The rise and decline of Wikipedia [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~halfak/publications/The_Rise_and_Decline/halfaker13rise-preprint.pdf <comment><USER2> Wikipedia has problems, but I think it's worth noting that Wikipedia has enough content to fill 2,200x volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica[1], or, a small library.

I don't think it's necessarily an existential problem that the public image of Wikipedia's relevance is reaching a sort of "trough of disillusionment" due to some of its governance issues. It has simply reached a scale where it faces a new set or hurdles to overcome.

Personally, I've learned more from Wikipedia than I did in high school and college combined, and considering that, despite all of Wikipedia's problems, the content therein is more accurate and verifiable than the corrupted corpus whence our primary and secondary educations are derived, I really appreciate its existence.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_in_volumes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_in_volumes)

<comment><USER3> How is this related to the article? You seem to be talking about public perception of wikipedia while the article mainly focuses on the falling number of active editors.

<comment><USER2> I'm suggesting that there hasn't been as much of a decline in community as there has been a decline in the available encyclopedia-relevant information left in the world that isn't already published on Wikipedia.

Also, the public perception is related to the drop of users and vice versa. There has been a lot of negative press lately, specifically related to problems in the community.

<comment><USER3> The decline in number of editors seems to have started at 2007 given figure 1. I wouldn't tie the amount of negative press to the decline in editors.

The point about there being less new stuff to write about seems apt, what do you think about the counter points that the article had?

"First, as noted above, the vast majority of articles in Wikipedia are still below community standards for "good" articles. Second, underrepresented groups still find it challenging to join. For instance, one study found that only 9% of edits are made by female editors, and that articles of particular interest to women are shorter than articles of interest to men (Lam, 2011). Until editors are representative of the population of potential contributors, it is difficult to argue that the socialization practices are sufficiently effective."

<comment><USER4> Not OP, but

1\. Isn't this a moving target? In the beginning, all you had to do was throw up text; standards evolved (and probably continue to, I don't follow it), and now you have to cite references, adhere to standards, etc. As more articles are reviewed, more probably "become" substandard.

2\. Is this really a decline issue? I guess it is if you are considering decline not as failure to maintain but failure to grow.

<comment><USER5> I contributed to several Wikipedia articles over the years (~50-100). It's gotten to the point where it's pointless to improve even terrible articles like stubs as basically everything is automatically reversed. At best a mod may decide to add your content back, which means at this point it's basically stopped being a public wiki.

Which is fine, IMO they should just change the name to Webpedia or something if they don't want new edits.

PS: As to being 'full' they have 2.7 million stubs, that's a lot of missing content. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Statistics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Statistics)

<comment><USER6> It's a shame, but any public forum seems to degenerate to this point. Stack exchange is another great example... The bureaucracy that emerges distracts from the original mission.

<comment><USER7> Interestingly lots of people seem to have a negative view of forums and fear that stack-sites will go the way of the forums if they don't continue their bureaucracy.

Yet I cannot remember one technical forum that was as unhelpful as stack-sites sometimes turns into.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There is a finite pattern whenever one relies on volunteers. Most will come and go, but a few hang around and rise to the top. Lacking renumeration, they tend towards self-gratification. Some handle extra responsibility well, but others start building their own little castles from which to berate all below. This process is inevitable once you have multiple ranks of volunteers.

I've seen this with charities, open source projects, and it was a constant problem when I worked in film/tv (interns). Things always go south when you have volunteers bossing around other volunteers. Newcomers show up eager but depart quickly, normally after some dressing down by a more senior volunteer. Without pay in dispute, they rarely make complaint. They just stop showing up. And who can blame them?

The answer is to keep all volunteers equal. That's probably impossible for a project like wikipedia, but they could certainly do more to ensure new volunteers are not so bullied by the old guard.

<comment><USER9> That's different enough from VestedContributor that you should give it a name and write it up.

[http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/VestedContributor](http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/VestedContributor)

VestedContributors think the rules can be bent for them because they've been around so long and done so much good work.

