I'm Sid Sijbrandij and I love reading Hacker News. I almost always read the comment section and when there is a summary of the article in there that is frequently helpful. But most articles don't have a summary so I want to hire someone to create more summaries.
I hope that this will make Hacker News more enjoyable and efficient to use for its readers. Many times it takes a while to figure out what the article is about, a summary would allow people a quick way to see if they are interested in investing that time.
There are potential downsides:
1. People only read the summary and not the full article.
2. The summary might not be clear or correct.
3. People who already read the article don't want to see the summary.
With a one month experiment we should have a better idea if HNSS is worth it.
If it is here to stay we can also see if the summary can become an official part of HN.
The writer of the summaries should:
1. Be able to do this for a month
2. Have at least 20 comments on Hacker News
3. Be able to invoice me as a contractor
Apply via https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdmM0gvAAmuEcHmFUzN...
I think you'll need a threshold of when a HN post is worthy of a summary (e.g. number of points), and a way of tracking work like a backlog of posts that are awaiting a summary to ensure you don't have duplicated work and to keep track of work volume.
Once a summary is posted, any comment afterwards won't be included in the summary. You'll need to decide if a summary of comments is written a longer time after the the summary of the post is written to get a good sample of the comments.
A summary will need to be completed soon before the peak of popularity to ensure maximum exposure and effect.