Moots¶
A moot is two books talking about a topic. Each book speaks only from passages of its own text, in its author's voice, and answers what the other has just said. You can play saved moots in the forest; the trees that are talking light up while they speak.
A moot is written by a language model, not by the authors. The model is given each book's passages and writes its turns from them. Every quotation in a moot is checked against the book: a quote that is not the book's exact words is corrected to them or loses its quotation marks.
Play a moot¶
- Open Moots: the speech-bubbles button in the top bar, or Moots in the three-dot menu (on a phone, only the menu has it).
- Pick a moot from the list. Each shows its two books and topic, for example Meditations and The Prince on virtue, the date it was held, and how many turns it has.
The moot plays on its own. Each turn appears as a speech bubble: the first book on the left in green, the second on the right in pink. Book names are in their colors, quoted words are in bold, and the passages a turn cites are listed under its bubble. In the forest, the tree that is speaking is ringed in its color.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Pause / Play | Stops and resumes the moot. At the end, Play again starts it over. |
| Speaker button | Turns reading aloud on or off. It is the same switch as Read moots aloud in settings. |
| Next | Shows the next turn now. |
| Close (X), Esc, or a click outside the moot | Closes the moot. |
Switching away from the browser pauses the moot.
Hold a new moot¶
You can also hold a moot of your own and watch it being made. This needs a GutenbergKG worker running on your computer, with a language model behind it; the GutenbergKG Moots guide covers the setup.
- In Moots, choose Hold a new moot.
- Type in First book and Second book and pick each from the list.
- Give a Topic, choose how many Turns, and choose Start the moot.
The worker makes one turn at a time. While it does, the next book is ringed in the forest and its name shows "is thinking...". A turn takes from a few seconds to half a minute, depending on the model; the worker makes the next turn while the current one is read, so after the first the wait is usually short. Closing the moot ends it on the worker. If a turn fails, choose Try again.
Which forest you use matters:
| Forest | Chrome | Safari |
|---|---|---|
The forest's dev server on your computer (http://localhost:5173) |
works | works |
| The published forest | works after you allow access to your local network when Chrome asks | does not work: Safari will not let a secure page reach your computer |
The worker's address is set in Settings.
Reading aloud¶
Moots are read aloud by default, one turn after another; the next turn starts when a line ends. With reading aloud off, each turn stays up for about a second for every three words, and at least four seconds.
Each book speaks in a voice that matches its author: a woman's book in a woman's voice, and an American, British or other English accent where the browser has one. When both books need the same voice, the second speaks deeper. To pick the voices yourself, see Settings.
Which voices you hear depends on the browser:
- Safari offers web pages only its six built-in English voices, not the voices you download in macOS settings.
- Chrome lists every macOS voice, including ones that are not installed; a voice that is not installed speaks in the default voice instead. The forest prefers voices that are always present.
- Neither Safari nor Chrome has a built-in American man's voice, so an American author may be read with a British accent.
If nothing is read aloud, the device may be silenced; see Troubleshooting.
Where moots come from¶
Moots are held with GutenbergKG, which built the library, and saved into the forest. Moots in the GutenbergKG guide explains how a moot is made and how to hold your own.