<comment><USER8> Write up what? Sandworm's syndrome of the progressive dysfunction inherent to hierarchical volunteer communities? Talk to anyone who has worked as a volunteer coordinator. They see this all the time.

As for keeping volunteers equal to avoid the problem, that need not mean keeping everyone identical. Leadership roles can rotate, with finite term limits. That way every leader today knows they will be the underling tomorrow. (This also keeps everyone interested and motivated as nobody is every stuck on one task/job).

<comment><USER10> Hey, the founding mission of wikipedia is to publish stuff that every expert knows, to inform novices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I tried once or twice to edit articles but was quickly rejected by editors that usually believe they sort of "own" the content. I've quickly become demotivated as explained in the analysis and never contributed again. Another problem is that when you think you've made an important and useful update you're never sure when someone will roll it back.

Some are spending a very big chunk of their time to make sure articles stay as they wish to. Being a former or an active editor on an article is not always related to how much you know about the topic but Wikipedia favorites the biggest editors. There is very little chance to convince if you're new unless you commit to spend a lot of your valuable time contributing which is not possible for everyone and not a good idea for most.

A very hard problem to solve.

Wikipedia is still great though with no real better alternative.

<comment><USER12> I have learned that in order to actually contribute to Wikipedia, you have to treat it less like a collaboration and more like a battle.

You can't just contribute and consider it done. You have to be prepare to fight your way through, engage in edit wars, learn about the battlefield (the bureaucracy, the article sourcing) and in the end, if you fight long enough, you usually win.

You have to repeatedly, over and over, show that the other person (who 'owns' the article) is wrong, he will revert it, so you do a little dance of reverting and back, then you have to try to dig up some rule from the ruleset, and as I said, you will usually win because the other person gives up. Or he doesn't, but then some higher editor stumps him.

<comment><USER13> You are correct, and you know what happens? The people _LEAST_ qualified to contribute contribute the most. Why? Because they have too much time on their hands, and can battle endlessly.

People with real knowledge usually have better things to do.

<comment><USER14> It is indeed a problem to not have enough time. Just throwing in some facts in an article is often not good enough, it must fit with the flow of the article and not repeat things that has already been said and be in order, and with references etc etc. Some people might not have the time for that additional work to make the contribution "good enough".

I haven't followed Wikipedia for a while but I assume that some rejected changes are due to that people throw in some changes that might be correct but are not worked on enough to fit in with the rest of the article. And one can't in general assume that someone else will do that work for you. Than the easy way out is often a revert instead of leaving a more unfinished article live.

I did most of my contributions to Wikipedia when I had that extra time.

<comment><USER15> I see the exactly opposite. There's so many poorly written wikipedia entries which read as "Fact. Other Disconnected Fact. Another Random Fact (except for fact, fact and fact)." I've made attempts at smoothing out the language in various articles, and it often gets reverted because someone's precious trivia was removed. If anything, it seems that wikipedians are loath to have anything "edited down".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'll toss my own experience out there.

I've contributed edits to maybe a dozen or so different Wikipedia articles, and would like to contribute more, but it's hard to get past a couple of hurdles.

The main one is the byzantine and archaic editing tools. The markdown language that Wikipedia uses is a PITA to learn, and following a discussion on the talk page is almost impossible. Wikipedia presents a wonderful UX for browsing and reading. It has perhaps the worst UX I've ever seen for a beginner who wants to make a contribution.

Beyond that, I spent a significant amount of time editing some articles on a fringe religious group that I had studied extensively. (Apart from the group's own leaders, I arguably knew more about the group than anyone else in the world.) But the group that was the focus of the article kept backing out my edits and replacing them with propaganda. It was simply too much work to fight them (especially with the horrible edit/discussion tools), they were a lot more motivated than I was, and I eventually gave up.

<comment><USER17> Talk pages should not themselves be wiki pages. This is the result of all that MVP stuff people go on about. Wikipedia had wikis, they didn't have discussion boards. They needed discussion boards. MVP was to use another wiki page for discussions, and that evolved into the stupidness we see today.

