FactWatches: A new kind of HubPage
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With the world doing all kinds of strange loop-de-loops, and with politicians and mainstream pundits addressing the issues - when they do - with loaded adjectives about as fast as they can move their lips, the public is finding it next to impossible to get the facts about issues. When we discuss them online, we've adopted the media's format of arguing in terms of various opinions. It's easy to do, and everybody has an opinion. But this kind of approach leaves us divided while the world transforms around us, and seldom manages to get to the bottom of an issue because it almost never involves addressing the facts involved. The result? People continue ignoring the facts, they're easily swayed by empty rhetoric, and only conventional opinions make it into the belief system of mainstream society - regardless of whether or not they actually happen to be true. Society as a whole blithely ignores situations because people don't look into the facts, and the public doesn't take action to make things better. Politicians and corporations, however, do take action - often because they have an agenda that benefits themselves. And the world falls apart as a result.
HubPages allows us to do things differently. We can create a FactWatch page about an issue, supply links to facts for and against that issue, and interested readers can learn what the facts of the matter actually are. Additionally, we can use HubPages' Comments modules to allow readers to add links to facts, for or against a premise, themselves - and the list of facts grows and grows. With this kind of community participation, FactWatch Hubs allow not just the Hub's author to research a topic, but the entire community as well - and the FactWatch Hub becomes more worthwhile as a result. Like a Wikipedia article, it becomes a well-researched font of information about any topic - and more people will look to it as a valuable resource for that information because it's all compiled in one place.
How to create a FactWatch Hub:
- Start the Hub's title with "FactWatch: ". This will let your readers know that the Hub isn't a regular HubPages Hub, but a FactWatch Hub designed to compile information on a topic, both for and against.
- Complete the Hub's title with the topic phrased as a question. For example, one FactWatch Hub could be, "FactWatch: Is America moving towards martial law?" Because the Hub is created to consider the facts rather than opinions, and many of those facts have yet to be added by your readers, we don't yet know whether America is, in fact, moving towards martial law. Phrasing the topic as an open question demonstrates that facts both for, and against, the idea will be considered in the Hub.
- Create sections for different viewpoints in your Hub. Whatever your beliefs about the subject are, other readers may disagree. Have at least a Pro and Con area in the Hub, possibly more if your topic involves several predominant opinions.
- For each section, provide links to as many facts as you can to support that viewpoint. This includes things like links, excerpts that link to source material, Video modules showing evidence, and so forth. Ideally, you should start your Hub with evidence both for and against the topic. If you don't, however, not to worry. Someone reading your Hub with a different opinion will be able to add facts to support their viewpoint.
- For each section, add a Comments module. These Comments modules aren't for the normal "Hey, great Hub!" comments. They're there specifically for readers to supply more links to facts. Normal comments can be added in its own Comments module, in the usual place at the bottom of the Hub.
- Add the word "FactWatch" as a Tag for the Hub. This will allow people to search specifically for FactWatch Hubs easily. Tags are located on the right-hand panel of a HubPage.
And that's it! Those are the vital characteristics of a FactWatch Hub. There's nothing preventing you from adding other things that Hubs normally have, like an introduction, pictures, poll modules and so on, and they're probably a good idea as well. But a FactWatch Hub is principally about getting a no-nonsense view of the facts of the matter, boom-boom-boom. So these facts should be added, both by you and your readers, as simply and concisely - briefly - as possible. They should always link to their source, so they can be verified. And this way, we can learn the facts of an issue quickly and easily just by looking at a FactWatch Hub about it.
Before creating a FactWatch Hub on a topic, always search for other FactWatch Hubs on the topic first. This will keep you from duplicating your effort, particularly if someone has already created a FactWatch Hub on the subject. If there's already one out there on the topic, you can simply read that one and add any facts you have to it. And this also prevents multiple FactWatch pages on the same issue from cropping up, so that readers will have one definitive page to go to on an issue, and all the compiled facts will be on it.
FactWatch Hubs aren't the place to argue about an issue. The whole point is that any argument you'd make should have facts behind it to back it up - and if it doesn't, you probably shouldn't be making it. So give the world the facts!
FactWatch Hubs:
Already created a FactWatch Hub?
Add it to the Comments module, immediately below. List the title on one line, and the URL on the next. This Comments module is just for FactWatch Hubs... there's a regular Comments module for comments below that.
Think you'll create a FactWatch Hub?
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Okay, Satori, sounds like a great idea to me.
Could you be a bit more clear on the particulars of creating the Hub? When you say section, are you saying technically that we insert two text boxes?
Also, how do you get the bold blue to link to another site? I clicked on income tax is voluntary in one of your Hubs and was immediately directed to a great resource. Thanks.
Hi, Storytellersrus!
When I said section, I meant the areas on the Hub for listing the evidence for various viewpoints, one viewpoint to a section. Sections would have links to evidence and data that you've made available yourself, and that can be done in a Text Module, or a Links Module. I chose a Text Module for my example FactWatch Hub, because it allowed me to make bullet points. Sections would also have a way for readers to add links to information themselves, and HubPages lets us do that with a Comment Module. So we'd add, at minimum, a Text or Links Module, and a Comments Module, for every section. So "Pro" would have: a) a Text or Link Module, as well as b) a Comments Module, and further on down the Hub the "Con" section would have it's own a) Text or Link Module, and b) its own Comments Module.
