4 ms·

You're actually sort-of describing the original idea for Vox. They wanted to basically have like a website of things happening with explainers for everything th

by 0xCMP 5y ago

You're actually sort-of describing the original idea for Vox. They wanted to basically have like a website of things happening with explainers for everything they could easily link-to and keep updated so they could write a story explaining an event and provide context for experts and normal consumers. e.g. Explainers on the budget process and what happened before with regulations of some kind. etc. And that only becomes relevant to readers when it becomes important and if they're interested in it. Unfortunately because of social media, AMP, and etc. they had to fit in the article format even though they had big plans for doing richer UIs on the website itself. They basically were forced to pivot into a blog which I think they still do a good job at today cause the mission is still similar, but the mechanics of getting people to read things which aren't articles is difficult. [This is all from memory of an episode of Erza Klein's Vox Podcast where the founders talk about the original ideas of Vox and why they ended up where they were]

fouc 5y ago
well gpm's idea doesn't necessarily involve any writing from my read of it. Actually I'd like to see a news site that has no story telling, no explainers, no narrative. Just the core facts as much as possible, but presented over a timeline. So the timeline itself ends up providing the narrative/structure to a large extent.
- gpm 5y ago
  As little writing as possible anyways. I end up giving titles to events, but that's about it. Just the facts news would be interesting, the practical problem is it would also be labor intensive - since you end up needing to write your own (short) article for every story, and understanding the story well enough to do a good job at that. I sort of hope that my site is the 80/20 version of that for people looking for that, by approximating it without actually doing it. Or maybe it could be a useful source of facts for someone who did want to make a news site that did that.
- ComputerGuru 5y ago
  Even just curation without text still risks an agenda. WaPo is famous for this: when there is something happening they want to take a position on, their entire homepage becomes every nitty gritty news piece or reflection that would push one via sheer inundation into supporting their cause with shock and rage. Edit: maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned any names; it seems some people took that as an attack on their particular herd.
  - gladinovax 5y ago
    some folks are super touchy here nowadays. Sad.
thaumasiotes 5y ago
> You're actually sort-of describing the original idea for Vox. They wanted to basically have like a website of things happening with explainers for everything they could easily link-to and keep updated so they could write a story explaining an event I see something different in gpm's idea. Vox wanted to update their articles. That's bad. gpm wants to aggregate coverage of the same topic over time. That's great; it gives you an easy way to look at "what did people think in 2018?".
- fknorangesite 5y ago
  > Vox wanted to update their articles. That's bad. gpm wants to aggregate coverage of the same topic over time. That's great; it gives you an easy way to look at "what did people think in 2018?". At the risk of sounding Extremely Hacker News™, this sounds like a job for version control, ha.
  - gpm 5y ago
    These days "CRDTs" are all the rage for this sort of use case :P Anyways, I'm basically planning on doing this part, but linearly like wikipedia (and it's history page) not as a tree like git. Also what I'm currently doing only counts as a CRDT if "rerender the whole page in case of conflict" is a valid update strategy... https://crdt.tech/ https://crdt.tech/
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    > this sounds like a job for version control Not at all. The most that would get you is "what did Vox think in 2018?".
- popcube 5y ago
  can not we just offer a list of articles in all beginning of all article?
  - mbildner 5y ago
    This sounds like a chrome extension
wutbrodo 5y ago
> I think they still do a good job at today cause the mission is still similar, but the mechanics of getting people to read things which aren't articles is difficult. I think Axios fits what you're describing much better. Vox is a boilerplate left-biased blog[1], with their only unique quality being a sneering insistence that they're just "explaining". They're like the Economist, but without the self-awareness or quality. Axios, on the other hand, is much better at the just-the-facts style of reporting, to the extent this is possible. They even use a non-traditional article format, making heavy use of bullet points and standardized paragraph headers like "Why it matters". [1] Not to treat them as the final word, but Allsides has their bias marked as Left, not even Center-Left. They have Axios as Center. https://www.allsides.com/news-source/vox-news-media-bias https://www.allsides.com/news-source/vox-news-media-bias

by 0xCMP 5y ago

fouc 5y ago

well gpm's idea doesn't necessarily involve any writing from my read of it. Actually I'd like to see a news site that has no story telling, no explainers, no narrative. Just the core facts as much as possible, but presented over a timeline. So the timeline itself ends up providing the narrative/structure to a large extent.

gpm 5y ago
As little writing as possible anyways. I end up giving titles to events, but that's about it. Just the facts news would be interesting, the practical problem is it would also be labor intensive - since you end up needing to write your own (short) article for every story, and understanding the story well enough to do a good job at that. I sort of hope that my site is the 80/20 version of that for people looking for that, by approximating it without actually doing it. Or maybe it could be a useful source of facts for someone who did want to make a news site that did that.
ComputerGuru 5y ago
Even just curation without text still risks an agenda. WaPo is famous for this: when there is something happening they want to take a position on, their entire homepage becomes every nitty gritty news piece or reflection that would push one via sheer inundation into supporting their cause with shock and rage. Edit: maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned any names; it seems some people took that as an attack on their particular herd.
- gladinovax 5y ago
  some folks are super touchy here nowadays. Sad.

thaumasiotes 5y ago

> You're actually sort-of describing the original idea for Vox. They wanted to basically have like a website of things happening with explainers for everything they could easily link-to and keep updated so they could write a story explaining an event I see something different in gpm's idea. Vox wanted to update their articles. That's bad. gpm wants to aggregate coverage of the same topic over time. That's great; it gives you an easy way to look at "what did people think in 2018?".

fknorangesite 5y ago
> Vox wanted to update their articles. That's bad. gpm wants to aggregate coverage of the same topic over time. That's great; it gives you an easy way to look at "what did people think in 2018?". At the risk of sounding Extremely Hacker News™, this sounds like a job for version control, ha.
- gpm 5y ago
  These days "CRDTs" are all the rage for this sort of use case :P Anyways, I'm basically planning on doing this part, but linearly like wikipedia (and it's history page) not as a tree like git. Also what I'm currently doing only counts as a CRDT if "rerender the whole page in case of conflict" is a valid update strategy... https://crdt.tech/ https://crdt.tech/
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > this sounds like a job for version control Not at all. The most that would get you is "what did Vox think in 2018?".
popcube 5y ago
can not we just offer a list of articles in all beginning of all article?
- mbildner 5y ago
  This sounds like a chrome extension

wutbrodo 5y ago

> I think they still do a good job at today cause the mission is still similar, but the mechanics of getting people to read things which aren't articles is difficult. I think Axios fits what you're describing much better. Vox is a boilerplate left-biased blog[1], with their only unique quality being a sneering insistence that they're just "explaining". They're like the Economist, but without the self-awareness or quality. Axios, on the other hand, is much better at the just-the-facts style of reporting, to the extent this is possible. They even use a non-traditional article format, making heavy use of bullet points and standardized paragraph headers like "Why it matters". [1] Not to treat them as the final word, but Allsides has their bias marked as Left, not even Center-Left. They have Axios as Center. https://www.allsides.com/news-source/vox-news-media-bias https://www.allsides.com/news-source/vox-news-media-bias