Talk and discussion are completely different process than collaborative editing, and they demand different tools.

I also agree about the markup (it's markUP. "Markdown" is a specific type of markup language which, despite its flaws, probably is the easiest and now most common one)

<comment><USER18> MVP?

<comment><USER19> Minimum viable product.

In this case, "hey we need a way for people to talk to each other", "sure, we should make a discussion tool, but to get it right now we could use a wiki page that users edit one after another to add their answers".

The fact that it started as such is not an issue per se, but after so many years wikipedia should have replaced it with something better and easier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think Wikipedia will become the best case study in how bureaucracy cripples a working society. 80% of the effort of creating new content is following byzantine processes and procedures.

While I admit that these processes work for consistency of content, I cannot in the least observe any noticeable quality improvements, and the reason is that valuable contributors with deep domain knowledge will not invest the time to satisfy the OCD of some arbitrary editor suffering from Asperger.

<comment><USER21> > OCD of some arbitrary editor suffering from Asperger.

Is it really necessary to use mental illnesses in a pejorative way to make your point ? How do you think it makes people feel who legitimately suffer from those illnesses ?

<comment><USER22> It should make them aware that they should refrain from holding any position where they have to deal with people. I am sure you have never edited Wikipedia; the amount of users and admins that more than obviously suffer from autism spectrum disorders and OCDs is very, very high, and they are crippling the bureaucratic processes of the wiki.

I know these words are "ugly" or "not politically correct" but I think just looking the other way is not helping anybody.

<comment><USER23> Maybe you should refrain from trying to diagnose mental disorders by pretending to analyze Wikipedia editor culture.

That's not even a disorder, it's just plain stupid.

<comment><USER24> Aw, come on, lighten up, it's just an online forum. Maybe people develop Asperger traits from working in this field. Like one time I asked a college did he know what the time was, he replied YES and walked off :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Eh, it went from a interesting novelty, to a incredible community, to a petty bureaucracy.

My personal experience is that under the crowdsourcing model the well meaning non experts outnumber the real experts and it's hard to police them while treating all as equals. In short, democracy brought content toward mediocrity.

Now it's dangerous to use it but for a cursory introduction to any in depth content, while non factual content is polarised toward whatever the bureaucrats decide it's a neutral tone, which may or may not work.

<comment><USER26> > interesting novelty, to a incredible community, to a petty > bureaucracy.

One line summary of the history of the United States ?

<comment><USER25> It may be a property of democracies scaling, the pattern is indeed common.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Wikipedia is a hit and miss. After contributing, some things stick, but others can be removed without good reason, and wasting one's time on bureaucratic fights to restore that content is simply very tiring and after some point it becomes annoying enough, so I stopped trying to restore such things most of the time.

</comment><comment><USER28> An odd thought, but perhaps the decline in editor numbers also has something to do with an increase in the number of wikis in general, mostly aimed at specific audiences and about specific subjects. Back in the early/mid 00s, Wikipedia was the site you'd contribute to if you wanted to write general encyclopedia entries about something that's now seen as fairly niche (like say, a certain TV show, film series, game franchise, etc), and from there you might become interested in editing other pages on less specialised subjects.

But now, thousands of wikis exist, about every subject under the sun. Many of those are very popular, have more welcoming communities, etc. So people don't join the general site any more. If they care for say, Star Wars, they join Wookiepedia. If they care for Pokemon, it'd be Bulbapedia. Or one of the many others listed here:

[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWikiRule](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWikiRule)

<comment><USER29> That's helped take some of the load off Wikipedia, and may be responsible for some of the decline in number of editors. Wikipedia used to have a big problem with fancruft - vast amounts of detail about some popular culture icon. There's an article for every Pokemon. There have been attempts to create articles for every episode of popular shows, and every minor One Piece character. There's pushback on that, and general agreement now on how much is too much.

