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Foreign alphabet transliteration drama thread under the best hacking-grade article in years. Thanks, hn.

by nurettin 6y ago

learnstats2 6y ago
Yep - if you want people to focus on what you actually wrote, don't do this. I couldn't get past the title.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  Same here, it's extremely annoying. Other pet peeves include "grssk" and Beyoncé's documentary's monstrosity that I don't even care to recall.
- schwartzworld 6y ago
  The most HN comment ever.
- elmo2you 6y ago
  Maybe be slightly more specific: If you want people who get their panties in a twist about anything unsubstantial and want only those who care about substance to read your article, please use this trick ;-) EDIT: you could call it a #snowflake-discriminator
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
p_l 6y ago
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
- op00to 6y ago
  Please explain your reasoning for this.
  - p_l 6y ago
    The stupid game was getting too cute with the title, in a way that essentially invited a backfire. Arguably, it's still better than many titles from the newsrooms, but newsrooms reached the bottom long ago and decided to open a deep mine. Thus, the stupid game led to a stupid prize, where major thread (in fact, one that felt like drowning any other discussion) was about the title technicalities, but not about content.
  - jimmydorry 6y ago
    Not GP, but I'll take a crack at this. The stupid game would be making your article title not an immediately obvious summary of your article. The stupid prize would be this HN thread now that is only discussing the title, instead of the actual article.
    - elmo2you 6y ago
      Which, I would argue, says at least as much about the HN crowd as it does about whoever posted the article under this specific title. EDIT: more specifically .. it's rather ironic how judgmental (and honestly: pretty darn pretentiously) so many here instantly get, yet how there is this implied assumption that the collective wisdom and judgement of this community is above criticism itself, somehow. It might say far more about HN, that nobody appears to be discussing the article's content itself, than it says about the (mis)use of alphabets. I can read Cyrillic fluently, and a bit of Greek too, yet I'm not in the least bit upset about this pun. If this does upset anyone, maybe it's time for some seriously self-reflection for those people, about what they decide to get upset about and what not.
      - lnanek2 6y ago
        It's probably more virtue signalling than actually being upset. Complaining is a way for the complainer to show off they know the actual pronunciations.
        TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
Shorel 6y ago
Because it is not transliteration, at least in any correct sense of the word.
dang 6y ago
If you (i.e. anyone) really wants to be helpful about things like this, email us at hn@ycombinator.com. Downweighting off-topic subthreads that get upvoted to the top is one of the best interventions we can do for discussion quality. We do that whenever we see them, but we don't see them all. There are a couple of users who email us regularly when they see things like that. This is one of the highest-leverage contributions anybody can make to HN, so we'd certainly appreciate hearing from more such users. Actually I only found out about this subthread because of such an email. Supercilious complaints, on the other hand, just make the thread even worse. Please don't do that. The thing where some HN commenters use HN to posture over the rest of HN is tedious, and in poor taste. Let's just work together to make it better, to the extent possible.
- nurettin 6y ago
  Appreciate the gesture. That might work. Took no pleasure in that comment, but truth had to be said.
danShumway 6y ago
IMO this is not in the same category as people complaining about a website requiring Javascript or using the wrong font. It's an unreadable title for screenreaders. And unlike Javascript or CSS styling or trackers, needing a screenreader is not a personal choice, or a limitation that people can turn on and off. I think it's fair to point out when a good article makes itself inaccessible due to a trivially correctable problem. I'm not even saying that the author can't make the joke they're trying to make, but even a small title change like "αcτµαlly pδrταblε εxεcµταblε (actually portable executable)" would basically solve the entire problem without sacrificing any of the meaning behind what the author wants to convey with their misuse of Unicode. It is a good article, which is why the pointless pushback over accessibility is so frustrating. There would be no engineering effort or large compromise required to make the title of the submission readable. It wouldn't suddenly make the article bad, or not worth reading. It feels like it's being exclusionary just for the sake of being exclusionary.

