28 ms·
Argdown
- Qaphqa 7y agoA simple syntax (kind of Markdown) for complex argumentation, defining complex dialectical relations between arguments. Your document is transformed into an argument map while you are typing. Screenshot: http://www.argunet.org/wordpress-argunet-2/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/argdown-vscode-semmelweis-1.png http://www.argunet.org/wordpress-argunet-2/wp-content/upload...
- zucker42 7y agoThis site desperately needs a picture like the one you just posted on its front page.
- r00fus 7y agoI dunno, if you click [map] on one of the argdown examples, it interactively flips to the diagram of said syntax. I didn't find that too difficult to discover. It even seemed more interactive.
- mikaelmello 7y agoIt is a great picture to show its cabalities, the front-page examples are quite simple.
- pas 7y agoTrue, but most people won't click on map.
- Tepix 7y agoI did :-)
- vorpalhex 7y agoI entirely missed that button and came all the way back to HN comments to find screenshots..
- thomasahle 7y agoAgreed. I read the front page and concluded it was a way to write nested lists with colored +'s and -'s.
- ar_lan 7y agoYeah, this is a much more convincing sell to me than anything else.
- winter_blue 7y agoThank you. I was searching their homepage for an example like this. The picture shows very clearly what Argdown does.
- daenz 7y agoVery cool. Better technology in the area of discussion and disagreements will go a long way (longer than I think most people realize). We need a "bicycle for the mind" concept for online discussion.
- toasterlovin 7y agoI agree. But this is half the solution. The other half is an authoritative source that tracks the arguments and evidence for various hypotheses and theories. So a layperson can understand the basic argument and the strength of the evidence for or against it in about 15 minutes, but fractal in nature so that one can descend all the way down to the raw data if they choose. Something like Wikipedia, except for hypotheses and theories about how existence works. Then we can just link people to a source that outlines the flaws in their pet theories. Side note: I think diet advocates and climate enthusiasts would be in for a bit of a shock from such a resource when they have to deal with the fact that epidemiology and model building are some of the weakest forms of evidence. But I digress.
- jmickey 7y agoThis is something I have had at the back of my mind for a few years now - a website that lets people upload hypotheses and link evidence that supports or rejects the hypothesis. Such a website would allow people to gain insights, by gathering individual bits of evidence observed in various news articles, research papers, etc. and linking them together to form a larger picture.
- pas 7y agohttps://skepticalscience.com/argument.php?a=15&p=14 https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php?a=15&p=14 ?
- stevenhuang 7y agoNo way, I've always wanted to create something like this too. This person https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20477924 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20477924 also shares our idea: > I would love to see this baked into a social network as a substrate for semi-structured debate. Gaining insight and collecting disparate facts to form a bigger picture, an "argument map", with the ability for others to collaborate--that's exactly it. However in addition to all the great use cases you've outlined, I also see potential for personal use, particularly in making structured decisions. For example, purchasing decisions: researching to buy or not to buy widget X (in my case recently, sentiment analysis on stocks). With the creation of a simple browser plugin that allows you to highlight text and quickly add it to the map, it would make it easy to centralize all misc pieces of information supporting/rejecting a decision. Supporting "evidence" added this way will automatically link to the source, and optionally snapshot the page to ensure context of the particular supporting evidence is never lost. I think it would be a fun project to create. If you ever think to actually work on this, or if you're interested in working on this together, let me know!
- DiabloD3 7y agoWho's the target market for this?
- goerz 7y agoPhilosophers. We were using the early predecessor of this in our philosophy of science course 10 years ago or so (the TA was the guy who’s now the professor behind this project). It’s a pretty neat way to analyze informal logic.
- natch 7y agoNeeds some syntax for referring to definitions of terms used in the arguments. Terms like “easier” and “complex” need formal, agreed on, definitions for the example arguments to make any sense.
