Web word swap
April 20, 2015 6:25 AM Subscribe
I have an idea for an online project, but I don't know what technical skills would be necessary, so I don't know where to start finding the right person/people.
The gist of the project would be to gather together stories from disparate news sites and change certain words to another word -- think all the Kardashian stories on one site, but with the word "Kardashian" replaced with the word "kitten". This isn't the actual project, but it would require the same skills.
Would this be possible? What kind of programmer would I need to find? I'd like it to be something that could just run along pretty much alone. I already have a domain and a host.
The gist of the project would be to gather together stories from disparate news sites and change certain words to another word -- think all the Kardashian stories on one site, but with the word "Kardashian" replaced with the word "kitten". This isn't the actual project, but it would require the same skills.
Would this be possible? What kind of programmer would I need to find? I'd like it to be something that could just run along pretty much alone. I already have a domain and a host.
Ka-Ping Yee created a targeted version of a similar tool. Called Regender, it replaces pronouns and other gender markers on any website you specify, while installing a control bar on top of the original page.
Check out this recent MetaFilter FPP to see the results--not perfect, but then it's 10 yrs old and ver 0.5.
Visit zesty.org for further contact with the programmer.
posted by Jesse the K at 6:59 AM on April 20, 2015
Check out this recent MetaFilter FPP to see the results--not perfect, but then it's 10 yrs old and ver 0.5.
Visit zesty.org for further contact with the programmer.
posted by Jesse the K at 6:59 AM on April 20, 2015
Best answer: There are several browser extensions that do this, e.g. Cloud To Butt or XKCD Substitutions.
Nowadays this is something that's much more easily done on the browser side instead of preprocessing everything on the web server (and managing stored copies of other sites' content and the resulting copyright liability, etc).
posted by neckro23 at 12:36 PM on April 20, 2015
Nowadays this is something that's much more easily done on the browser side instead of preprocessing everything on the web server (and managing stored copies of other sites' content and the resulting copyright liability, etc).
posted by neckro23 at 12:36 PM on April 20, 2015
Sorry, but there isn't enough information in your question for us to provide a meaningful answer. You'll need to elaborate a bit.
You describe some screen-scraping and a simple substring search-and-replace, but then say "this isn't the actual project". So...what *is* the actual project?
posted by escape from the potato planet at 3:18 PM on April 20, 2015
You describe some screen-scraping and a simple substring search-and-replace, but then say "this isn't the actual project". So...what *is* the actual project?
posted by escape from the potato planet at 3:18 PM on April 20, 2015
Response by poster: Thank you, XKCD Substitutions at least lets me see what I want to change. Perhaps the best thing is if I create a list of words to change and share that.
For those who wanted more, the idea is to swap out all words that use "migrants", "illegals" etc. for words like "humans", "people". For example, using the XKCD extension, a story on the BBC changes from "The Tunisian captain of a boat that capsized off Libya on Sunday, killing hundreds of migrants...to try to ease the migrant crisis..." to "The Tunisian captain of a boat that capsized off Libya on Sunday, killing hundreds of people...to try to ease the human crisis..." ... to put people back in the news. This is a good start, thanks neckro23.
posted by bwonder2 at 2:38 AM on April 21, 2015
For those who wanted more, the idea is to swap out all words that use "migrants", "illegals" etc. for words like "humans", "people". For example, using the XKCD extension, a story on the BBC changes from "The Tunisian captain of a boat that capsized off Libya on Sunday, killing hundreds of migrants...to try to ease the migrant crisis..." to "The Tunisian captain of a boat that capsized off Libya on Sunday, killing hundreds of people...to try to ease the human crisis..." ... to put people back in the news. This is a good start, thanks neckro23.
posted by bwonder2 at 2:38 AM on April 21, 2015
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posted by taz (staff) at 6:45 AM on April 20, 2015