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Ask HN: Best word to describe this process?

4 points by kamehameha ↗ HN
Picking the most important out of a bunch - what one word best captures this process?

I've been trying to come up with it to describe my startup but haven't had any luck. Any ideas?

P.S. I thought of 'aggregator' but that's not quite right since an aggregator only collects.

26 comments

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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.

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

kamehameha
Yeah, I was also thinking of 'selector'.
paulgb
filtering?
kamehameha
I like this one the best so far - 'filter' seems to best capture the idea. Thanks!
chaosmachine
highlight

filter

select

kamehameha
'select' was the first one that came to my mind, but I'm really digging 'filter' :)
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
devin
refine, review, grab, point, target, track
tel 

  Championing
  Zooming
  Nabbing
  Being a connoisseur (commoisseuring?)
  Sifting
Trying to hit some words that aren't just CS/Engineering oriented.
csomar
Tick!

"tick the right answer" (in english exams)

may be useful for you!

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.

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

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.