- Waterluvian 7y agoIs there a syntax for pro/con weight? One issue I run into a lot is leaning on a single massive point to counter a bunch of weak points.
- pithymaxim 7y agoIn case it's useful I immediately got a dead link https://argdown.org/guide/a-first-example/ https://argdown.org/guide/a-first-example/ from this page https://argdown.org/guide/ https://argdown.org/guide/
- dmix 7y agoNeeds the .html, works on the left sidebar fortunately: https://argdown.org/guide/a-first-example.html https://argdown.org/guide/a-first-example.html
- chrvoigt 7y agoThanks! I added an issue for this (https://github.com/christianvoigt/argdown/issues/115 https://github.com/christianvoigt/argdown/issues/115) and will fix this as soon as I find the time.
- goerz 7y agoThe underlying project was “argunet” (http://www.argunet.org/ http://www.argunet.org/)
- tingletech 7y agolooks like it might make a good general purpose graph editor
- stefco_ 7y agoThe dot language used by graphviz is simple enough and portable to web implementations [0][1]. I think this is more useful for its specific domain. [0] https://github.com/dagrejs/dagre-d3/wiki https://github.com/dagrejs/dagre-d3/wiki [1] https://github.com/mdaines/viz.js https://github.com/mdaines/viz.js
- marton78 7y agoThis uses Graphviz
- stefco_ 7y ago...as one of the rendering backends. The syntax is what I assume was being referred to.
- tartrate 7y agoTBH I think the Argdown source is much more readable than this I found from one of your links: /* Example */ digraph { /* Note: HTML labels do not work in IE, which lacks support for <foreignObject> tags. */ node [rx=5 ry=5 labelStyle="font: 300 14px 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica"] edge [labelStyle="font: 300 14px 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica"] A [labelType="html" label="A <span style='font- size:32px'>Big</span> <span style='color:red;'>HTML</span> Source!"]; C; E [label="Bold Red Sink" style="fill: #f77; font- weight: bold"]; A -> B -> C; B -> D [label="A blue label" labelStyle="fill: #55f; font-weight: bold;"]; D -> E [label="A thick red edge" style="stroke: #f77; stroke-width: 2px;" arrowheadStyle="fill: #f77"]; C -> E; A -> D [labelType="html" label="A multi-rank <span style='color:blue;'>HTML</span> edge!"]; }
- stefco_ 7y ago
- breck 7y agoThis source repo is really fantastic code. If you are implementing a new language this is a nice one to emulate. They've got a Language Server Protocol Implementation, VS Code Extension, Code Mirror mode, and more, and the code and even config files project wide are all very well done. Great stuff.
- broth 7y agoWould you be able to provide some specific examples?
- fgonzag 7y agoLanguage Server Protocol Implementation, VS Code Extension, Code Mirror mode I'd guess
- broth 7y agoNot sure why on the downvotes. I was more curious if you could link to a specific source file.
- thegeekpirate 7y agoThere's a GitHub link on the top-right of their home page.
- broth 7y agoRight. I totally missed that. Thanks for pointing that out.
- injidup 7y agoAnd there I was thinking that it was a CLI argument parser generator.
- 0xfi 7y agoglad I wasn't the only one
- garmaine 7y agoAt first I thought this was a parser to automatically convert help text for a command into an argument parser. Something I didn’t realize I needed until right now. Someone write that thing too!
- imurray 7y agohttp://docopt.org/ http://docopt.org/ — turns help text in a Python doc string into an argument parser. After a doc string put: import docopt args = docopt.docopt(__doc__, version='0.0.1') Edit: krapht points out there is now support for multiple languages: https://github.com/docopt https://github.com/docopt
- krapht 7y agoI use Docopt now for every CLI script I write, using Docopt language ports. Skipping argument parsing boilerplate is so nice, not to mention now I don't have to remember how each different language is supposed to idiomatically parse CLI arguments.
