3 ms·

TIL: A way to measure generality in texts http://research.create.usc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1100&context=nonpublished_reports http://research.create.us

TIL: A way to measure generality in texts http://research.create.usc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1100&context=nonpublished_reports http://research.create.usc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1... Bad headlines (cryptic, general, and clickbaity) are common, not only in HN. Is there a good solution? (good = better than moderators) There have been more than a couple of TLDR applications/apps mentioned here before.

pmoriarty 10y ago
There is a relatively simple solution: tags
- vinchuco 10y ago
  Reminded me of a solution by one calculus student to an optimization problem: "(...constraints...) How should the fence be built to minimize the cost of the fence?" Student answer: Don't build it. Cost=0. Sounds almost like a Koan.
  - tacostakohashi 10y ago
    Answer: Make Mexico pay for the fence.
- friendzis 10y ago
  Tags are a double edged sword. On one hand they offer quick and easy classification. On the other hand, without a clear classifier system they become erratic and of much less use than originally intended, simply because everyone uses different "internal" classifier system. HN has pretty wide variety of topics making usefulness somewhat doubtful. The bigger problem is not browsing top page, but tag based search. Actually HN already has most of the functionality required. I always found it strange why I can submit either URL OR text. Sometimes it is actually difficult to express the main point in a title sentence. We could provide short summary for the article in the text section.
- aaron695 10y ago
  > There is a relatively simple solution: tags Tags don't and have never worked. (I'd argue a hashtag is not a tag)
  - shanusmagnus 10y ago
    I want to hear that argument.
- a3n 10y ago
  Anecdote: In my pinboard.in account, I have 6,123 bookmarks, and 497 tags. With no more analysis than a calculator, that's roughly one tag servicing 12 bookmarks. I don't think that's very good. (I am, however, still very happy with my pinboard account. I treat my bookmarks as searches that I'm going to want to do in the future, with a high probability of finding something useful.) How I got here is that I use the pinboard Firefox addon, and when I find something useful, I bookmark it in pinboard. Pinboard has tags, and it will often make suggestions, which are often correct. But of course you can add tags on the fly. As I've used the account over the years, my interests have changed, as well as my awareness of how tags have served me so far, so I would tag some things very differently a few years ago as opposed to now or in the future. That makes older tags potentially less relevant, as they are less likely to come to mind, and therefore less likely to help me find the thing I'm looking for now, with today's focus. Which is a long way of saying, tags are essentially arbitrary without a well thought out system (mental and/or physical), and sufficient thought and constraints at each tagging event. The last tag in my list is "youtub." Tags are cool. And tags are hard. The idea is simple, but I wouldn't call them a simple solution.
  - pmoriarty 10y ago
    Tags are a solution, though perhaps not a perfect one. But what solution ever is? Counter-anecdote for you: I've been using the web ever since it was created, and for approximately the first half of that time I was just using regular bookmarks, with a regular bookmark manager, putting bookmarks in a heirarchichal folder structure that I manually created. Then browsers developed the ability to tag bookmarks. Since then I've switched over to only tagging bookmarks, and no longer put them in to any folders and don't so don't have to manually create a folder heirarchy for them. What I do is simply think of every possible way to describe a particular bookmark, with trying to think of every possible keyword/phrase way I might want to use search for them in the future. This has served me exceedingly well, and I've been able to find pretty much every bookmark I was interested this way. This method is still not perfect. The tag-management features of all the bookmark managers I'm aware of are pretty primitive. It would be nice, for example, for these bookmark managers to automatically show show tag clouds or let you browse tags along with their respective bookmarks. This is technically possible, but afaik hasn't been done yet. Despite this, tags can work, and work really well. It would really suck to have to search through thousands of bookmarks without tags or any kind of heirarchy. That's effectively how HN is: very poor structure. They could do a lot better, and I haven't heard of any suggestions to improve the situation that are anywhere as good as tags.

pmoriarty 10y ago

There is a relatively simple solution: tags

vinchuco 10y ago
Reminded me of a solution by one calculus student to an optimization problem: "(...constraints...) How should the fence be built to minimize the cost of the fence?" Student answer: Don't build it. Cost=0. Sounds almost like a Koan.
- tacostakohashi 10y ago
  Answer: Make Mexico pay for the fence.
friendzis 10y ago
Tags are a double edged sword. On one hand they offer quick and easy classification. On the other hand, without a clear classifier system they become erratic and of much less use than originally intended, simply because everyone uses different "internal" classifier system. HN has pretty wide variety of topics making usefulness somewhat doubtful. The bigger problem is not browsing top page, but tag based search. Actually HN already has most of the functionality required. I always found it strange why I can submit either URL OR text. Sometimes it is actually difficult to express the main point in a title sentence. We could provide short summary for the article in the text section.
aaron695 10y ago
> There is a relatively simple solution: tags Tags don't and have never worked. (I'd argue a hashtag is not a tag)
- shanusmagnus 10y ago
  I want to hear that argument.
a3n 10y ago
Anecdote: In my pinboard.in account, I have 6,123 bookmarks, and 497 tags. With no more analysis than a calculator, that's roughly one tag servicing 12 bookmarks. I don't think that's very good. (I am, however, still very happy with my pinboard account. I treat my bookmarks as searches that I'm going to want to do in the future, with a high probability of finding something useful.) How I got here is that I use the pinboard Firefox addon, and when I find something useful, I bookmark it in pinboard. Pinboard has tags, and it will often make suggestions, which are often correct. But of course you can add tags on the fly. As I've used the account over the years, my interests have changed, as well as my awareness of how tags have served me so far, so I would tag some things very differently a few years ago as opposed to now or in the future. That makes older tags potentially less relevant, as they are less likely to come to mind, and therefore less likely to help me find the thing I'm looking for now, with today's focus. Which is a long way of saying, tags are essentially arbitrary without a well thought out system (mental and/or physical), and sufficient thought and constraints at each tagging event. The last tag in my list is "youtub." Tags are cool. And tags are hard. The idea is simple, but I wouldn't call them a simple solution.
- pmoriarty 10y ago
  Tags are a solution, though perhaps not a perfect one. But what solution ever is? Counter-anecdote for you: I've been using the web ever since it was created, and for approximately the first half of that time I was just using regular bookmarks, with a regular bookmark manager, putting bookmarks in a heirarchichal folder structure that I manually created. Then browsers developed the ability to tag bookmarks. Since then I've switched over to only tagging bookmarks, and no longer put them in to any folders and don't so don't have to manually create a folder heirarchy for them. What I do is simply think of every possible way to describe a particular bookmark, with trying to think of every possible keyword/phrase way I might want to use search for them in the future. This has served me exceedingly well, and I've been able to find pretty much every bookmark I was interested this way. This method is still not perfect. The tag-management features of all the bookmark managers I'm aware of are pretty primitive. It would be nice, for example, for these bookmark managers to automatically show show tag clouds or let you browse tags along with their respective bookmarks. This is technically possible, but afaik hasn't been done yet. Despite this, tags can work, and work really well. It would really suck to have to search through thousands of bookmarks without tags or any kind of heirarchy. That's effectively how HN is: very poor structure. They could do a lot better, and I haven't heard of any suggestions to improve the situation that are anywhere as good as tags.