Foreign alphabet transliteration drama thread under the best hacking-grade article in years. Thanks, hn.

learnstats2 6y ago

Yep - if you want people to focus on what you actually wrote, don't do this. I couldn't get past the title.

StavrosK 6y ago
Same here, it's extremely annoying. Other pet peeves include "grssk" and Beyoncé's documentary's monstrosity that I don't even care to recall.
schwartzworld 6y ago
The most HN comment ever.
elmo2you 6y ago
Maybe be slightly more specific: If you want people who get their panties in a twist about anything unsubstantial and want only those who care about substance to read your article, please use this trick ;-) EDIT: you could call it a #snowflake-discriminator

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

p_l 6y ago

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

op00to 6y ago
Please explain your reasoning for this.
- p_l 6y ago
  The stupid game was getting too cute with the title, in a way that essentially invited a backfire. Arguably, it's still better than many titles from the newsrooms, but newsrooms reached the bottom long ago and decided to open a deep mine. Thus, the stupid game led to a stupid prize, where major thread (in fact, one that felt like drowning any other discussion) was about the title technicalities, but not about content.
- jimmydorry 6y ago
  Not GP, but I'll take a crack at this. The stupid game would be making your article title not an immediately obvious summary of your article. The stupid prize would be this HN thread now that is only discussing the title, instead of the actual article.
  - elmo2you 6y ago
    Which, I would argue, says at least as much about the HN crowd as it does about whoever posted the article under this specific title. EDIT: more specifically .. it's rather ironic how judgmental (and honestly: pretty darn pretentiously) so many here instantly get, yet how there is this implied assumption that the collective wisdom and judgement of this community is above criticism itself, somehow. It might say far more about HN, that nobody appears to be discussing the article's content itself, than it says about the (mis)use of alphabets. I can read Cyrillic fluently, and a bit of Greek too, yet I'm not in the least bit upset about this pun. If this does upset anyone, maybe it's time for some seriously self-reflection for those people, about what they decide to get upset about and what not.
    - lnanek2 6y ago
      It's probably more virtue signalling than actually being upset. Complaining is a way for the complainer to show off they know the actual pronunciations.
      - TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago

Shorel 6y ago

Because it is not transliteration, at least in any correct sense of the word.

dang 6y ago

If you (i.e. anyone) really wants to be helpful about things like this, email us at hn@ycombinator.com. Downweighting off-topic subthreads that get upvoted to the top is one of the best interventions we can do for discussion quality. We do that whenever we see them, but we don't see them all. There are a couple of users who email us regularly when they see things like that. This is one of the highest-leverage contributions anybody can make to HN, so we'd certainly appreciate hearing from more such users. Actually I only found out about this subthread because of such an email. Supercilious complaints, on the other hand, just make the thread even worse. Please don't do that. The thing where some HN commenters use HN to posture over the rest of HN is tedious, and in poor taste. Let's just work together to make it better, to the extent possible.

nurettin 6y ago
Appreciate the gesture. That might work. Took no pleasure in that comment, but truth had to be said.

danShumway 6y ago

IMO this is not in the same category as people complaining about a website requiring Javascript or using the wrong font. It's an unreadable title for screenreaders. And unlike Javascript or CSS styling or trackers, needing a screenreader is not a personal choice, or a limitation that people can turn on and off. I think it's fair to point out when a good article makes itself inaccessible due to a trivially correctable problem. I'm not even saying that the author can't make the joke they're trying to make, but even a small title change like "αcτµαlly pδrταblε εxεcµταblε (actually portable executable)" would basically solve the entire problem without sacrificing any of the meaning behind what the author wants to convey with their misuse of Unicode. It is a good article, which is why the pointless pushback over accessibility is so frustrating. There would be no engineering effort or large compromise required to make the title of the submission readable. It wouldn't suddenly make the article bad, or not worth reading. It feels like it's being exclusionary just for the sake of being exclusionary.