- prvc 7y agoUsing a tool such as graphviz directly allows for more flexibility. Reasoning is not simply reducible to syllogisms and lists of pros and cons.
- rolling_robot 7y agoIt would be really nice to have emacs package that supports argdown compilation and syntax.
- imiric 7y agoIf you're already using Emacs, this use case seems like it could be handled with org-mode and a custom export implementation.
- rolling_robot 7y agoNice, I think that would be even better.
- crooked-v 7y agoSo... what is it, exactly? That page has a lot of words, but they're not ones that make any sense to me.
- paulfurley 7y agoAgreed: “argumentation”, “pro & contra lists”, “dialectical relations” “premise-conclusion structures ..all appear within the first 100 words and I don’t know what any of them mean. I’m a a native English speaker with a technical education and I am lost! Is the site aimed at some profession where these words are commonly used?!
- avip 7y agoIt’s all Latin for we know something you don’t
- confused-k 7y agoBefore I gave up on finding out what this was and closed the website, I saw that the copyright author on the bottom of the page was German or affiliated with a German university. I'm fine with giving the person a pass on some of this language, and drawing on the German I know (and having lived there, somewhat familiar with how Germans would say things in English), I think: - argumentation should be arguments or in more words: "these are the arguments I'm presenting to support my claims." - pro/contra is pros/cons - I have never heard the word 'dialectical' - premise-conclusion structure I think is something like hypothesis-conclusion, maybe?
- weavie 7y agoDialectical comes from greek philosophy where the proponents of two opposing views would have a conversational debate with reasoned arguments to try to find the truth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic
- aasasd 7y agoHoo boy, how did you live your life without dialectical materialism?
- carlsborg 7y agoAmazing work, this is phenomenal. It says it is funded by Debatelab http://debatelab.philosophie.kit.edu/ http://debatelab.philosophie.kit.edu/ which is also fascinating.
- dharmab 7y agoThe map view relies on color for information, which makes it hard to read as a colorblind user.
- pas 7y agoAnd there's no legend/explanation for the colors at all on the pictures :( And the black text color doesn't work that well on most of the backgrounds :/
- chrvoigt 7y agoYes, we need to work on that. I added your comment as an issue (https://github.com/christianvoigt/argdown/issues/113 https://github.com/christianvoigt/argdown/issues/113). Thanks for your feedback!
- astro-codes 7y agoThe argdown theme in vscode (that is recommended to install) is surprisingly nice as well. Does anyone know if it's a derivative of something?
- astro-codes 7y agoJust realised that it is the default vscode light theme! I clearly have never used it ...
- krmbzds 7y agoThis reminds me of arguman.org: https://arguman.org/ https://arguman.org/
- Tepix 7y agoI think this will also be useful for decision makers. With this tool you can ask for pro and con arguments and have a good way to write them down.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoDo pro/con trees actually work in real life? I played with something like this when using Kialo for a while, and my impression was that this technique doesn't help much. Shoehorning everything into a pro or con is one thing, duplication of points in many places in a tree is another. I abandoned Kialo with a conclusion that pro/con trees don't map well to reality; we need graphs of facts and their relationships. (Also, my gut feeling is that when you're talking about "arguments" instead of "facts", "evidence" and probabilities, you're in business of convincing, not truth seeking). But that's not to diss this project. As an implementation of pro/con trees it's excellent, and I'd prefer typing in this language a millon times more than clicking around Kialo.
- Errancer 7y ago"(Also, my gut feeling is that when you're talking about "arguments" instead of "facts", "evidence" and probabilities, you're in business of convincing, not truth seeking)." That's funny since for me it's the other way around, in philosophy "facts" are taken with great suspicion but arguments are fine.
