Show HN: Summarizing popular HN articles | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Summarizing popular HN articles

skimthat.com

I'm sure this is on your list, but design could use some work -- visually it seems a lot like one of those regurgitate-press-releases-as-content type of sites.

A new header and actual logo (not text-based and losing the ™) would probably take care of that. The highlighter-on-text look is apt, but doesn't come out very cleanly. Perhaps a logo that captures the "highlighter" idea, rather than physical mimicry.

Excellent idea.

I agree on that point. The look is a turn-off, but once I got past that - this is actually very useful. For me I would shrink the font a bit so I can see even more/ consume more faster.

Thanks for the feedback. Do you think just changing the logo will make it look less like regurgitated press releases?

That would definitely help -- could also be that the header looks like a generic "news" or "publishing" template. Maybe you don't need both a logo and the background photo.

Also you might consider condensing to one column if possible, or at least using a layout that would collapse to a single column. I could see using this a lot on my phone, but I only get about 2/3 of the screen for content. Maybe there's a good wordpress mobile layout out there?

For mobile users, the site entire site is shown but it initially zooms in on the content portion, leaving the side columns off the screen.

I'll work with my designer to tweak the design.

Nice. I watch the RSS feed and rather like the full flow, but if I didn't, this would be a great substitute.

The only concern is the comments there... Doesn't that seem to take away from the comments here? It would be better if you could pull the number of comments here and link here.

I thought the same thing but I doubt it'll take away from the HN comments since I link to it in the summary. I'm hoping the comments on the site can help me build my own community of people who favor this style of writing.

I was thinking of pulling comment count and also vote count. I've got to make sure it's done in a way that's not too taxing for either site.

Who are the writers? I read a few summaries and they seemed pretty good.

Thanks. I got a team of writers with a job post on ProBlogger.net. It's a great source to find good writers. $50 and I got a ton of responses.

Here's the post http://jobs.problogger.net/view/4718

Great. It would be better if the summaries were even shorter though, and had more links.

For example:

"Developers using the Lean Software Development model compare the writing of software to a manufacturing process where project requirements are considered inventory. The focus should be on the code as it is the real inventory. Like all inventory there is a cost to carrying code. Competitive advantage can be achieved by strategically deleting code and focusing on profitable features."

has a lot of cruft and could be summarized like this:

"Lean software says code is inventory - and carrying inventory costs money."

That way you get the main idea and you can click for more.

I like how you're thinking but in this case Lean software generally considers features inventory. The author of the source article is suggesting it should be inventory instead. The transition is needed from the general perception to what is being proposed.

So perhaps:

"Lean software says features are inventory and carrying inventory costs money, but perhaps code itself should be considered inventory instead."

Awesome! Congrats, Michael.

Thanks Giang!

Michael, this is excellent. Congrats!

Seconded. This'll help to cut down on the amount of material I wade through myself trying to keep up with the full feed! Maybe I'll even be able to get some code written again! =]

Thanks so much!

what are your criteria for identifying popular articles? also, is there any NLP involved in the summarization process, or is it all manual?

It's all manual for now but I'm exploring tools to help with the process.

Popular article is defined by reaching the top 5 with about 40 votes.

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