Who's listening? Growing privacy concerns around transcription services (2020) • Hacker News Board

Re: Who's listening? Growing privacy concerns around transcription services (2020)

#21

Post by luckylion » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 1:26 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #15

lupire wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communication is about co : sharing information that is wanted to be sent and wanted to be received. Readers aren't meant to be a captive audience for shaggy dog tales. The article is on the review of Journalism website, not a storytelling website. Overpacking a story with junk (how ironic!) makes it harder to spread the important ideas of the article, which hurts the author's goal.

Different people like different things. Rather than assuming the author, the editor, and various other reviewers are all idiots, perhaps consider that you are not representative of their typical audience.

That's a good point. I feel like there's essentially two groups: those that want the information and are annoyed by the stories, and those who want the stories. I don't know whether they'd read the article if it didn't come with a somewhat relatable story.

Unfortunately, many large media companies have adopted the story-first-facts-second strategy. Are those who prefer otherwise such a tiny minority?

To me, these articles look like those SEO recipe sites that are stuffed with random content because Google won't rank them as well if they just provided what the user is looking for.

Re: Who's listening? Growing privacy concerns around transcription services (2020)

#22

Post by jfd98njkdgnh » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 1:29 PM UTC

And in some places, those are hard to avoid. My school in previous semester had a class that required online meetings that were recorded and transcriped with no way to opt out without affecting your grade. And explaining my beefs to professors is getting harder and harder ( ie. for an outside viewer it looks like I am not being reasonable ).

Re: Who's listening? Growing privacy concerns around transcription services (2020)

#23

Post by ghaff » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 1:36 PM UTC

For air-gapped recordings the technique that one person mentions (locally record and make brief notes/timing of important parts of the conversation--there are devices that will do this semi-automatically) is probably the best approach.

I'd also note that ML transcriptions are useful in the context of this article, i.e. to get rough cheap transcripts. But, if you value your time above minimum wage, human transcription is a lot better if you actually want to publish a transcript of an interview.

Re: Who's listening? Growing privacy concerns around transcription services (2020)

#24

Post by jasode » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 1:37 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #6

dsnr wrote: post #5

Pro tip: Jump to paragraph 11 to skip the life story of the random person and get to the point.

What's with the fad where articles start by describing how a random person overpacked? It's such a cliche by now, yet I see it everywhere.

>What's with the fad where articles start by describing how a random person overpacked?

Fyi, it's not a fad. It's what's called a "human interest" angle and some publications (like this rrj.ca website of this thread) have that editorial allowance for personal storytelling. (I made a previous comment about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24270673)

More examples of that include "The New Yorker", "Harper's" and other literary style magazines.

The opposite examples of "just the facts" type of publishers would be "lwn.net" for Linux tech articles or The Economist magazine for business stories. You won't find articles beginning with personal things like, "When I was a little boy, my father took me to discover ice...blah blah blah...."

The problem is that HN is an aggregation site that gets the [human interest] articles when some readers don't want it and we have no convention for tagging them to avoid annoying that subset of the audience.

Re: Who's listening? Growing privacy concerns around transcription services (2020)

#25

Post by geoduck14 » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 1:39 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #15

lupire wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communication is about co : sharing information that is wanted to be sent and wanted to be received. Readers aren't meant to be a captive audience for shaggy dog tales. The article is on the review of Journalism website, not a storytelling website. Overpacking a story with junk (how ironic!) makes it harder to spread the important ideas of the article, which hurts the author's goal.

Different people like different things. Rather than assuming the author, the editor, and various other reviewers are all idiots, perhaps consider that you are not representative of their typical audience.

Valid point! Oddly enough, I'd rather read a bunch of comments _about_ the alleged article than actually _read the article_.

Perhaps if someone wrote a blog in nested-comment style I would read it.

Fun though experiment: could Harry Potter be rewritten in comment style?

Re: Who's listening? Growing privacy concerns around transcription services (2020)

#26

Post by tremon » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 1:40 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #15

lupire wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communication is about co : sharing information that is wanted to be sent and wanted to be received. Readers aren't meant to be a captive audience for shaggy dog tales. The article is on the review of Journalism website, not a storytelling website. Overpacking a story with junk (how ironic!) makes it harder to spread the important ideas of the article, which hurts the author's goal.

Different people like different things. Rather than assuming the author, the editor, and various other reviewers are all idiots, perhaps consider that you are not representative of their typical audience.

Indeed. To me, it's the age-old form vs function dichotomy. I have resigned myself long ago to the fact that most people choose form over function every time.

I found it's very liberating to consciously decide "this isn't intended for me" and focus my attention elsewhere. Still, it's very easy to lower my guard and fall into the mindless consumer trap again. But it's an indulgence, and I try to limit my intake.

Re: Who's listening? Growing privacy concerns around transcription services (2020)

#27

Post by StavrosK » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 1:44 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #24

StavrosK wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's with the fad where articles start by describing how a random person overpacked? It's such a cliche by now, yet I see it everywhere.

>What's with the fad where articles start by describing how a random person overpacked? Fyi, it's not a fad. It's what's called a "human interest" angle and some publications (like this rrj.ca website of this thread) have that editorial allowance for personal storytelling. (I made a previous comment about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24270673 ) More examples of that include "The New Yorker", "Harper's"…

Hmm, that's informative, thanks. I agree there's an expectation mismatch, but I also find the writing in those articles a bit formulaic. I guess I'm mostly annoyed because I'm expecting a "just the facts" style and getting "human interest" instead, but it's fair that there are people who prefer that style.

Re: Who's listening? Growing privacy concerns around transcription services (2020)

#28

Post by vorpalhex » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 1:50 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #24

StavrosK wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's with the fad where articles start by describing how a random person overpacked? It's such a cliche by now, yet I see it everywhere.

>What's with the fad where articles start by describing how a random person overpacked? Fyi, it's not a fad. It's what's called a "human interest" angle and some publications (like this rrj.ca website of this thread) have that editorial allowance for personal storytelling. (I made a previous comment about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24270673 ) More examples of that include "The New Yorker", "Harper's"…

Any good sources on this kind of media "sausage making" meta detail?

Re: Who's listening? Growing privacy concerns around transcription services (2020)

#29

Post by ghaff » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 1:55 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #24

StavrosK wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's with the fad where articles start by describing how a random person overpacked? It's such a cliche by now, yet I see it everywhere.

>What's with the fad where articles start by describing how a random person overpacked? Fyi, it's not a fad. It's what's called a "human interest" angle and some publications (like this rrj.ca website of this thread) have that editorial allowance for personal storytelling. (I made a previous comment about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24270673 ) More examples of that include "The New Yorker", "Harper's"…

Although I'd argue The Economist, while not having that form of literary style, does favor wordplay of various types so it's not really a great "just the facts" example. (Not a criticism in that I like their style in general.)

Re: Who's listening? Growing privacy concerns around transcription services (2020)

#30

Post by zoomablemind » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

dsnr wrote: post #5

Pro tip: Jump to paragraph 11 to skip the life story of the random person and get to the point.

Why going that deep, if one can just 'get to the point' from the title alone?

I would not comment, if it were somewhat disrespectful to the source and context of the article. It's a journalism oriented blog, and in this case, its target audience is practicing or student journalists. So the story is painted to relate to that audience's concerns.

Also giving such a 'Pro tip' is equal to teaching HN readers how to use scrolling...