Readability(lab.arc90.com)
lab.arc90.com
Readability
http://lab.arc90.com/2009/03/readability.php
10 comments
> we're not really entitled to escape banner advertising.
"Oh, really?" I type into my heavily modded Firefox browser because some computer graphics give me brain seizures. (Too bad I cannot log into HN from my Lynx browser.)
Last time I checked, the industry term for a browser is "user agent," and page rendering is under the control of the user agent. I can use whatever user agent I want, and so can you. I can fiddle with my user agent as I see fit, and so can you. That's what your browser's Options dialog is for.
Sorry I'm getting really testy here, but I get tired of pointing out to the world that it's the user who is in control, not marketers, not page designers, not Yahoo! CSS Reset...
"Oh, really?" I type into my heavily modded Firefox browser because some computer graphics give me brain seizures. (Too bad I cannot log into HN from my Lynx browser.)
Last time I checked, the industry term for a browser is "user agent," and page rendering is under the control of the user agent. I can use whatever user agent I want, and so can you. I can fiddle with my user agent as I see fit, and so can you. That's what your browser's Options dialog is for.
Sorry I'm getting really testy here, but I get tired of pointing out to the world that it's the user who is in control, not marketers, not page designers, not Yahoo! CSS Reset...
In the technical sense, sure, you're allowed (entitled) to do whatever you want.
But that's not what tptacek is referring to. He's referring to the "I want something for nothing" sense of entitlement. You have no moral right (entitlement) to read their content without viewing the ads the put up. That's why ad-blocking has never sat right with me: it's implicitly accepting that the model of ad supported, free content can not work on the internet.
But that's not what tptacek is referring to. He's referring to the "I want something for nothing" sense of entitlement. You have no moral right (entitlement) to read their content without viewing the ads the put up. That's why ad-blocking has never sat right with me: it's implicitly accepting that the model of ad supported, free content can not work on the internet.
Nonsense.
If you make the content of your site freely available with the knowledge that users can access your site in a way that circumvents your business model you've signed up for a business model that isn't dependable.
This is no different than a street musician wanting money from people that stop to listen to the music they play. Maybe the listener, having heard the music, determines it's not of any monetary value. Are they obligated to pay anyway? No, and the street musician knows this. They understand that only a certain percentage of people that stop to listen will actually pay anything. It's true, too, that maybe someone will listen to the music and be unable to pay. Should they block their ears as they walk past because they cannot give what the musician would like to receive for his service? In the case of a screen reader, maybe the user doesn't even know the ads exist.
If the street musician decides his business model isn't supporting him as much as he'd like, maybe he'll stop playing music. And will the public that decided to not pay him anything really care that he doesn't play it anymore? No. They decided it wasn't valuable enough to pay for.
If you feel your content is worth something or you need money to continue providing it, you should charge people for it outright, or make an explicit request for donations. If people find value in your content and are able to, they will pay for it.
It should not be expected that when you put content freely available somewhere, whether it be publishing a blog or playing music in the street that everyone who reads or hears it finds it of equal value or is willing and able to pay for it. You, as that site owner or musician do yourself a disservice if you expect otherwise.
If you make the content of your site freely available with the knowledge that users can access your site in a way that circumvents your business model you've signed up for a business model that isn't dependable.
This is no different than a street musician wanting money from people that stop to listen to the music they play. Maybe the listener, having heard the music, determines it's not of any monetary value. Are they obligated to pay anyway? No, and the street musician knows this. They understand that only a certain percentage of people that stop to listen will actually pay anything. It's true, too, that maybe someone will listen to the music and be unable to pay. Should they block their ears as they walk past because they cannot give what the musician would like to receive for his service? In the case of a screen reader, maybe the user doesn't even know the ads exist.
If the street musician decides his business model isn't supporting him as much as he'd like, maybe he'll stop playing music. And will the public that decided to not pay him anything really care that he doesn't play it anymore? No. They decided it wasn't valuable enough to pay for.
If you feel your content is worth something or you need money to continue providing it, you should charge people for it outright, or make an explicit request for donations. If people find value in your content and are able to, they will pay for it.
