percentage and this is because it doesn't really matter to their customers who the CEO is.

My theory seems to be supported by Alex's numbers:https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/freedomainradio.com#trafficstats

Top Keywords from Search Engines

Which search keywords send traffic to this site?

Keyword	Percent of Search Traffic
1.  stefan molyneux	51.27%
2.  freedomain radio	4.53%
3.  free domain radio	1.39%
4.  free domain	1.11%
5.  stefan molyneaux

I also think that what creates the need for original brand names is the competition in that field. If you have a chocolate bar I dont think it would be a good strategy to call your product "chocolate bar" since there are so many of those out there, instead I think it is wise to choose a name that sets you apart from your market shared competition and come up with names such as "Lion" or "Mars" or "Twix" etc.

[Frederik]

5 hours ago, Jot said:

I understood your reasoning for why you think freedomainradio is a good domain name but I will tell you why I disagree. 

I think that if you are a someone whose business is created around his personality/intellect people firstly associate any service or content you are creating with your name since your mind/personality/charisma is why people are interested in you, you literally are "the brand" in contrast with business whose products/services/content is not dependent on who the leader is; everyone knows about Coca-cola but how many know who the CEO is? A really small percentage and this is because it doesn't really matter to their customers who the CEO is.

My theory seems to be supported by Alex's numbers:https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/freedomainradio.com#trafficstats

Top Keywords from Search Engines

Which search keywords send traffic to this site?

Keyword	Percent of Search Traffic
1.  stefan molyneux	51.27%
2.  freedomain radio	4.53%
3.  free domain radio	1.39%
4.  free domain	1.11%
5.  stefan molyneaux

I also think that what creates the need for original brand names is the competition in that field. If you have a chocolate bar I dont think it would be a good strategy to call your product "chocolate bar" since there are so many of those out there, instead I think it is wise to choose a name that sets you apart from your market shared competition and come up with names such as "Lion" or "Mars" or "Twix" etc.

That certainly makes sense!

I think Stef isn't the kind of guy that would want to call his show "The Stefan Molyneux Show" and having us being part of the "Stefan Molyneux community". Cult aleeert!!

Stefan Molyneux – Founder of "The Stefan Molyneux Podcast" – Sounds weird to me

My educated guess is that the main reason he gave this show a different name than his own is his aim to make this show as little about him as possible.

He is always reiterating that it's not about him, but about reason and evidence and the truth – as opposed to so many other public figures like Dave Rubin or Ben Shapiro who like to give answers instead of principles and arguments. They don't reason from first principles, and therefore the conversation becomes much more about themselves and their personal "beliefs".

And incidentally, their shows are called "The Rubin Report" and "The Ben Shapiro Show"

 

[Jot]

15 minutes ago, Fred Black Fox said:

That certainly makes sense!

I think Stef isn't the kind of guy that would want to call his show "The Stefan Molyneux Show" and having us being part of the "Stefan Molyneux community". Cult aleeert!!

Stefan Molyneux – Founder of "The Stefan Molyneux Podcast" – Sounds weird to me

My educated guess is that the main reason he gave this show a different name than his own is his aim to make this show as little about him as possible.

He is always reiterating that it's not about him, but about reason and evidence and the truth – as opposed to so many other public figures like Dave Rubin or Ben Shapiro who like to give answers instead of principles and arguments. They don't reason from first principles, and therefore the conversation becomes much more about themselves and their personal "beliefs".

And incidentally, their shows are called "The Rubin Report" and "The Ben Shapiro Show"

 

Those are really good observations.

 

Not naming the show about oneself does seem to help create a more objective frame and aim for an abstract idea/virtue rather than being about the conclusions of the author.

However, I don't know how much this really counts in the large economy of things...suppose that everything is the same with the singular difference of Stefan having named the show and domain about himself...would that really have made a difference in how he and his show is being perceived? Would he be more or less popular? etc questions...Honestly, I do not know; nor do I know of a method that would help me determine that. 

[Frederik]

19 hours ago, Jot said:

Those are really good observations.

 

Not naming the show about oneself does seem to help create a more objective frame and aim for an abstract idea/virtue rather than being about the conclusions of the author.

However, I don't know how much this really counts in the large economy of things...suppose that everything is the same with the singular difference of Stefan having named the show and domain about himself...would that really have made a difference in how he and his show is being perceived? Would he be more or less popular? etc questions...Honestly, I do not know; nor do I know of a method that would help me determine that. 

Well, I think Freedomain Radio is an exception in a lot of ways and I am very thankful for that

I agree with you and believe that in general, your recommendation is good when it comes to public intellectuals trying to market themselves.