The fanatical fans now go to to Wikia or TVTropes, where they can write endlessly on their pet subjects without having to cite reliable third party sources. That's a good thing. You don't need the heavy scrutiny of Wikipedia on those subject.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Honestly they could never add another page or edit and I'd still be going there for the next decade.

</comment><comment><USER29> So the peak was in 2007. I think I know why.

In 2006-2007, there was an organized push on Wikipedia by pro-Israel editors to make Israel-related articles favorable to Israel. This provoked some major controversies, especially because at least one of the pro-Israel editors was a Wikipedia admin and abused their authority. (Eventually, they were "desysopped" for that, but it took years.) For a sense of this, see [1], including all the archived talk pages.

Wikipedia dealt with the problem by strictly applying the "reliable sources" rule. It became the practice that every single fact in Israel-related articles must be cited to a reliable source and properly footnoted. Anything that wasn't was deleted as "uncited" or "synthesis" by one side or the other. Until that time, articles often had text which wasn't cited to a specific source. The tough citation requirements anchored the dispute to factual information, and, though the process was painful, worked. The controversies settled down and the edit warring slowed to a crawl.

Those strict standards gradually spread to the rest of Wikipedia. Now, everything had to be footnoted like a doctoral thesis. Few people outside of academia write that way. This results in a big hammer coming down on someone new wanting to write an article about their new favorite DJ. Does he have mainstream press coverage that isn't from a press release, and did you cite it? If not, he's out of here.

Until you learn to write in that strict style, you can't contribute much to Wikipedia. For people used to blithering on blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, this is hard. That's what's discouraging new editors.

Writing for Wikipedia is now like contributing to a major open source project like the Linux kernel. There's a big body of code, and your changes have to fit in well and be justified. That's necessary. Wikipedia faces a constant incoming stream of PR, vandalism, and general crap. (Check out the ever- changing list of recent changes.[2]) The petty vandalism is mostly reverted by AIs now; ClueBot, driven by an ANN and trained on known vandalism, is quite good. The other problems take human attention, by volunteers tired of seeing similar annoyances over and over.

For the other extreme, of writing about anything with no quality control, see 4chan.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Israeli_West_Bank_barrier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Israeli_West_Bank_barrier) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:RecentChanges](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:RecentChanges)

<comment><USER31> More details on that Israel controversy here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict-of- interest_editing_o...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict-of- interest_editing_on_Wikipedia#Israel)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_Accuracy_in_Midd...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_Accuracy_in_Middle_East_Reporting_in_America#CAMERA_campaign_in_Wikipedia)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> The article raises an important point that I haven't seen addressed elsewhere in the comments: revert bots can be terrible.

For example, I was once reading about a song, and at the bottom there was a link to a youtube video. The link was broken, so I replaced it with a working youtube link.

The edit was immediately reverted by a bot that was anti-all-links-to-youtube. Fine, maybe that is a problem. But it's also a problem that the anti-youtube bot replaced my youtube link with a youtube link.

When I went to the bot's page, it was filled with comments from dozens of others who had made similar edits that were blindly reverted. The bot author, who took a "it's me against the world" stance, proclaiming that his bot was doing the only sensible thing, and that he was "sick of arguing". As the paper proclaims, this immediate negative reinforcement had long term consequences of turning away many good faith editors.

</comment><comment><USER33> Wikipedia feels like a piece of software that's experienced massive scope creep. It's huge. People have pet pieces they're emotionally attached to. It's so massive and trying to do so much that it's hard to even tell how best to improve it or where to start. For every "bug" (bad piece of info) that's fixed, we push 50 new bugs (and tons of new and correct info, of course).

I've stopped editing because it just feels like a drop in the pond every time I do. When I fix obvious bias it just reappears by the editors with ulterior motives. And I just don't have the energy to fight them on it. I've stopped reading as much because I've learned that for any topic there are much better and more thorough sources. Economics and medicine in particular have very little... quality control on Wikipedia.

With that said it's still a fantastic source for an overview of a topic that I know nothing about, especially for non-controversial topics.