It should not be expected that when you put content freely available somewhere, whether it be publishing a blog or playing music in the street that everyone who reads or hears it finds it of equal value or is willing and able to pay for it. You, as that site owner or musician do yourself a disservice if you expect otherwise.
Agree with erso. Much of the internet consists of buskers, and buskers cannot rely on revenue. They sing on the street for the love of it, or for self-promotion, or because they don't have headshots and an agent to book a concert hall, or because they're crazy--not because this will bring them a fortune, because it won't. Pay-per-view, however, is booking a concert hall and charging admission. And selling subscriptions is selling season passes to the shows. Very different. Busking might drum up a fan base, but bona fide concerts are where the real revenue is. Think for a moment: pay-per-view and subscription pr0n are where the internet revenue is.
Boss: can you compile for me today's important news from the paper?
Secretary: right away. [takes out scissors and cuts out only the relevant parts]
Boss: great!
s/Boss/user/, s/Secretary/Software/
Once a byte stream of information comes under the control of another user, what they do in their own time and privacy is entirely up to them. It may even be illegal, but it is outside of your control.
We can do this whole "immoral vs moral" and "gentleman's agreement thing." But depending on how gentlemanly you want to be, you can make the tacit agreements infinitely complicated, inefficient, and uneconomical. Example: reading on a small-screen device. Another example: ads on train.
Secretary: right away. [takes out scissors and cuts out only the relevant parts]
Boss: great!
s/Boss/user/, s/Secretary/Software/
Once a byte stream of information comes under the control of another user, what they do in their own time and privacy is entirely up to them. It may even be illegal, but it is outside of your control.
We can do this whole "immoral vs moral" and "gentleman's agreement thing." But depending on how gentlemanly you want to be, you can make the tacit agreements infinitely complicated, inefficient, and uneconomical. Example: reading on a small-screen device. Another example: ads on train.
Do I also have a moral obligation to click on the ads, in case the ad purchaser is being paid by the click instead of by the audience size?
If I watch a TV show with commercials, do I have a moral right to go to the bathroom during the commercial breaks, even if I won't be able to hear the commercials from inside the bathroom?
If I watch a TV show with commercials, do I have a moral right to go to the bathroom during the commercial breaks, even if I won't be able to hear the commercials from inside the bathroom?
I would say that it depends upon your sense of obligation really, but that there IS no requirement.
My personal stance, evolved over the years, basically allows me to do anything short of blocking ads. The cost, I have decided, for accessing ad-supported content is the open-mindedness that while I will subconsciously ignore almost every ad on the web, that I am mentally open to the possibility of being intrigued by an ad enough to click on it.
It seldom happens, but not having blocked the ads, the fact that it happens ever gives me a clean conscience.
My personal stance, evolved over the years, basically allows me to do anything short of blocking ads. The cost, I have decided, for accessing ad-supported content is the open-mindedness that while I will subconsciously ignore almost every ad on the web, that I am mentally open to the possibility of being intrigued by an ad enough to click on it.
It seldom happens, but not having blocked the ads, the fact that it happens ever gives me a clean conscience.
So I have no moral right to use a text-only browser? I have no moral right to browse without a Flash plugin or without JavaScript? I have no moral right to block ads to protect my machine from spyware and make the browsing experience palatable? Most ads are decent, but a minority are extremely intrusive when searching random sites on Google for information.
I'm trying to use the term "moral right" to distinguish between things that you are entitled to do because of living in a (mostly) free society, and the things you are entitled to do because of gentlemen's agreements.
You have the right to browse the internet in any manner that you see fit. But you are in no way morally entitled to any particular content just because it exists. I see ad-supported sites as gentlemen's agreements: we give you content if you view our ads.
You have the right to browse the internet in any manner that you see fit. But you are in no way morally entitled to any particular content just because it exists. I see ad-supported sites as gentlemen's agreements: we give you content if you view our ads.
> That's why ad-blocking has never sat right with me: it's implicitly accepting that the model of ad supported, free content can not work on the internet.
