3 ms·

Show HN: Because most of us suffer from AD(H)D, here is too-long-didnt-read.com

7 points by christophe971 16y ago

Hey HN crowd! Two days ago I realized I'm almost unable to read a book or a long article without getting distracted by Twitter/HN/Reddit/Work. The situation is so terrible, I'm even getting afraid of big articles, and my ReadItLater list is getting pretty long (shameful I know) ... and I'm pretty sure most of you are in this situation :) Being used to TL;DRs on long reddit posts, I thought it would be great to have these for everything, so I quickly hacked this website: http://www.too-long-didnt-read.com/ Here is an example of TL;DR: http://www.too-long-didnt-read.com/5tropy I would love to have your feedback on it, how to improve it, etc. Thank you a bunch! (Some info for nerds: Rails 2.3.8, ~150 LOC, Twitter oAuth is used for posting.) EDIT: Obviously, most of us don't really suffer from ADHD, but I was limited on the characters in the title :)

christophe971 16y ago
Here are the clickable links: http://www.too-long-didnt-read.com/ http://www.too-long-didnt-read.com/ Example of TL;DR: http://www.too-long-didnt-read.com/5tropy http://www.too-long-didnt-read.com/5tropy
charliepark 16y ago
Looks like it could be a good service, like a blog / newspaper version of http://800ceoread.com/ http://800ceoread.com/. Posting a list of recently-posted summaries (blog-style) to the front page — especially with an RSS feed — would be a good way to generate traffic / views / traction.
- christophe971 16y ago
  Since there is no moderation for now, I didn't feel like it was a good idea, but thanks for the input, I'll be thinking about it!
codeslush 16y ago
I visited - didn't know what to do. Definitely need to show a listing of submissions and summaries. As per the example you provided, looks great. Would love to use a service like this. Categorize/tag them so I can browse startup-related articles (or whatever category I want) Auto-fill url's as people are typing. If the story I'm interested in has already been summarized, take me to it. Just a few of my ideas. Could definitely build a mini-newspaper/ezine type of thing around this. Good job! Keep the iterations coming. EDIT: Don't force me to use my twitter account to do a submission - please!
- tst 16y ago
  A browser addon would also be awesome!
- christophe971 16y ago
  Thanks for your comments! "I visited - didn't know what to do." True, the only place it is really explained is here on HN, I'll fix that quickly. [edit: fixed] "Categorize/tag them so I can browse startup-related articles (or whatever category I want)" I don't want it to become this "big", I just want to have a bookmarklet when I'm reading a good Paul Graham's article, and check if someone did a TL;DR for it already. One click. "Auto-fill url's as people are typing." Auto-fill with what? "If the story I'm interested in has already been summarized, take me to it." The bookmarklet does that. "Could definitely build a mini-newspaper/ezine type of thing around this." Maybe, I'll wait to see if the website is of some interest for an interesting number of people first :) "Don't force me to use my twitter account to do a submission - please!" I thought it was a good idea for moderation/spam protection... Maybe I should rethink that... "Good job! Keep the iterations coming." Thanks again !
  - codeslush 16y ago
    "auto fill with what" >> URL completion Forcing me to use my twitter account stopped me from going any further. I understand your logic though. I see someone posted a link to tldr.it - that's kinda what I was thinking as far as showing recent/approved submissions. But you could do better if you do break it down to a tagging/category system. I'm just one voice, so maybe you'll hear it repeatedly. This is just my input - again, congrats on doing something!
shortlived 16y ago
I'm sorry to be "that guy" but most of HN readers probably do not suffer from ADHD. There is a big difference between being distracted on the net and real ADHD. So please just call it "internet attention span" or something.
- christophe971 16y ago
  As usual, "that guy" is correct :) Sorry for the over-simplification. I edited the original post.
rgarcia 16y ago
http://tldr.it/ http://tldr.it/ does this automatically
- christophe971 16y ago
  I didn't know about it, but it failed formidably on http://tldr.it/summaries/13805 http://tldr.it/summaries/13805

7 points by christophe971 16y ago

christophe971 16y ago

Here are the clickable links: http://www.too-long-didnt-read.com/ http://www.too-long-didnt-read.com/ Example of TL;DR: http://www.too-long-didnt-read.com/5tropy http://www.too-long-didnt-read.com/5tropy

charliepark 16y ago

Looks like it could be a good service, like a blog / newspaper version of http://800ceoread.com/ http://800ceoread.com/. Posting a list of recently-posted summaries (blog-style) to the front page — especially with an RSS feed — would be a good way to generate traffic / views / traction.

christophe971 16y ago
Since there is no moderation for now, I didn't feel like it was a good idea, but thanks for the input, I'll be thinking about it!

codeslush 16y ago

I visited - didn't know what to do. Definitely need to show a listing of submissions and summaries. As per the example you provided, looks great. Would love to use a service like this. Categorize/tag them so I can browse startup-related articles (or whatever category I want) Auto-fill url's as people are typing. If the story I'm interested in has already been summarized, take me to it. Just a few of my ideas. Could definitely build a mini-newspaper/ezine type of thing around this. Good job! Keep the iterations coming. EDIT: Don't force me to use my twitter account to do a submission - please!

tst 16y ago
A browser addon would also be awesome!
christophe971 16y ago
Thanks for your comments! "I visited - didn't know what to do." True, the only place it is really explained is here on HN, I'll fix that quickly. [edit: fixed] "Categorize/tag them so I can browse startup-related articles (or whatever category I want)" I don't want it to become this "big", I just want to have a bookmarklet when I'm reading a good Paul Graham's article, and check if someone did a TL;DR for it already. One click. "Auto-fill url's as people are typing." Auto-fill with what? "If the story I'm interested in has already been summarized, take me to it." The bookmarklet does that. "Could definitely build a mini-newspaper/ezine type of thing around this." Maybe, I'll wait to see if the website is of some interest for an interesting number of people first :) "Don't force me to use my twitter account to do a submission - please!" I thought it was a good idea for moderation/spam protection... Maybe I should rethink that... "Good job! Keep the iterations coming." Thanks again !
- codeslush 16y ago
  "auto fill with what" >> URL completion Forcing me to use my twitter account stopped me from going any further. I understand your logic though. I see someone posted a link to tldr.it - that's kinda what I was thinking as far as showing recent/approved submissions. But you could do better if you do break it down to a tagging/category system. I'm just one voice, so maybe you'll hear it repeatedly. This is just my input - again, congrats on doing something!

shortlived 16y ago

I'm sorry to be "that guy" but most of HN readers probably do not suffer from ADHD. There is a big difference between being distracted on the net and real ADHD. So please just call it "internet attention span" or something.

christophe971 16y ago
As usual, "that guy" is correct :) Sorry for the over-simplification. I edited the original post.

rgarcia 16y ago

http://tldr.it/ http://tldr.it/ does this automatically

christophe971 16y ago
I didn't know about it, but it failed formidably on http://tldr.it/summaries/13805 http://tldr.it/summaries/13805