As for the bold blue, this is how HubPages displays internet links - both the links it generates, such as when it shows our name by our photo here in the Comments area, and for links we create in our Hubs. Links can currently be created two ways on HubPages, depending on whether you're using a Text Module or a Link Module.
In a Text Module, when you've typed some text that you want to turn blue and become a link to something else, you press your mouse button and drag it over that portion of the text, to highlight it. In the Text Module editing box, one of the little buttons will look like links in a chain. With the text highlighted, click that links button. HubPages will give you a place to insert the web address you'd like to link to. You can type it in... or you can swap over to that site in another browser window, Copy the web address, swap back to your HubPages browser window and Paste it in. Finalize it by pressing the Insert button, and the little extra window will vanish, you'll be back to editing your Text Module, and the text you selected will be bold blue, because it is now a link. (Should you want to undo this, select the bold blue text while editing the Module, and hit the broken chain button - that will "break" the link for you, and the text will return to normal.)
If you're using a Links Module rather than a Text Module, it's even easier - but you won't be able to arbitrarily write, and have only selected text become a link, as you can do in a Text Module. The Links Module is just for Links. When you edit a Links Module, it will give you a field called "Link URL" and a field called "Link Title". The Link URL is the page or site you actually want it to link to, and the Link Title is how you want your text to read in your Hub. If I put my Link Title as Google, and my Link URL as "http://www.google.com/", for example, then the result would be the word Google in bold blue, and clicking on it would actually take a reader to Google as well.
In a Comment module, I don't know of a way to make a link look like something else. Links will look like the web address they go to. But of course you can enter a full web address in a Comment ("http://www." part at the beginning and all) and it will take a reader there... it just won't look pretty. It'll look exactly like a web address.
I hope you don't feel like I'm trying to talk down to you. I don't know your skill level, and I want to make sure I give you the information you're after.
In the section to "Add a link to a FactWatch Hub you've created!", talented_ink said,
"This is a brilliant idea Satori! Debating issues is a good thing and does allow for the exchange of knowledge, but if facts aren't shared and retained, then like you would agree, it merely becomes a meaningless argument. I'll read your factwatch hubs and even if I don't run across new facts to add, you'll definitely get a thumbs up from me."
Hello again, talented_ink! I moved your comment to the Comments area, as FactWatch Hubs use HubPages' Comment Modules in a new and different way. I'm always so flattered to read your polite, mild, respectful and fair-minded comments, both to me and to others. I definitely look forward to reading more of your views and thoughts as I read more of your Hubs. I appreciate your readership, and your becoming my fan.
Satori Hub Author 3 years ago
FredrickBernanke has asked:
"How do you define the word `fact'?
Are facts subject to more than one interpretation?"
Fredrick, welcome to HubPages. Your Comment was in the wrong area on this Hub, in the place to add links to FactWatch Hubs people have created, and I'm unable to move it to the appropriate place. I hope you'll forgive me for deleting it, that being my available option, and responding to it in the right area - I realize you're new to HubPages, and that this Hub's novel use of Comments is unconventional and potentially confusing.
You raise an interestng question. While I don't, myself, define the word, and its usage will vary depending on the definition of others when they create their own FactWatch Hubs, I'd be willing to accept an attorney's usage of the phrase "manifestly evident" as a good approximation. That is, to the best of our knowledge, did X happen? I'm inclined to think that peoples' moral compasses are functional enough that the everyday usage of "fact" will work well here.
We could probably have an interesting discussion on the spiritual and metaphysical definitions of the word - leading into a fascinating and thoroughly philosophical conversation regarding "what is real" and "the nature of reality". But as enlightening as that might be, while we would have it the material world would be changing around us, and people would be suffering. For the situation to improve, concerted effort must be applied to bring about benevolent action. And we must therefore fall back on the immediate, practical usage of the word "fact", until the world recognizes a more perfect, spiritually-based definition and applies it to everyday life.
I also agree that "facts" - I'd even stoop to using the term "available evidence" - might be misconstrued or misapplied... or just plain misleading. The right evidence and an inaccurate interpretation would leave someone just as lost as a correct interpretation that's based on the wrong facts. If you're as interested in fact-checking as you seem to be - I've read your Hub on the subject - I can refer you to a book called Power vs Force, by David R. Hawkins. It presents a very interesting means of determining objectively the manifest accuracy of a statement, because false statements are somehow inherently unhealthy in ways that we're only just beginning to understand. I'd also suggest that facts, themselves, aren't technically subject to anyone's interpretation - but that people frequently attempt to impose their interpretations on facts nonetheless, even when they're aware that those interpretations aren't accurate... and that this seldom leads anywhere truly satisfying.
In an ultimate, spiritual sense, the real fact is perfection - and that implies an end to suffering, among other things. In the moment, we must do the best we can to bring that about, and so live in greater accordance with the eternal facts of Creation. One of the better ways we can do this - and perhaps the best option available to me, here and now - is to sort out the manifest situations occurring politically, socially, financially and psychologically, and that means taking action as best we're able. In that sense then, working in good faith to sort out the world's problems and promote recognition of them as best we can is an agenda that's about as well-aligned with the ultimate, eternal facts as we're able to achieve under these circumstances. Or so it seems to me.
Thanks for your insightful comment. And again, welcome to HubPages. I hope you'll find it worthwhile.