I'm sure back in the Dark Ages, DARPA and the universities did not invent the interwebs with advertising and in mind. Trying to come up with a "business model" for "generating revenue" while "delivering content" has been bolted on to a system this wasn't designed for. (Aside: and the internet wasn't invented with security in mind, which is why we perpetually bolt together solutions to thwart spammers and botnets.)
I'm sure back in the Dark Ages, DARPA and the universities did not invent the interwebs with advertising and in mind. Trying to come up with a "business model" for "generating revenue" while "delivering content" has been bolted on to a system this wasn't designed for. (Aside: and the internet wasn't invented with security in mind, which is why we perpetually bolt together solutions to thwart spammers and botnets.)
They didn't invent it with free newspapers in mind either, or do you not remember Clari.net?
How about free content that isn't ad-supported? Shouldn't sites like Wikipedia and dmoz give you more pause than an ad-blocker?
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Ad-supported sites have an implicit agreement: view these ads, and you can get access to the content. I feel that disabling the ads violates that agreement. Further, I'm worried about what would happen if everyone blocked the ads. These sites need to make money, and if they don't, the content goes away.
Sites like Wikepedia are donation based, and run as non-profits.
Sites like Wikepedia are donation based, and run as non-profits.
Heres an analogy that most hackers can identify with-- the local coffee shop. The agreement there is implicit as well (and sometimes explicit): buy this coffee, and you can use the internet. Should you get free internet without buying the coffee?
Except coffee shops are for-profit. I'm not concerned Wikipedia will disappear. I am concerned that the NY Times online will disappear, because it needs to sustain a profit.
(For the record, I actually worry if my coffee purchase really does offset my resource usage when I stay for 3-4 hours in my local coffee shop on weekends.)
(For the record, I actually worry if my coffee purchase really does offset my resource usage when I stay for 3-4 hours in my local coffee shop on weekends.)
Except coffee shops are for-profit.
Theoretically speaking. See:
http://www.slate.com/id/2132576/?dupe=with_honor +
"I opened a charming neighborhood coffee shop. Then it destroyed my life."
+ No clue what that query parameter is doing there, but I got to it with Google.
Theoretically speaking. See:
http://www.slate.com/id/2132576/?dupe=with_honor +
"I opened a charming neighborhood coffee shop. Then it destroyed my life."
+ No clue what that query parameter is doing there, but I got to it with Google.
Yes, I've read that. And it supports my point: the coffee-shop wasn't able to make a profit, and it went out of business.
WiFi or no WiFi, beverage or no beverage, a coffee house lets you hang out until the manager decides to throw you out. Likewise, NYTimes.com can revamp its site such that nonsubscribers are limited to 1 hour at the site with 24 hours in between, like HN's noprocrast.
The same logic says that I should be able to strip the DRM off a movie I download from iTunes and share it to the world as a torrent; after all, it's my computer, and I'm the user, and I'm the one in control.
That's not, imho, a fair comparison - the user agent has the right to alter their perception of the content (strip ads, enlarge font size, have a screen-reader read it) - nowhere in that did the poster suggest that they are then free to re-distribute that content on to other users as your post suggests. I (humbly) put it that your logic is flawed.
Hm, I think that's right.
Well sorry, it simply isn't. It's a very basic logical flaw, a fallacy of extension (it's extremely common, oft referred to as the straw man argument) - instead of arguing against the issue, namely the right of the user to alter their perception of received content to better suit their person, you are suggesting that the poster (and their argument) inherently supports the redistribution of that altered content to third parties without the content producer's permission - nowhere in the the post was that assertion made - you made it up all by yourself and then attacked that. So Yes, your logic is flawed, awfully sorry, I know, it's so annoying when that truth thing gets in the way.
Um, message board geek? I just agreed with you. Take a xanax.
I remember reading about a court ruling that copyright circumvention is different from skipping ads. So you can't pirate the DVD you just bought, but it's ok to fastforward past the previews. Somebody help me out..