- blattimwind 7y ago> (Also, my gut feeling is that when you're talking about "arguments" instead of "facts", "evidence" and probabilities, you're in business of convincing, not truth seeking). Depending on context pro/contra is probably what can be generated from facts when comparing things, so facts should be persistent, pro/contra dynamically generated.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoYes, I came to the same conclusions. Pro/contra trees look like an answer to a query on the graph. One thing I find manually written pro/contra trees don't capture is that the same observation can be simultaneously a pro and a contra, or can flip between being pro and a contra depending on strength of that observation, or surrounding context. Ultimately, I find those trees a nice visualization, and writing them an interesting exercise in structuring your thoughts, but I'm not convinced whether or not they're helpful at getting to the truth.
- sagebird 7y agoThe default red/green background colors should be lightened dramatically, eg ffcfcf and cfcfff. The colored arrows should just be black imo. People will fuss over red green color blindness as well. May want to add a small visual indicator that can be seen in a grayscale version, like a plus or minus above each box, or the words pro and con. This is a starting point, an experienced designer should be able to find settings for a much better looking and functional default look.
- chrvoigt 7y agoYou are right, color blindness and grayscale exports are things we need to think about. I added your ideas as an issue (https://github.com/christianvoigt/argdown/issues/113 https://github.com/christianvoigt/argdown/issues/113).
- yetkin 7y agoAlready a popular platform exist for some time https://en.arguman.org/ https://en.arguman.org/
- szemet 7y agoIt would have been helpful to me, if the page would try to explain and "sell" not just the tool, but the idea of argument maps too (e.g. in a few initial paragraph). I've met the concept of argument map for the first time, and had to google it to gain some understanding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_map
- shusson 7y ago> if the page would try to explain and "sell" It's a specific tool for argumentation. I don't think they need to explain what argumentation is.
- aasasd 7y agoSo if I say that outliners and mind maps are for organizing ideas, then by knowing what ideas are you automatically know how to use outliners and mind maps?
- shusson 7y agoNo but if it is really sunny outside and I do some research and discover the concept of a hat. Then later when I google for a hat, I know what a hat is, and I am not confused by websites that are selling hats.
- jackpark 7y agoThere is an open source "concept map" platform known at Compendium available from the Open University's Knowledge Media Institute. It was invented precisely to help tame conversations in a conceptual space known as "issue-based information systems". Let me explain: Compendium is for "dialogue mapping", not "argument mapping". Dialogue mapping grew up in the fast-moving arenas of town hall planning meetings which frequently turn wicked ("over my dead body you'll put that freeway through this town"). There, the cognitive overhead of recording what is being uttered must be at an absolute minimum. Jeff Conklin invented the approach and described it in a paper about "gIBIS", and that approach eventually became the open source Java platform Compendium. As an alternative to explore this space, consider visiting http://debategraph.org/ http://debategraph.org/
- trumbitta2 7y agoI always look in wonder at how americans are so in argumentation. I mean, you even have a whole set of tools and now a "markdown of sorts" for argumentation. As an european, this never ceases to amaze me.
- smallnamespace 7y agoAmericans are dualists [1] who believe there is both good and evil, and the best thing is to have both (all) sides fight it out to see who wins. You can see this throughout the culture, from the legal system, to robust support for free speech, to the quite frankly Christian morality (a belief that there is original sin in the body politic that must be atoned for) that permeates even the most hardcore progressive, atheistic left. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualistic_cosmology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualistic_cosmology
- swebs 7y agoYou're half right. It's best to consider all sides of an argument, however the people that believe that there are only two sides are generally considered idiots. The fact that there are only two major political parties is just a mathematical consequence of the election system, not a reflection of the population's actual beliefs.
- chongli 7y agoIt's not just a mathematical artifact though. Political affiliation has deep cultural significance in the US. It permeates every aspect of a person's life and affects all of their relationships. There are plenty of Americans who will demand to know what you think of the president, on first meeting you, and then decide whether or not they like you based on the answer to that single question. You don't see this in countries with many political parties that each grab only a small piece of the pie.
