Using Apologea
Apologea is a platform for structured, long-form intellectual exchange — for written argument rather than the endless, unordered comment thread. This guide explains how the platform works and where each part of it lives.
It covers how the main things work — reading and responding, writing and publishing, debates and voting — plus your writing credit and where to get help.
Table of contents
- What Apologea is
- Words you will see
- How the core things work
- Writing credit and paying for more
- Where to get help
1. What Apologea is
Everything on Apologea is one of four kinds of content, and they are deliberately connected to one another:
| Content type | What it is | Who can create it |
|---|---|---|
| Article | A long-form written position: a title, a summary, a formatted body and tags | Publishers, with writing credit |
| Debate | A formal argument in alternating turns between two publishers, each turn a full article | Publishers |
| Resource | A quotation or an external link you keep as evidence and reuse | Publishers |
| Media | Images in your own library, reusable in your writing and on your profile | Any signed-in user |
Articles are the heart of the platform. An article can be published or kept as a draft that only you see, it can answer another article, and it can be a turn inside a debate. Everything else — profiles, following, notifications, search — exists to point attention at reading and writing these arguments.
Two ideas shape the whole site:
- Written, not shouted. Positions are written and published deliberately, and they become fixed once someone has answered them.
- Finite, deliberate publishing. Writing is metered by a writing credit that refills monthly and can be topped up, so publishing is spent on purpose rather than poured out endlessly. Every amount paid for credit is used to maintain the platform and to support charity.
2. Words you will see
| Term | What it means here |
|---|---|
| Apologia | The written defence of a position. On Apologea, an article. |
| Writing credit | Your remaining credit for writing articles. It refills monthly and can be topped up. |
| Reader | The default role: read, like, respond, vote and follow. |
| Publisher | The role that unlocks creating articles, debates and resources. |
| Draft | An article saved without publishing. Only you can see it. |
| Excerpt | The short summary of an article, used wherever it is previewed and in search. |
| Response | An article written to answer one specific article. Answering locks the original. |
| Locked | Editing and deleting rights are gone for good, because the piece has been answered or its debate has started. |
| Rival | One of the two participants in a debate. |
| Turn | One rival's contribution to a debate, written as a full article. |
| Round | One turn from each rival. |
| Challenged | The person a debate is issued against. They have to accept it before it begins. |
| Vote | After a debate is complete, onlookers each pick a winner. The two rivals cannot vote. |
3. How the core things work
Reading happens under Articles and Debates. Writing happens in the editor, opened from either listing or from the actions button in the bottom corner once you hold the publisher role. Your profile carries your published work, your details and settings, your writing credit and the upgrade to publisher; the top bar carries your notifications and your account.
3.1 Reading and responding
Reading is open to anyone with an account, and guests are asked to sign in first. Liking, responding, voting and following all happen where you are, without losing your place in the list you were reading.
3.2 Writing, publishing and the lock
- An article starts as a draft: only you can see it, and you can come back to it as often as you like. Unsaved work in the editor is kept for you, and you are told when it was last saved.
- Publishing makes an article public, listed on the home page and in the article listings, and it spends one unit of your writing credit.
- Once someone publishes a response to your article it is locked: it stays readable, but nobody — including you — can change or remove it. Your position stands on the record exactly as it was written.
- Editing keeps working until then, and the title is re-checked for uniqueness every time you change it.
3.3 Debates
- A debate is a challenge between two publishers, with a title, a description, a starting side and a fixed number of rounds. Nobody else writes inside it.
- It does not begin until the challenged person accepts. Until then no turns can be written, and the creator can still change or withdraw it. Accepting starts the debate, and from that moment the title and description are fixed.
- At any moment exactly one rival is due to move, and only that person can add the next turn. Each turn is a full article, written with the previous turn in view.
- Saving a turn as a draft changes nothing: the debate moves on only when a turn is published.
- When the last turn is published the debate is complete and dated, and voting opens.
3.4 Voting
Voting answers one question: who argued better? It is deliberately narrow — only after the debate is complete, only by people who are not one of the two rivals, and only once each. Afterwards you are shown which side you chose and the running totals for both rivals.
3.5 Links and staying current
Everything has a stable address: articles, debates, resources and every search you run. A page you already have open reflects the changes behind it without you having to reload.
4. Writing credit and paying for more
Writing is metered, which is what keeps the platform's output deliberate rather than endless.
Every amount paid is used to maintain the platform and to support charity.
| Item | How it works |
|---|---|
| Where to find it | Your profile shows your balance |
| Starting balance | 5 credits on a new account |
| Monthly refill | At the start of a new month, a balance below 5 is restored to 5 at no cost |
| Buying more | 5 credits per bundle, bought from your profile or from the editor when you have run out |
| Payment | A secure checkout, with your email address already filled in |
| After paying | The credits appear straight away; if you change your mind at the checkout, nothing is charged and your balance is untouched |
| What your payment supports | The maintenance of the platform, and charity |
When your balance reaches zero the editor is unavailable until you top up, so keep your draft and buy more credit when you are ready to write again.
5. Where to get help
- The footer of every page links to the Terms and Conditions and the Privacy Policy.
- If something is unclear, if work you had saved has gone missing, or if you think you have been charged incorrectly, contact us — we would much rather put it right than have you guess.
- If you cannot find something, the home page searches articles, and every listing has its own search that filters as you type.