Wikipedia will live on as a good starting place for deep research and a quick explanation for quick questions. There just aren't enough editors to make it into the "sum of human knowledge" some people want it to be.

</comment><comment><USER34> Abstract

Open collaboration systems like Wikipedia need to maintain a pool of volunteer contributors in order to remain relevant. Wikipedia was created through a tremendous number of contributions by millions of contributors. However, recent research has shown that the number of active contributors in Wikipedia has been declining steadily for years, and suggests that a sharp decline in the retention of newcomers is the cause. This paper presents data that show that several changes the Wikipedia community made to manage quality and consistency in the face of a massive growth in participation have ironically crippled the very growth they were designed to manage. Specifically, the restrictiveness of the encyclopedia's primary quality control mechanism and the algorithmic tools used to reject contributions are implicated as key causes of decreased newcomer retention. Further, the community's formal mechanisms for norm articulation are shown to have calcified against changes – especially changes proposed by newer editors.

</comment><comment><USER35> I think the reason for decline (and bureaucracy) is actually a lack of democracy. For example, there is no way to recall administrators. Also, opinion of majority is sometimes dismissed as not being good consensus, which only helps people in established cliques. Democracy is a rule that ensures fairness, but senior administrators do not always want it.

Secondary problem is IMHO the caste nature of administrator privileges. I think if the privileges were more separated and it would be possible to recall them, this would reduce the ossification of the hierarchy.

I also think Wikipedia could benefit from having a stable branch into which the changes from unstable branch could be regularly reviewed for addition. It would be nice if unstable branch could return to the idea that someone can add things even if they are not perfect or immediately sourced; IMHO experts can always add sources later for content that is already present, and it would give them some incentive to contribute.

That being said, Wikipedia is amazing! I would really like to thank to people who put some work into it.

<comment><USER36> I'm not so concerned about recalling administrators. Administrators who do blatantly bad things sometimes end up losing their position, and sometimes just end up with enough people angry at them that they leave.

What I'm concerned about is that there's no way to get _new_ administrators, which is what it would take to bring in new ideas that break up the unnecessary bureaucracy.

The process that used to create them got entirely paralyzed, both by ridiculous inflation of metrics (I saw the edit count requirements -- they call them suggestions but they're requirements -- increase by a factor of 20 while I participated), and by the requirement to convince a supermajority of long-standing editors to vote for you.

I became an administrator in '06, and by '08 I would never have been considered. Basically, you have to edit every part of the encyclopedia while upsetting nobody, then inflate your already prolific accomplishments to get your foot in the door, without looking like a liar. This is impossible.

Old administrators (like me) lose interest. New ones don't take their place. The work is being increasingly done by the most obsessive people, and by faceless bots.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I find it hard to believe that Wikipedia is "in decline" when the article I wrote about the niche area of CS I worked in during undergrad has a life of its own now. People continue to add to it and now it has a fair deal of content and information that I was unaware of. If that's what decline looks like, I'm fine with it.

</comment><comment><USER38> should be titled "The rise and decline in Wikipedia editor counts".

Wikipedia may have its political issues, but to say it is "in decline" seems off. There is only so much that can be written and only so many new things can happen to document. Obviously no hard limit exists, but still.

If it was to be in general decline as the title conotates, I'd expect to see overall traffic lower over time and while I searched in earnest for 10 minutes, I couldn't find that data (alexa is pay service now, wtf?). But have a hard time seeing actual traffic declining.

</comment><comment><USER39> Isn't this more describing a typical s-curve with regard to the information being mostly filled out? Wikipedia isn't a news site.

<comment><USER40> Actually most of the popular articles for readers and editors are news-based. However, the site, while barely adequate as an encyclopedia, is terrible for news presentation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> An interesting paper that basically says that the number of editors is declining due to the difficulty in keeping and retaining new users. Any person who has tried to edit Wikipedia will know that aggressive rule-wielding wikifanatics immediately try to kill newcomer edits using whatever tools they have to hand. But it's important to realize that Wikipedia's ambiguous rules and arbitrary decisions are not a bug, but a feature, giving power to incumbent editors. While most new editors just give up, the ones who do stay on and fight become the same kind of fanatics.