Most websites with extended articles have links for "Printer-Friendly" pages. Am I violating a moral code by reading the articles in that form?
How about when I walk away from my TV when commercials come on? That's what I usually do, when I'm actually watching TV, which is relatively rare.
I also never bother reading ads in the newspaper. Sometimes, I fold the newspaper such that I don't have to look at the ad, and can focus on the content.
Are you seriously arguing that just because a service chooses to show ads, I'm not entitled to actively ignore those ads?
How about when I walk away from my TV when commercials come on? That's what I usually do, when I'm actually watching TV, which is relatively rare.
I also never bother reading ads in the newspaper. Sometimes, I fold the newspaper such that I don't have to look at the ad, and can focus on the content.
Are you seriously arguing that just because a service chooses to show ads, I'm not entitled to actively ignore those ads?
I guess the closest you could come to a real "argument" in what I'm saying is: if we adopt technology that hurts the business models of ad-supported sites, we're inviting those sites to develop more intrusive ways of monetizing us.
More intrusive? Could you cite examples?
There is a business model that would afford the sites that are valuable to users to continue being operational: charging people. If ads can be circumvented, as we know they can, and your site relies on ads, maybe you should charge people outright for your content. If you can't make money by charging people, who cares if your site goes down but you?
The value of a site cannot be determined by the operator of it. Only the users determine the value.
There is a business model that would afford the sites that are valuable to users to continue being operational: charging people. If ads can be circumvented, as we know they can, and your site relies on ads, maybe you should charge people outright for your content. If you can't make money by charging people, who cares if your site goes down but you?
The value of a site cannot be determined by the operator of it. Only the users determine the value.
Yes, easily. If browsers all had a big button for stripping ads and rendering pages in a "reader-friendly" style, all the major content sites would break all their stories into 10-page flows with timed interstitial ads.
> if we adopt technology that hurts the business models of ad-supported sites, we're inviting those sites to develop more intrusive ways of monetizing us.
So it's an arms race! If I take self-defense classes and install security systems, I invite muggers and robbers to develop more clever ways to monetize me! Yes, I'm speaking hyperbole here. But not really. I do find myself using the word "assault" in my mind when seizure-inducing computer graphics come at me.
Likewise, by turning our heads away from our TVs during the ads, we "invite" the advertisers and stations to develop more intrusive ways of grabbing our attention. I think it was the early '90s when I started noticing ads being played at a louder volume. And in the past couple years, one of the stations here in NYC has taken to showing a bright flash between each ad, between each news preview. For the first couple minutes I happened to be facing away from the flashes, I seriously wondered whether a thunder storm was brewing. But no, it was my TV yelling, "Look at me! Look at me! Eyeballs! Eyeballs!"
So it's an arms race! If I take self-defense classes and install security systems, I invite muggers and robbers to develop more clever ways to monetize me! Yes, I'm speaking hyperbole here. But not really. I do find myself using the word "assault" in my mind when seizure-inducing computer graphics come at me.
Likewise, by turning our heads away from our TVs during the ads, we "invite" the advertisers and stations to develop more intrusive ways of grabbing our attention. I think it was the early '90s when I started noticing ads being played at a louder volume. And in the past couple years, one of the stations here in NYC has taken to showing a bright flash between each ad, between each news preview. For the first couple minutes I happened to be facing away from the flashes, I seriously wondered whether a thunder storm was brewing. But no, it was my TV yelling, "Look at me! Look at me! Eyeballs! Eyeballs!"
Thankfully, the browser vendors are not going to indulge you in this "arms race" fallacy, because most people don't want to antagonize the content providers.
Mmm, you're the one who brought the word 'intrusive' into the discussion. I happen to be agreeing with you about increasing intrusiveness.
I don't think "arms race" is a fallacy. Instead of advertising, think security for a moment. We all know browser venders are in a perpetual race against phishers and botnets and so on. So when Firefox came along, it billed itself as being "safer" than MSIE. Now think of pop-up ads. The browser vendors do indulge us in an anti-intrusive advertising race when the browsers block pop-up windows by default. My personal techniques against intrusion just happen to be a few steps ahead of Aunt Sally Sue's.
