Show HN: WordsForThat.com - A new site that's like a reverse urban dictionary(wordsforthat.com)
wordsforthat.com
Show HN: WordsForThat.com - A new site that's like a reverse urban dictionary
http://www.wordsforthat.com
25 comments
Neat site, but not sure how well the content scales. Pithy rhymes and alliteration get stale pretty quickly. Obviously, the beauty of Urban Dictionary is the ability to lookup words that are actually in use. So it has practical utility outside of its obvious entertainment value. Not sure this works the same way.
Thanks for the feedback! We're just starting out and this is an excellent stress test for us... Any other concerns or comments are greatly appreciated.
Alliteration and portmanteau are a given for something like this. However, we designed the site to be able to handle submissions like foreign words, obscure English words, and also completely made-up words. Additionally, the scenarios don't necessarily need to be word-less lexical gaps! They can describe something which may already have a bunch of words associated with it - the WFT platform being used, in that case, as a voting (or popularity contest) system for the existing slang. Last, to counter the practicality of UD, WFT has the ability to search based on the scenarios and keywords. Once our databases are bit more filled out, users will be able to come to the site to search for a situation and see the most commonly-used (or most clever or whatever) words for that.
I do agree, however, that it may take some effort and some tweaking of the site to encourage something more than the lowest-common-denominator submissions from the general public. Then again, there's a trade-off there between improving content and alienating potential users.
Thanks for the feedback though! Lots to think about!
Alliteration and portmanteau are a given for something like this. However, we designed the site to be able to handle submissions like foreign words, obscure English words, and also completely made-up words. Additionally, the scenarios don't necessarily need to be word-less lexical gaps! They can describe something which may already have a bunch of words associated with it - the WFT platform being used, in that case, as a voting (or popularity contest) system for the existing slang. Last, to counter the practicality of UD, WFT has the ability to search based on the scenarios and keywords. Once our databases are bit more filled out, users will be able to come to the site to search for a situation and see the most commonly-used (or most clever or whatever) words for that.
I do agree, however, that it may take some effort and some tweaking of the site to encourage something more than the lowest-common-denominator submissions from the general public. Then again, there's a trade-off there between improving content and alienating potential users.
Thanks for the feedback though! Lots to think about!
Please ban the word "totally" from definition examples.
This was "a thing" back in the 80's in the US -- does anyone remember sniglets?
There were several books published with compilations of them, sniglet-a-day calendars, etc.
There were several books published with compilations of them, sniglet-a-day calendars, etc.
Looks like a fun thing to do - especially when gamified. Execution is a bit off though. The reply process is way too complex: if you need my email and a username for no clear reason, make me sign in or let me do it anonymous. Way too many required fields for responding - I can imagine that sometimes you just want to post a word without further explanation or detail.
The design could use some streamlining, too. It looks like some spammy Q&A site now.
The design could use some streamlining, too. It looks like some spammy Q&A site now.
This is actually pretty fun. More like a game than a dictionary, though.
I like it. It's a scalable version of Wallraff's "word fugitives" column in the Atlantic.
Wow! I didn't expect it to take off like this! Hopefully, everyone is able to access the site okay now...
We're very new still, so we very much appreciate the feedback and comments so far! I know you guys are a very knowledgeable group of people, so any other comments and feedback that you might have will absolutely be added to the backlog!
Thank you all so much!
We're very new still, so we very much appreciate the feedback and comments so far! I know you guys are a very knowledgeable group of people, so any other comments and feedback that you might have will absolutely be added to the backlog!
Thank you all so much!
Listen to the feedback here (it's quite accurate). Also when a reply is -3, make it disappear or fade out.
This is actually a pretty good idea. Not sure about its longevity as Urban Dictionary tends to have a somewhat practical use, like a crowd-sourced dictionary. This is pretty fun though, I'll play around with it for a bit and see if I get hooked. The layout needs a little work I think.
Congrats, HN crashed it :) Cool idea though, looking forward to checking it out when it's back up.
This is so great. I submitted a ton of stuff despite having to type my username and email every time. Might be hard to scale, but there's definitely a lot of potential joy in this. Many of the winning words at the moment genuinely made me giggle.
Might be interesting to see what happens if you hide the vote count until after someone votes. I look at a word I like and if the vote count is already really low, I figure it will never get to the top so I don't vote for it.
Could word2vec be used as part of the algorithm for this? Ever since I read about it I've been trying to think of applications for word2vec.
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It looks like alliteration and rhyme are winning components of a suitable word.
as they should be!
Something like this but for naming things while programming would be awesome.
reverse dicts going more popular
I like this:
http://www.onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtml
and thank you for this site
I like this:
http://www.onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtml
and thank you for this site
Wow, this is paragraph shortener for twitter!
I can totally use this as a marketing tool.
thank you for letting me vote without creating an account. More websites should be as awesome as you.
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This reminds me of emotioneric.com!
Nice logo and cool concept!
Awesome idea! Best of luck.
can I suggest a better layout? the title fonts are huge
I'm not sure enabling hipsters to sound like they're scripted by the writers of Juno is a good thing.
Sorry for the stalkwardness, but I guess my horrorlarity made everyone feel totally brewed.
Now could those who're downvoting me please tell me what about my feedback they found either inaccurate or irrelevant?
A site like this, if it becomes popular, will absolutely further the trend of everyone wanting to talk like they're a Zooey Deschanel character. Which may or may not be a good thing. Agree? Disagree?
Now could those who're downvoting me please tell me what about my feedback they found either inaccurate or irrelevant?
A site like this, if it becomes popular, will absolutely further the trend of everyone wanting to talk like they're a Zooey Deschanel character. Which may or may not be a good thing. Agree? Disagree?
Vicious with no constructive criticism.
Thanks. Viciousness wasn't my intent.
I'll rephrase it: the definitions on the site, or at least the few-dozen I looked at, seem like forced attempts at a particular strain of hip cleverness. Which is what one often sees when middle-aged writers try to script hip teenagers. And in a fairly horrifying social phenomenon, it's becoming self-reenforcing amongst the target demographic.
I'll rephrase it: the definitions on the site, or at least the few-dozen I looked at, seem like forced attempts at a particular strain of hip cleverness. Which is what one often sees when middle-aged writers try to script hip teenagers. And in a fairly horrifying social phenomenon, it's becoming self-reenforcing amongst the target demographic.
Eh, "chillax" dude. It's all in good fun, I don't think anyone is taking this as seriously as you.
"On the other hand, the world is littered with thousands of spare words which spend their time doing nothing but loafing about on signposts pointing at places. Our job, as wee see it, is to get these words down off the signposts and into the mouths of babes and sucklings and so on, where they can start earning their keep in everyday conversation and make a more positive contribution to society. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Meaning_of_Liff http://folk.uio.no/alied/TMoL.html