4 ms·

I really wish HN had some policy/method of changing the links to such pop-sci articles to the actual source. The paper they're talking about is much more readab

by avar 7y ago

I really wish HN had some policy/method of changing the links to such pop-sci articles to the actual source. The paper they're talking about is much more readable. These news articles manage to spread all the information in the concise abstract over multiple pages without adding anything of value. Here's the paper: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2017GL074982%4010.1002/%28ISSN%291944-8007.GRLHIGHLIGHTS2017 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/201...

Lycake 7y ago
Thank you! The Abstract and especially the "Plain Language Summary" are written great. Sometimes even abstracts can be hard to understand if you are not experienced in the field, and I appreciate news sources summarizing those papers in more layman language, but in this case the article just makes it worse.
- wastedhours 7y ago
  I do like the "Plain Language Summary", but as a non-scientist (but hopefully reasonably smart person), there's still some jargon in there that's confusing (had no idea what "graupel" was, nor "microphysics of cloud drop formation"). Credit to them for including something like that and definitely needs to be done more from the primary source, but think it needs a bit more work to be properly "plain language".
  - Lycake 7y ago
    > had no idea what "graupel" was funny. Here in Germany, "Graupel" is commonly used in normal weather reports. I didn't even know the word existed like that in english and didn't realize it when I read the paper. It's weird that you don't really notice words of your native language in a foreign language text. Or at least I rarely do. Same with the (originally German) words "Doppelgänger" and "Kindergarten".
    - wastedhours 7y ago
      Interesting, I tend to find the opposite - I outweightedly find the English words (or at least, the English versions of words probably derived from another language...) in text more often. Probably because my additional language skills are really bad. Feel like, "oh, I definitely know that word!"
peignoir 7y ago
Thanks! Not to mention how annoying paywalls are...
bitcurious 7y ago
The reason this article was written was because Wired paid a journalist to peruse a bunch of academic journals looking for interesting stuff. If you cut Wired out from the profit loop, you’d have to read those academic journals yourself, or depend on other users on this website to do it. I don’t see either happening reliably enough to compete with a paid professional.
- basch 7y ago
  It's really time for hn to acknowledge that stories have multiple links, perspectives, and chronological events and allow groupings. Take techmeme for example https://www.techmeme.com/191010/p17#a191010p17 https://www.techmeme.com/191010/p17#a191010p17 To the left of the story, click the down arrow, thats every repost or perspective of the original story. Then the indented stories are followups. Circa also designed itself around this, having a story and when you clicked it, THEN you would see the overall structure of the stories development timeline. It wouldnt even have to be a chance to the existing hn site, somuch as an additional view that allows stories and comments to be stitched together and intermixed. More on the topic of this post, I love the wired headline, how it reads "lightening strikes twice" and then the sentence continues, modifying twice into "twice as."
  - fedups 7y ago
    Never heard about Circa before, but just read a little about them and their feature that has the goal > "to break down a story into its core elements: facts, stats, quotes and media", as opposed to a summary where content is reduced for quicker reading or users are linked elsewhere for the full story Do you know of any other [general, not tech-specific] media outlets with this philosophy? I find most sources these days are unhelpful even though they think they're adding value with emphasis on narratives.
    - basch 7y ago
      it flies in the face of "chronological feed culture" (twitter, rivers) and "algo popularity" to have people clicking the same story multiple time for updates. chron/ai feeds are meant to let you ever feast on the new without ever going back to the old. that philosophy you are looking for has a hard time competing with out of context constantly breaking news blips. (short answer to your q, I cant think of a good one off the top of my head.) Does wikinews have that sort of metastructure above stories? https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page personally id love a menu in a news app that says "updates to stories youve clicked" without having to follow a story. then separately i would have "followed/starred" stories as a different menu entry. they might sort differently, such as, since last clicked vs since most recent update.
binaryorganic 7y ago
I would really dislike it if somebody had the power to swap out links like that. The whole purpose of social voting sites is that we get to to decide what links we see as a community. Plenty of folks prefer casually summarized content, ads and all.
- mikelyons 7y ago
  This is also why I only click through to comments, and then to the link, if the comments deem it worthwhile/primary source
opencl 7y ago
There already is such a policy, though enforcement depends on somebody complaining and the mods following through. >Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter.