I don't think "arms race" is a fallacy. Instead of advertising, think security for a moment. We all know browser venders are in a perpetual race against phishers and botnets and so on. So when Firefox came along, it billed itself as being "safer" than MSIE. Now think of pop-up ads. The browser vendors do indulge us in an anti-intrusive advertising race when the browsers block pop-up windows by default. My personal techniques against intrusion just happen to be a few steps ahead of Aunt Sally Sue's.
I think it is more ironic that an article talking about how people like to read things online does not actually explain in words what it is that their tool does - you have to watch a video to get that info.
I disagree. I am certainly entitled to decide what information does or does not get downloaded to my computer.
Interesting note, for those of you uninterested in karma or user names, the bookmarklet will hide both. You'll still have your voting arrows and the comment text; you just won't know what everyone else thought of the comment (aside from their placement relative to each other).
It's pretty neat to go on a big thread and hit the bookmarklet. e.g. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=501696
It's pretty neat to go on a big thread and hit the bookmarklet. e.g. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=501696
It could use more tweaking - I tried to read the latest pg essay with it, but all it would display was the image with the light "PAUL GRAHAM" text at the top of the page. I then tried to go back to the essay, but it looks like the only way to un-Readability the page is to reload it. I then tried to highlight the text that I wanted to read, but Readability doesn't take this into account when generating the page.
When you have a service that guesses what the input is supposed to be, there should be a way to gracefully fail and allow the user to manually specify it, and if that doesn't work it should be easy to disable the service.
When you have a service that guesses what the input is supposed to be, there should be a way to gracefully fail and allow the user to manually specify it, and if that doesn't work it should be easy to disable the service.
If you're a Firefox user and savvy about CSS selectors, I recommend the Stylish add-on (http://userstyles.org/). It lets you create blanket tweaks for all sites and specific tweaks for specific sites. And you can turn your tweaks off and on at will. It works even with Javascript turned off. I set colors and fonts and font sizes, adjust column widths, eliminate entire columns, make images semi-transparent so they don't bug me so much, etc.
Also, if you're an opera user or have greasemonkey the styles can be loaded as userscripts, which will just use javascript to edit the css style changes you have selected.
There are a few styles for Hacker News as well: http://userstyles.org/styles/search/hacker%20news
There are a few styles for Hacker News as well: http://userstyles.org/styles/search/hacker%20news
Being to select the chunk of text you interested would probably solve this issue. I wonder how Readability "selects" the "relevant" part of the page. Maybe it is just a smart heuristic about what the user want ;)
Come from HN => must be a PG fan => Just display "PAUL GRAHAM" => Go back to HN and vote
Reloading the page 'disable' the service, even if it is far from ideal.
I really like it though. I was looking for something similar for years.
Come from HN => must be a PG fan => Just display "PAUL GRAHAM" => Go back to HN and vote
Reloading the page 'disable' the service, even if it is far from ideal.
I really like it though. I was looking for something similar for years.
The PrintWhatYouLike bookmarklet (http://www.printwhatyoulike.com/bookmarklet) does exactly what you're talking about. You can select the contents of pg's article and the bookmarklet will remove everything else on the page. There are lots of other options to reformat any page to your liking. And everything is undoable.
This one is nice but you need to work quite a bit before reading the page. I was not able to do it quickly with PrintWhatYouLike
What I would really enjoy is:
1. Select the text on the page
2. Click on the bookmarklet link
3. Start to read
I wasn't able to do this quickly with PrintWhatYouLike. But maybe I am missing something.
What I would really enjoy is:
1. Select the text on the page
2. Click on the bookmarklet link
3. Start to read
I wasn't able to do this quickly with PrintWhatYouLike. But maybe I am missing something.
Yea, there is a trade-off between speed and accuracy. PrintWhatYouLike aims more for accuracy- you can reformat the page exactly as you want, but its more complicated to use and takes a bit longer. Readability is fast, but you have no control over the output.
