Hacker News Reader

Comment by Cthulhu_ | Hacker News Reader

Where would you draw the line though? Would you want the same for e.g. HTML? HTTP? HN? YC?

I mean personally I'm all in favor of more usage - or even automatic insertion - of the `<abbr>` tag. Can probably be done with a browser addon as well.

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"CNN generated Image" sounds like "Images generated by the Cable News Network, CNN" as if the corporation has some software/policy for editing and prepping images in a way they can be detected. It's not so absurd, photojournalism can be quite specific in rules.

The ability to classify photos by news outlet based on identifying their photojournalism rules through computer algorithms sounds like a remarkably clever idea.

HTML doesn't have that ambiguity.

I wonder if part of an issue is the generation gap? For older readers, I imagine that they're much more familiar with CNN referring to the Cable News Network. Whereas for younger readers heavily involved in tech, me included, we aren't as heavily tied to the former abbreviation, so CNN referring to neural networks comes more readily to mind.

Well, I'm not "old" (which ever the definition is) yet. I'm just on the Front-End side of the dev world. Never fiddled with AI/Neural Networks.

> Where would you draw the line though? Would you want the same for e.g. HTML?

The day someone uses “HTML” to mean “hyper-threaded machine learning” or whatever, yes definitely.

CNN was unambiguously used for the TV channel for decades now, of course some people are confused when one uses it to mean something else without warning.

It’s all about audience and confusion. My feel of the HN readership is that it’s a vey broad base of mostly technical backgrounds; international but US heavy. That puts the ones you list as perfectly reasonable, and CNN referring to the neural networks is usually ok.

I this case, however, there’s a conflict with the news network which could also plausibly be the subject of the headline. They have interenational recognizability, and have been using the acronym almost exclusively for years; it is effectively their name.

Maybe when it is a widely known abbreviation for something else?

We are not computer algorithms here. A human being can decide "yeah this sounds like cable news network" and use the long form of this CNN.

One relatively easy to draw line is whether the abbreviation has other commonly used meanings. CNN has, while none of HTML, HTTP, HN or YC do.

That really depends on the reader...

RMTG OSPG NNZA BZZZRAMT

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F0x2...

HTML has no alternative interpretation in widespread usage so it is appropriate for use in any context where average general knowledge can be assumed.

HN is suitable here because it can be assumed that Hacker News denizens are acquainted with a rather obvious shorthand for their own community.

YC... likely as above but might be safer explicated and explained.

Somewhere between HTML and CNN. The crowd here is familiar enough with HTML but CNN is not only a smaller abbreviation but also an ambiguous one here.

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