- chatmasta 7y ago> There are plenty of Americans who will demand to know what you think of the president, on first meeting you, and then decide whether or not they like you based on the answer to that single question. This is a relatively new phenomenon that will hopefully not be around for long.
- chyngyzs1 7y agouioi
- p0nce 7y agoI think I will use it for myself, because opinions are "lazy" for me (I produce one when I need one) but I don't think they are self-consistent, except for the expert philosophers.
- spookyuser 7y agoThis looks amazing! Can't wait to try it out.
- dlphn___xyz 7y agothis would be helpful in jupyter notebooks i hate having to draw decision trees with graphviz
- lloydatkinson 7y agoThe documentation is written with a Vue.js static site generator documentation tool called VuePress. You use markdown for that, ironic.
- spookyuser 7y agoThis looks amazing, can't wait to try it!
- majkinetor 7y agoCan never get enough of documentation as source code (DaSC) tools :) This looks awesome. This would be way more cumbersome in plantuml. Big thanks to authors.
- hyperpallium 7y agoidea: reddit/HN tree-comments, with nodes liks in argdown. I.e. instead of a "reply" button, you select the type of rebuttal. Sibling comments compete to address that particular aspect the best. You can instead open a deeper layer, to instead counter that point. i.e. the kind of thing that can happen with tree-comments, just with explicit structure.
- vinceguidry 7y agoI would love to see this baked into a social network as a substrate for semi-structured debate. Bookmarking for later reference.
- bloopernova 7y agoI'd like to see something like this used to display people's arguments in social media. Something like a mythical "machine learning argument analysis" process would look at comments and threads, then spit out something like Argdown. Then people could see what structure and flow different discussions have. Could also be useful if there was such a mythical tool that could gently teach people to debate in a more logical manner. The user would write their comment, but before it is submitted, it is analyzed and helpful tips or edits shown to the user. As an aside, I wonder how good grammar checkers have become since the Word 97 days? My grammar is utterly terrible and I wish I could get it proofread before I make comments.
- vinceguidry 7y agoThat would be amazing. I'm putting that on my 'things to explore with machine learning when I finally get into that space' list.
- stevenhuang 7y agoAgreed, I'd very like to see something like this to be a thing.
- ChrisKor 7y agoI have heard that Twitter is working on something like this. The hard part of course being the detection of what is an argument and what is commentary or anecdote sharing. >As an aside, I wonder how good grammar checkers have become since the Word 97 days? My grammar is utterly terrible and I wish I could get it proofread before I make comments. Try it for free, Google Docs added it recently for English. Otherwise, perhaps one of these dedicated sites or use their browser extensions, will be of interest: https://languagetool.org/ https://languagetool.org/ https://grammarly.com/ https://grammarly.com/ https://www.gingersoftware.com/grammarcheck https://www.gingersoftware.com/grammarcheck
- lallysingh 7y agoOrthogonally, I wish there was a better mechanism to embed various markups in code comments. Something that editors can render in-place. Arguments like this would be perfect for in-situ descriptions of design decisions.
- chrvoigt 7y agoHi, I'm the developer of Argdown. Thank you for all your feedback. As some of you already mentioned, so far Argdown has been mainly used by philosophers in an academic context, so it is great to hear what people with other backgrounds think about it.
- carapace 7y agoSee also "Laws of Form" notation, diagrams as logical formulas. http://www.markability.net/ http://www.markability.net/
- pmarreck 7y agoFYI to the owner of Argdown.org if around- Your getting started page linked here 404's: https://argdown.org/guide/a-first-example https://argdown.org/guide/a-first-example
- chrvoigt 7y agoThanks! I added an issue for this (https://github.com/christianvoigt/argdown/issues/115 https://github.com/christianvoigt/argdown/issues/115) and will fix this as soon as I find the time.
- avivo 7y agoThis link was much more helpful: https://argdown.org/sandbox/map https://argdown.org/sandbox/map