HN Explorer

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DrScump
I think that an editor that didn't allow any term but the magic 1000 words would be utterly useless (crashing on proper names, tech acronyms, etc.) At least there's an option to highlight rather than disallow.
jack9
The concept is very powerful. Disney's MMO tried a variation, which was only preapproved conversational phrases. Solving forum trolling could be brutally curbed by this method and would probably be effective with an extensible whitelist.

Simplewriter includes "ostensibly" but omits "is" and "for". So good luck with that.

qbrass
>Solving forum trolling could be brutally curbed by this method and would probably be effective with an extensible whitelist.

Sounds like a recipe for a forum full of sarcasm and passive-aggression.

DanBC
I like the editor. There's obviously interest in this after XKCD.

It'd be really cool if people had a look at "Easy Read", and how to make it easier to translate stuff into easy read. Easy Read is a system aimed at people with a learning disability (UK definition), but it's used by more people.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-ouch-26836091

http://www.ohb.scot.nhs.uk/article.asp?page=252

https://www.mencap.org.uk/sites/default/files/documents/2008...

http://www.effortmark.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/4008_...

jimrandomh
This is similar to xkcd simple writer: https://xkcd.com/simplewriter/ .
throwaway2016a
Not sure why he got down voted. It is very similar. Perhaps people think he is linking to a XKCD comic but he is actually linking to a web app hosted on the XKCD website. I found this comment interesting.
jhbadger
Although I find "Thing Explainer" funny, the idea that the problem with English is just that it has a lot of words is misguided. In the 1930s when artificial languages were big there was one called "Basic English" that was based on the top 800 English words. The problem is that even with a small vocabulary you can get very complicated sentences and idioms, and those are more confusing to language learners than just words (which after all, can be looked up or figured out from context).