Ask HN: Best word to describe this process?

4 pointsby kamehamehavor 17 Jahren25 comments

Picking the most important out of a bunch - what one word best captures this process?

I've been trying to come up with it to describe my startup but haven't had any luck. Any ideas?

P.S. I thought of 'aggregator' but that's not quite right since an aggregator only collects.

20 comments

CraigBuchekvor 17 Jahren

Sounds like you're choosing the "cream of the crop".

From what others wrote, I like "select", "cherry-picking", and "blessed". I don't like "filter", "screen", or "cull", because they imply getting rid of (bad) stuff; you probably want to concentrate on the good stuff.

What qualities are you wanting to measure when determining what's important? I'd brainstorm in that direction, if that's something that can be determined ahead of time.

If you're doing something like an aggregator that puts the good stuff at the top, then "cream of the crop" would be good as I said, or make something up like "cream of the top". Or something about slicing off the top. Or other things that might have good/better stuff at the top: ice cream cones, cupcakes, shakes, lots of garnished food.

cpercivavor 17 Jahren

The first few ideas which come to mind: Optimizing, Ranking, Adjudicating, Selecting.

I don't know if any of those quite fit, but I thought I'd throw them out just in case.

kamehamehavor 17 Jahren

'Ranker' sounds good.

apsurdvor 17 Jahren

I'll update my post as i continue to think about it, but first thing i thought was:

Natural selection, evolution etc.

edit: Screening, (thought filter was obvious!), Sifting, scrutinize

kamehamehavor 17 Jahren

Yeah, I was also thinking of 'selector'.

paulgbvor 17 Jahren

filtering?

kamehamehavor 17 Jahren

I like this one the best so far - 'filter' seems to best capture the idea. Thanks!

chaosmachinevor 17 Jahren

highlight

filter

select

kamehamehavor 17 Jahren

'select' was the first one that came to my mind, but I'm really digging 'filter' :)

aaronblohowiakvor 17 Jahren

choose, pick, bless, accept,

[deleted]vor 17 Jahren

timinmanvor 17 Jahren

pluck

saurabhvor 17 Jahren

Cherrypick

10renvor 17 Jahren

Prioritizing

There's also online thesauri. e.g.: http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/prioritize try starting with different words.

bkovitzvor 17 Jahren

"champeen"

devinvor 17 Jahren

refine, review, grab, point, target, track

telvor 17 Jahren

  Championing
  Zooming
  Nabbing
  Being a connoisseur (commoisseuring?)
  Sifting

Trying to hit some words that aren't just CS/Engineering oriented.

csomarvor 17 Jahren

Tick!

"tick the right answer" (in english exams)

may be useful for you!

asmithmd1vor 17 Jahren

curate

idlewordsvor 17 Jahren

Priorganizing!

yannisvor 17 Jahren

Sieve?

AhmadHvor 17 Jahren

single out

RobGRvor 17 Jahren

Look at the words used in algorithm books for selecting the maximum - "maximizing" and "gradient following" and etc. Maybe one of those is appropriate.

Since all the english words are likely to be already taken as domain names, find out the Tibetan name for when the monks go around and find the baby that the Dalai Lama's soul has moved into, and then use that.

Or maybe do something that reminds people of seeing who can pull the sword out of the stone, or the playoff process in sports.

wlievensvor 17 Jahren

paragonizer

taroutervor 17 Jahren

how about handpick?

arantiusvor 17 Jahren

cull (verb) 2. select or obtain from a large quantity or a variety of sources.

cherry-pick (verb) selectively choose (the best things or people) from those available

prefer (verb, preferred, preferring) 1 like (someone or something) better than another or others; tend to choose