Many people say that the toxic community is the problem, but the community issues IMHO are actually a _symptom_ of poor software design. The wiki's open structure and article-based format, which allows the most powerful groups of editors to "own" pages, gives power to people who are interested in keeping and retaining control, rather than those who are interested in sharing knowledge. The power is centralized in these gatekeepers, leading to all the problems we see on the site.[1] This is also the reason the Gender Gap exists.[2]

The solution is to redesign the software to devolve power from entrenched groups, but this will never happen because there is no leadership, and the people who have the power are the survivors/fanatics that actually like the current system. Because they write the rules they will not give their power up easily.

As for the quality arguments below: without new users and continuous evolution in software development, content presentation, and editorial review processes, the site cannot maintain quality. I believe that it is impossible for any wiki system to maintain a high quality anyway: the amount of time to improve articles to high quality is exponential, while the number of editors and work available is linear. Even in the best circumstances, something has to give. If the number of editors is actually declining then quality problems may also increase exponentially.

[1][http://newslines.org/blog/wikipedias-13-deadly- sins/](http://newslines.org/blog/wikipedias-13-deadly-sins/)

[2][http://newslines.org/blog/the-sexists-at-the-top-of- wikipedi...](http://newslines.org/blog/the-sexists-at-the-top-of-wikipedia/)

<comment><USER41> Comparing wikipedia to openstreetmap, it seems to be a community problem, not a software problem.

An open structure means that you have to watch what others are doing constantly. But that doesn't explain the huge number of stories where reasonable edits are reverted. That can only happen because the wikipedia (editor) community is ok with that.

My conclusion is that wikipedia forgot to redefine itself. Originally, wikipedia was a summary based on existing literature. But pretty soon users took wikipedia way beyond that. Using it to document stuff, instead of summarising stuff documented else where.

Most wikis are a tool to collectively create documentation. And somehow wikipedia is stuck in older world, and not what most wikipedia users expect it to be.

My conclusion, until the project reforms and allows original content, I won't contribute.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I used to contribute a lot when I was younger and had more free time but I might have kept that up if not for the change that happened in the late 00s when the higher ups decided that wikipedia has too much content and started streamlining by simply deleting whole sections. I am not talking about when citations became a stricter requirement and the quality in general became more of a focus - that came later. I think it's more sane nowadays but I'm too disillusioned now. I hate its approach of "if it's not intelligible to or of interest to a layman then it needs to be streamlined".

<comment><USER43> Exact same experience here, though I'm still an admin and contribute here and there, the politicking has deeply sapped my enthusiasm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> It's easy to dismiss this as "oh well, it's not perfect". The problem arises when you see something that is factually incorrect but cannot change it, and you know others rely on it. I've noticed a number of wrong, or just not precisely correct, things on Wikipedia, so I seldom click on those links when they appear in a search result.

I've never used it all that much, to be honest, but the information hiding aspect is what makes it so dangerous. Allow incorrect information to appear on the site _and then explain why it 's incorrect_. Allow information on the site that might be incorrect, so that others can investigate further. But presenting the material as if it is correct, because there is a quality control mechanism in place, is simply dishonest.

If Wikipedia disappeared tomorrow, it would not bother me at all. No information would be lost. It would reappear elsewhere on the internet.

</comment><comment><USER45> Somehow OpenStreetMaps has managed to remain democratic, welcoming to newcomers and yet remarkably accurate without much (any?) moderation, despite being almost as old as Wikipedia. I've always wondered how it manages that.

<comment><USER46> OpenStreetMaps' content is virtually 100% objective (with only political borders and names being potentially contentious).

