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I disagree. People consume and care about information on different levels. Perhaps you just don't care but some people do care and only want a brief overview.
by MichaelApproved 14y ago
I disagree. People consume and care about information on different levels. Perhaps you just don't care but some people do care and only want a brief overview.
Some people don't need the details of a story, for whatever personal reason. It could be limited time, limited interest or they just want the gist of the story so they can jump into the comments of a site like HN. I often read the headline of a story here on HN and go straight to the comments to see what the community has to say.
TL;DR is also a valuable way to find out if this story is actually interesting. Sometimes the headline (especially link bait) is so misleading that it's helpful to have a quick summary before taking the time to dive into a story.
Personally, I like summarized stories because articles tend to be written for search engines instead of humans. Repetitive content, long introductions, useless speculating and unnecessary back-story annoy me.
Of course, I'm biased. I created a news summarizing website[1] but I did that because I was tired of reading long-winded stories.
[1] http://SkimThat.com http://SkimThat.com
- lotharbot 14y agoI want headlines to provide me with a concise summary of what I can expect to find within an article, so I can decide whether it's worth my time. But headlines don't always do this very well; sometimes they promise more than the article delivers, and sometimes they're just poorly written and miss the point. The tl;dr convention exists, and thrives even on HN, because we recognize the value of our own and others' time and attention. As you say, it's a valuable way to find out if the story is actually interesting or worthwhile.
- MichaelApproved 14y agoIndeed. In the course of running Skim That, I've heard people refer to TL;DR as a tool for the lazy or that it encourages people not to read and be ill-informed. I think it's just the opposite. People care, that's why they're there reading things in the first place. The TL;DR helps people get more done.
- BenoitEssiambre 14y agoSkimThat is kinda neat. I too have made a (unfortunately unpopular) website, more of a wiki in my case, based on the idea of hiding details: http://www.bookvoid.com http://www.bookvoid.com I think it would be nice in SkimThat if the news summaries could be made visible without navigating to a new page (That's how I do it in Bookvoid). Readers would only need to go to the new page if they wanted to see the comments or source.
- MichaelApproved 14y agoThanks. I like the concept of your site. I'm also having trouble getting traction with writers. Several people have summarized stories but only a few return and summarize. Most of the content is created in-house. I'm looking into adding more Game features to encourage participation. I experimented with having all the summaries on the homepage, (Headline, picture, summary, headline, picture, summary, headline, picture, summary, headline, picture, summary) Though it was more useful, it looked messy. Each day the system sends out an email with all the summaries of the day. That allows people to read everything in one place. I'm thinking about experimenting with an endless homepage for members. People who want to see all the articles in one place and visit the homepage and just read everything as they scroll down.
- BenoitEssiambre 14y agoYeah it's not easy getting people to create content. I hope you succeed! What I meant was to hide the summaries by default but have a button or 'more...' link that reveals them inline which is quicker than navigating to another page.
- MichaelApproved 14y agoI see what you're saying but even with a summary, it's still a lot of area to slide down on the page. I have a hard time implementing that without it making the page feel cluttered.