

Ask HN: Best word to describe this process? - kamehameha

Picking the most important out of a bunch - what one word best captures this process?<p>I've been trying to come up with it to describe my startup but haven't had any luck. Any ideas?<p>P.S. I thought of 'aggregator' but that's not quite right since an aggregator only collects.
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cperciva
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.

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kamehameha
'Ranker' sounds good.

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apsurd
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

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kamehameha
Yeah, I was also thinking of 'selector'.

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CraigBuchek
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.

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RobGR
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.

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chaosmachine
highlight

filter

select

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

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10ren
Prioritizing

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

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tel

      Championing
      Zooming
      Nabbing
      Being a connoisseur (commoisseuring?)
      Sifting
    

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

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arantius
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

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csomar
Tick!

"tick the right answer" (in english exams)

may be useful for you!

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saurabh
Cherrypick

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paulgb
filtering?

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

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timinman
pluck

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devin
refine, review, grab, point, target, track

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idlewords
Priorganizing!

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bkovitz
"champeen"

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tarouter
how about handpick?

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yannis
Sieve?

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wlievens
paragonizer

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AhmadH
single out

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asmithmd1
curate