If all you want is to select text, and then remove everything else, check out Nuke Anything Enhanced: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/951
If all you want is to select text, and then remove everything else, check out Nuke Anything Enhanced: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/951
someone should combine the selecting part of printwhatyoulike bookmarklet and readability, that would make it almost perfect
I also noticed on Blogger pages (I just read the 'I hate lisp' post on the front page) it only shows the comments, which is totally useless.
I like this a lot. It's sort of a bookmarklet for people who like to read "Printer Friendly" pages. Unless there's pagination, of course.
You should check out the Firefox add-on "Print Hint":
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/700
It will search a page for a "Printer-Friendly" link and display a glowing green printer icon in the bottom of your Firefox if it finds one. I find that on some pages, this can be a way to quickly navigate to a "Reader-Friendly" page that does support pagination. Of course, sometimes Print Hint doesn't detect a printer link, though I've never had a false positive.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/700
It will search a page for a "Printer-Friendly" link and display a glowing green printer icon in the bottom of your Firefox if it finds one. I find that on some pages, this can be a way to quickly navigate to a "Reader-Friendly" page that does support pagination. Of course, sometimes Print Hint doesn't detect a printer link, though I've never had a false positive.
I like it. However, I found a site that breaks it: http://www.instigatorblog.com/the-art-and-science-of-the-sma... ... When I click my 'Readability' bookmarklet in Chrome, the main article is removed completely, and all that's left is the blog entry's comments. Here is the exact Readability bookmarklet I'm using:
javascript:(function(){
readStyle='style-newspaper';
readSize='size-medium';
readMargin='margin-medium';
_readability_script=document.createElement('SCRIPT');
_readability_script.type='text/javascript';
_readability_script.src='http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/js/readability-0.1.js?x='+(Math.random());
document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(_readability_script);
_readability_css=document.createElement('LINK');
_readability_css.rel='stylesheet';
_readability_css.href='http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/css/readability.css';
_readability_css.type='text/css';
document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(_readability_css);
_readability_print_css=document.createElement('LINK');
_readability_print_css.rel='stylesheet';
_readability_print_css.href='http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/css/readability-print.css';
_readability_print_css.media='print';
_readability_print_css.type='text/css';
document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(_readability_print_css);
})();[deleted]
Brilliant. I love the fact that it doesn't really change the look of my blog very much ( http://www.danieltenner.com - once you're inside an article, applying readability with medium margins, newspaper look, large font, only gets rid of the red background and the image, that's all)
Interesting, any idea how this works?
Edit: doh, source here: http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/js/readability-...
Edit: doh, source here: http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/js/readability-...
You edited to include the link to the JS, but here's my reading of it:
1) It pulls out content in <p> tags (presumably those are the ones with data you want).
2) It rewrites double line breaks as paragraph breaks (in case the site isn't as semantic as it should be).
3) In order to pick the "main content" container, it looks for the container elm with the most <p>s inside.
4) It filters the "main content" to remove stuff that looks like trash. Filters include having too much non-<p> content, having too few commas, and too few words.
5) It rips out all of the HTML on the page and puts its own in, which also pulls together the user's selected style info. This is the sketchy step. I think an overlay might've been more appropriate here, but the comments imply the author had some difficulty there.
1) It pulls out content in <p> tags (presumably those are the ones with data you want).
2) It rewrites double line breaks as paragraph breaks (in case the site isn't as semantic as it should be).
3) In order to pick the "main content" container, it looks for the container elm with the most <p>s inside.
4) It filters the "main content" to remove stuff that looks like trash. Filters include having too much non-<p> content, having too few commas, and too few words.
5) It rips out all of the HTML on the page and puts its own in, which also pulls together the user's selected style info. This is the sketchy step. I think an overlay might've been more appropriate here, but the comments imply the author had some difficulty there.
Thanks, had a brainfart and forgot I could just read the code ;)
[deleted]
Useful but seems buggy. It disabled keyboard input completely in Opera.
It's worth pointing out that, like it or not, we're not really entitled to escape banner advertising.