by avar 7y ago

Lycake 7y ago

Thank you! The Abstract and especially the "Plain Language Summary" are written great. Sometimes even abstracts can be hard to understand if you are not experienced in the field, and I appreciate news sources summarizing those papers in more layman language, but in this case the article just makes it worse.

wastedhours 7y ago
I do like the "Plain Language Summary", but as a non-scientist (but hopefully reasonably smart person), there's still some jargon in there that's confusing (had no idea what "graupel" was, nor "microphysics of cloud drop formation"). Credit to them for including something like that and definitely needs to be done more from the primary source, but think it needs a bit more work to be properly "plain language".
- Lycake 7y ago
  > had no idea what "graupel" was funny. Here in Germany, "Graupel" is commonly used in normal weather reports. I didn't even know the word existed like that in english and didn't realize it when I read the paper. It's weird that you don't really notice words of your native language in a foreign language text. Or at least I rarely do. Same with the (originally German) words "Doppelgänger" and "Kindergarten".
  - wastedhours 7y ago
    Interesting, I tend to find the opposite - I outweightedly find the English words (or at least, the English versions of words probably derived from another language...) in text more often. Probably because my additional language skills are really bad. Feel like, "oh, I definitely know that word!"

peignoir 7y ago

Thanks! Not to mention how annoying paywalls are...

bitcurious 7y ago

The reason this article was written was because Wired paid a journalist to peruse a bunch of academic journals looking for interesting stuff. If you cut Wired out from the profit loop, you’d have to read those academic journals yourself, or depend on other users on this website to do it. I don’t see either happening reliably enough to compete with a paid professional.

basch 7y ago
It's really time for hn to acknowledge that stories have multiple links, perspectives, and chronological events and allow groupings. Take techmeme for example https://www.techmeme.com/191010/p17#a191010p17 https://www.techmeme.com/191010/p17#a191010p17 To the left of the story, click the down arrow, thats every repost or perspective of the original story. Then the indented stories are followups. Circa also designed itself around this, having a story and when you clicked it, THEN you would see the overall structure of the stories development timeline. It wouldnt even have to be a chance to the existing hn site, somuch as an additional view that allows stories and comments to be stitched together and intermixed. More on the topic of this post, I love the wired headline, how it reads "lightening strikes twice" and then the sentence continues, modifying twice into "twice as."
- fedups 7y ago
  Never heard about Circa before, but just read a little about them and their feature that has the goal > "to break down a story into its core elements: facts, stats, quotes and media", as opposed to a summary where content is reduced for quicker reading or users are linked elsewhere for the full story Do you know of any other [general, not tech-specific] media outlets with this philosophy? I find most sources these days are unhelpful even though they think they're adding value with emphasis on narratives.
  - basch 7y ago
    it flies in the face of "chronological feed culture" (twitter, rivers) and "algo popularity" to have people clicking the same story multiple time for updates. chron/ai feeds are meant to let you ever feast on the new without ever going back to the old. that philosophy you are looking for has a hard time competing with out of context constantly breaking news blips. (short answer to your q, I cant think of a good one off the top of my head.) Does wikinews have that sort of metastructure above stories? https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page personally id love a menu in a news app that says "updates to stories youve clicked" without having to follow a story. then separately i would have "followed/starred" stories as a different menu entry. they might sort differently, such as, since last clicked vs since most recent update.

binaryorganic 7y ago

I would really dislike it if somebody had the power to swap out links like that. The whole purpose of social voting sites is that we get to to decide what links we see as a community. Plenty of folks prefer casually summarized content, ads and all.

mikelyons 7y ago
This is also why I only click through to comments, and then to the link, if the comments deem it worthwhile/primary source

opencl 7y ago

There already is such a policy, though enforcement depends on somebody complaining and the mods following through. >Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter.