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Comment by cft | Hacker News Reader

The development of such language ("content verticals") indicates the transition of a maturing industry from the founders/builders to the executives/gate keepers. They create such language to inflate the value of their executive work which is necessary in corporate politics, as opposed to the value creation process of founders who build new things and call them simply.

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I completely agree. That's why we founders, who are much better at using simple language, should ideate a way to pivot our unicorns to disrupt this space. These executives will discover they're not a culture fit in this paradigm shift where sweat equity is properly valued.

(Can I get some help working in 'gamification', 'bootstrapping', and 'dogfooding'?)

It seems that the adjective 'completely' can be used to mean 'dis-'.

Don't forget "leverage" instead of "use", "orthogonal" instead of "unrelated", and "onboarding" instead of "training"!

You forgot to pivot a second time.

I couldn't agree more with your learnings.

It's not that specific. It's everywhere. I see it all the time in programming terminology.

There are technical terms that annoy me when I first hear them. It appears people are trying to inflate their worth by using unnecessarily specific or complicated terms. Then on some random night when I'm bored I'll familiarize myself with the term and all its' nuances and from that point forward it's more efficient to use the formerly-annoying-and-seemingly-high-and-mighty term to communicate exactly what I mean in a single word or phrase.

That's just how language works. But like anything, some folks will latch onto anything to inflate what they bring to the table by over-complicating things.

Thankfully the divining rod for weeding these people out is often as simple as asking them two to three questions on the topic to discern if they're leveraging their vocabulary or hiding behind it.

I've had the same experience. I'd add that after you learn and internalize the slang, you can usually see it falling into one of three broad categories:

1. It's a genuinely useful term, descriptively named, for which no good succinct alternative exists: eg, "outrage porn."

2. A genuinely useful term, poorly named, but excusable because it already has an entrenched history and community using it: eg, "monad" in functional programming.

3. A confusing term, poorly named, for which many good alternatives exist, but which continues to thrive on meme status, or for political reasons, within a particular community. A lot of marketing and business slang, and PC terminology, falls into this category.

So I think it's valid to criticize slang in category 3. That is, not all slang is created equal, or for equal reasons.

Very well put!

Do you have a suggestion for a replacement for "monad"? It's always been such an opaque term to me, even as I began to get a grasp of it.

This post (http://stackoverflow.com/a/194207/438615) makes a good case for "computation builder." Also, as there are abstract data types (stack, queue, etc), monads are abstract control flow types. Another answer there suggests "control type". Something even better is probably possible, but I like both of those better than "monad".

FlatMappable :-)

> monad ... poorly named.

Depends on your study of history. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monadology#The_metaphysics_of_...).

... on second thought, I guess that's exactly what you were saying.

Would you prefer them say "categories of content on the site that tend to deal with a central topic or theme." Content vertical is a pretty standard term.

These kind of judgemental blanket statements have no place on a site like this,and worse show a lack of experience working in any large company. Please try to be more productive when contributing.

This guy is a straight shooter with upper management written all over him

What would you say ... ya do here?

"Content categories" would probably work fine.

But it's more than a content category. It's not like "Posts tagged with 'Entertainment'". It's more like a sub domain. entertainment.yahoo.com vs finance.yahoo.com

Edit: fashion.yahoo.com isn't real, so I changed it to entertainment.yahoo.com

It really isn't.

Most trades develop a vernacular particular to the trade...this makes it easy for those in the trade to distinguish between knowledgeable tradesmen and those who are new...

It's a rite of passage...

Go work a construction site...a hospital...a day care center...if you're new you'll either pick up on the "code" or be somewhat of an outsider until you do...

It's the price of true admission...

Interesting, as "content" on its own has been / can still be a somewhat dirty word in this context. Some folks who write stories, take photos, or shoot video don't appreciate their works referred to as content. Some still prefer author, photographer, film maker to "content creator." But it's a handy, encompassing term.

When multiple authors, photographers, videographers create works around similar topics and themes, "content verticals" can be a useful term. Still some have little love for it.

On a typical day, this site does a pretty good job of inflating the irony aneurysm building up in my psyche, but I'm afraid that if I read a comment from a tech nerd complaining about how "executives" use jargon to obscure what they do, that aneurysm will certainly rupture.

I've been lurking in your /threads page for a good while, and this single-scentence post conjures up an excellent comic strip image. Keep up the good work!

I don't think it's as simple as that. The complaint is about the vulgarity of executive jargon. The underlying problem with it all is the belief that they are at the top of a non-meritocratic hierarchy. Positions that have been attained largely bullshitting and politicking (and of course hard work, just not necessarily productive hard work). The jargon is just a small part of that.

Fundamentally if someone can program well they will get hired. Whether one is suited to run a large company or not well its complicated and the outcomes often make the world (and indeed their companies) a worse place. At least that is the at least somewhat justified belief.

That said, personally I think it is reasonably descriptive. What I do object to is when it leaks into normal life. Get new 'content'... my you have got good taste in content (points to bookshelf)

Also, people referring to themselves as consumers, rather than customers. "Doing anything nice this weekend, Bob?" "Just gonna sit in, consume some content."

how is "content vertical" any more a sign of the apocalypse than, say, "threaded tree" or "responsive site"?

>indicates the transition of a maturing industry from the founders/builders to the executives/gate keepers.

Is that what you think? It certainly gave me pause; "startups" are some of the worst offenders when it comes to spewing jargon.

>as opposed to the value creation process of founders who build new things and call them simply.

Oh brother...

Uh... yeah, that's why the startup industry has absolutely no trade language, right?

Translation: Middle management invents slang like this to seem more important.

Upper management too. Have you ever been to a board meeting of a public company?

I'm sorry you've been rubbed the wrong way to be so bitter on just a term.

I couldnt care less.

It just screams inexperienced teenager that thinks everything adult is stuuuuipd. Just had higher expectations for the discourse, thats all.

This teenager is on HN 64 days longer than you.

Ah, yes, HN -- the font of all life experience.

Everyone invents slang to seem more important.

I had to reread this a couple of times to properly parse - was it a meta way of answering the question?

Bro. Yahoo has been a publicly traded company since 1996. What did you think?

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