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Show HN: Weekend Project - Hide Inane Comments on HN

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Re: Show HN: Weekend Project - Hide Inane Comments on HN

#21

Post by ruswick »

This algorithm seems incredibly arbitrary and fails to account for the complexity of diction or sophistication of content of the post. (Obviously, this is incredibly difficult and computationally-intensive, and is likely untenable for a simple Chrome app, but applying such a narrow and draconian algorithm that reduces such complex facets of pedagogy and language into a calculus comprised only of sentence size and syllabic length does not help in weeding HN of poor-quality content.)

Moreover, I'm not sure as to why I would want to rid HN of "8th Grade Content" in the first place. I'm fine with terse sentences and pedestrian word choice so long as the actual content of the post is of value to the conversation.

Re: Show HN: Weekend Project - Hide Inane Comments on HN

#22

Post by Dewie »

DanBC wrote: post #14

Something to turn this into a killer extension would be "Hide comments that use words on my filter list". Thus, I could chose to hide any comment that used the word FANBOI or fanboy or whatever. You'd need to include some method for alerting me that there's a comment that I might wish to downvote. It's a neat project. It's a shame people will pile-on over your unfortunate choice of title here. Your "Important note" o…

I think I'd filter by phrases such as "orders of magnitude" if the rest of the comment doesn't talk about different kinds of memory access or any other technical subject ("The days when I get up before 6 AM I am orders of magnitude more productive"). It would be more of a cliché filter than inaneness-filter, though.

Re: Show HN: Weekend Project - Hide Inane Comments on HN

#23

Post by jere »

What you have created is clearly A Very Bad Idea. A readable sentence isn't necessarily inane. And this gem really makes me laugh "Conversely, some of the most inane comments of all can escape this filter by not using any punctuation (the script will read it as one long sentence)."

But I think that is perhaps beside the point: congrats on writing your first Chrome extension!

Re: Show HN: Weekend Project - Hide Inane Comments on HN

#24

Post by DanBC »

sergiotapia wrote: post #17
DanBC wrote: post #14

Something to turn this into a killer extension would be "Hide comments that use words on my filter list". Thus, I could chose to hide any comment that used the word FANBOI or fanboy or whatever. You'd need to include some method for alerting me that there's a comment that I might wish to downvote. It's a neat project. It's a shame people will pile-on over your unfortunate choice of title here. Your "Important note" o…

I hope you don't include my comment above in that 'pile-on'. I had no intention of negative criticism on the project or the author; just wanted to give a quick tl;dr of how this library works. Nothing more, nothing less. @Author: I apologize if it was taken that way.

Oh no! Your comment was a succinct description of the project. I didn't see your comment as negative in anyway.

Re: Show HN: Weekend Project - Hide Inane Comments on HN

#25

Post by gurkendoktor »

If I facepalm and close the comment tab, it is usually not because if a single posting, but because of a complete subthread that has become a trope. E.g, every time a post contains the phrase "steal software", there will be someone saying "you can only steal cars, not software" and it will go on forever; same for eating meat/going veg, is Google evil or not, skeuomorphism vs flat design. I haven't ever learned anything from these discussions.

Too bad I have already started another weekend project :)

Re: Show HN: Weekend Project - Hide Inane Comments on HN

#26

Post by kenko »

Alas, it is all too feasible to compose inane comments using sesquipedalian vocabulary and an overly-reticulated sentence structure in which dependent clauses which add nothing to the comment save for syntactic complexity, and sometimes only a small measure of that, as when one just links relative clause to relative clause, are stacked, to no one's benefit, one on top of the other.

Re: Show HN: Weekend Project - Hide Inane Comments on HN

#27

Post by carbocation »

Osmium wrote: post #19
carbocation wrote: post #5

If you want to filter by grade level, why not just use a ready-made javascript script that computes an actual Flesch-Kincaid reading level [1]? This seems like reinventing the wheel, though I understand that can be the point of a weekend project. [1] = e.g., https://github.com/cgiffard/TextStatistics.js

Maybe because the Flesch-Kincaid reading level isn't a particularly good metric of anything other than sentence length and syllable count? Certainly not of "content" or "value" however you might define those concepts.

Tell that to the author maybe? The author implemented the Flesch-Kincaid grade level algorithm in his plugin.

In other words, I'm not suggesting that he use Flesch-Kincaid; he already made that choice. I'm suggesting a way for him to not re-implement an algorithm that's already implemented in his language of choice.

Re: Show HN: Weekend Project - Hide Inane Comments on HN

#28

Post by youngerdryas »

ruswick wrote: post #21

This algorithm seems incredibly arbitrary and fails to account for the complexity of diction or sophistication of content of the post. (Obviously, this is incredibly difficult and computationally-intensive, and is likely untenable for a simple Chrome app, but applying such a narrow and draconian algorithm that reduces such complex facets of pedagogy and language into a calculus comprised only of sentence size and syl…

Indeed, brevity is the soul of wit.

Re: Show HN: Weekend Project - Hide Inane Comments on HN

#30

Post by Osmium »

carbocation wrote: post #27
Osmium wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe because the Flesch-Kincaid reading level isn't a particularly good metric of anything other than sentence length and syllable count? Certainly not of "content" or "value" however you might define those concepts.

Tell that to the author maybe? The author implemented the Flesch-Kincaid grade level algorithm in his plugin. In other words, I'm not suggesting that he use Flesch-Kincaid; he already made that choice. I'm suggesting a way for him to not re-implement an algorithm that's already implemented in his language of choice.

Ah, my mistake, my apologies. I thought the author was using a different metric.
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