<comment><USER47> It's not 100% objective, but for simple things, it mostly is. If you hop on the mailing lists you will find all sorts of people bickering about whether it should be `shop=ice_cream` or `amenity=ice_cream` or `restauraunt=ice_cream` as they fight over their self-made taxonomies.

At some point, I think, things will inevitably change. But for the moment, there's so many obvious things to work on that the confusing/subjective things don't really pop up too much.

<comment><USER9> Do you have links? I'm interested in meta stuff.

Discussions about shop= vs amenity= are sometimes frustrating, but I bet they don't come anywhere near the discussions over using –,—, or - in page titles.

Here's 15,000 words. At the end of that? No consensus. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(poli...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_\(policy\)/Archive_101#Hyphens_and_endashs)

The type of dash to use in "Mexican-American War" got over 20,000 words. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Mexican%E2%80%93American_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Mexican%E2%80%93American_War/Archive_3)

Dash wars even got to Arbcom: [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitra...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case&oldid=429209333#Hyphens_and_dashes)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> As mentioned in the other recent thread about Wikikpedia, I am a Wikipedian. I joined active editing in 2010, that is after the heyday of welcoming new editors, but long before most articles on important topics were anywhere near to being well sourced. I have tried to clean up the mess on some articles, and am a winner or co-winner of two Million Awards[1] for fixing up high-page-view articles.

But how I got the awards basically illustrates the problem. One article I fixed I wrote entirely off-line in a text editor file, while commenting on the talk page of the previous lousy version of the article, and then I dropped in the new article text all at once. Every previous time when I tried piecemeal editing of that article, my best edits would be reverted, while other stuff that was entirely made up and without reliable sources would be inserted into the article. The second article I worked on fixing up was a collaborative effort. Again, I started with discussion on the article talk page. My first few edits were reverted, contrary to reliable sources, by editors who exerted "ownership" on the article but who refused to look up sources. Later I was joined by two other editors, and one of the other two made it his project to rewrite the article from top to bottom for one of the Wikipedia editing contests. He liberally threw out old unsourced crap and then layered in new, well sourced text. I mentioned on the article talk page I'd like to fix a few sections of the article, and proofread all of it, and after he deleted the old crap, I put in new good content in the sections I worked on and checked all of his references throughout the article. The former editors who let the article be bad for years slithered away. It's a slog and a struggle like this every time someone tries to improve Wikipedia--the established editing culture includes snap judgments without looking up reliable sources.

AFTER EDIT: I also mentioned in the previous thread about Wikipedia that I hope sometime soon a philanthropist funds a Free Online Encyclopedia X Prize to put to the test what could be possible in building an accurate, well edited free, online encyclopedia if some new projects began and tried out some new models of project management and perhaps some new software. (I personally don't have any trouble dealing with Wikipedia's software, but I have been using various kinds of markup languages since the 1980s in earlier editing work.) The only way to know what's possible is to try to challenge the incumbent project with some competition, I think. Even if Wikipedia then just ended up winning a prize with reasonable criteria, it would still become better, and we would all have a better idea about what works and what doesn't.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Million_Award](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Million_Award)

<comment><USER49> I think the next generation of online encyclopedia will let a writer "own" a complete version of the article, and the readership/editors will vote on the best written article.

Kind of like Urban Dictionary, except serious.

<comment><USER29> That's Citizendium.[1] 16K articles total, 1219 "developed" articles, 160 "expert approved, citable articles". It has about 10 active contributors, after 8 years of operation.

[1] [http://en.citizendium.org/](http://en.citizendium.org/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> It would be cool to have a Wikipedia spinoff but articles have to be explained like I'm five. You might get a lot of contributors from that. It's important because some articles have a lot of jargon and feels like it was written by a bureaucrat. SOME people are only willing to invest a few minutes of their time.

<comment><USER29> That's the Simple English Wikipedia.[1]

[1] [https://simple.wikipedia.org](https://simple.wikipedia.org)

<comment><USER50> Good to know, that is pretty cool. I wish they had more stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Wikipedia used to be a large part of my web experience. Now I might end up on Wikipedia 2 or 3 times a week. That said, DBPedia (RDF data derived from Wikipedia) is useful and I rely on it.

</comment><comment><USER52> I think that's the best you can do with crowdsourcing. To go beyond you would need a structured community. My bet is, however, on an AI that will build the articles automatically.

<comment><USER40> You can do a lot more with crowdsourced models. Crowdsourcing content != wiki. My site (see bio) is a more structured way to build news and biography content that IMHO gives better presentation and less editor stress than the equivalent Wikipedia pages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> As an early wikipedian who doesn't edit much anymore I can corroborate some of the assertions in this paper.

</comment><comment><USER54> I rely on wikipedia like everyone on hacker news but I can't help thinking that changing their status to benefit corporation like Kickstarter would improve the structure and also their finances. Non-profit closes a lot of doors, especially growth opportunities. A renewed status could bring new mobile apps, tie-ins with media companies, perhaps an open API available to third-party developers etc.

</comment><comment><USER55> For the record, this paper was published in 2013, in case anyone's looking at it and wondering why its conclusions seem awfully _obvious_ today.

[http://abs.sagepub.com/content/57/5/664](http://abs.sagepub.com/content/57/5/664)

</comment><comment><USER56> Note that this is from 2013.

</comment><comment><USER57> Can someone give them a standard LaTeX template please</comment>


Not Selling Up - <AUTHOR> https://torchbox.com/blog/not-selling-up/ <comment><USER2> The central message "we are handing over the ownership of Torchbox to its employees. They'll pay us, and the other original shareholders, not from their own money but from the company's future profits, over the next four or five years."</comment>


Search: better user experience with one line of JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://blog.comperiosearch.com/blog/2015/05/18/search-better-user-experience-with-one-line-of-javascript/ <comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. That's a good point. So, one more reason not to do this on the home page or any other regular page, just the search result page.

</comment><comment><USER2> Probably true in most cases. I hate when sites do this because it prevents me from hitting backspace to leave, but I get it.</comment>


Songkick (YC summer 07) Launches "Alexa For Bands" - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/15/songkick-launches-alexa-for-bands/

<comment><USER2> Pretty sweet idea. This startup keeps finding innovative, non-copyright- infringing ways to make money off of music on the web.

</comment><comment><USER3> "So does that mean it may not be accurate? "Alexa for bands"."

I am continuesly impressed by the comments at TC!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> wow, this is insanely cool. Probably my favorite new YC startup out of the batch.

<comment><USER4> Thanks Jason! We're actually from last summer's batch.

Shameless plug...

Digg: <http://digg.com/gadgets/See_your_favorite_bands_fight_2> Reddit: <http://reddit.com/info/6c7n2/comments/>

<comment><AUTHOR> no problem Ian, I love anything to do with music on the web. I'm hoping I find some great new music on it, like I often find new sites through alexa. Have you talked with the guys at grooveshark? I can put you in touch, might be some good synergies.

-j

<comment><USER4> Hey Jason, let me know if you find any new bands/shows using Battle of the Bands or if you have any feedback on how we could make it better. I'm already speaking with the guys at Grooveshark but thanks for the offer.

Would anybody here be interested in accessing the Songkick Ranking data? Given it's an index of the hottest bands on the web it could be used for other purposes - for example web radio for the week's hottest artists.

<comment><AUTHOR> for sure Ian. Best of luck with the launch. Glad you're connecting up with the grooveshark guys. talk soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Were the launches of Songkick and Dropbox scheduled deliberately to be close to demo day, for PR reasons?

<comment><USER4> No. Our main launch (coming next week...) was scheduled around South by Southwest - it's perfect for us - a mix of live music and technology.</comment></comment>


Subscriptions Are Remaking Corporate America (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://www.barrons.com/articles/how-subscriptions-are-remaking-corporate-america-1544233694 <comment><USER3> subscribe to read hahahah

For one, I hope subscriptions die. It's a pernicious trend that is borderline fraud for consumers (like gyms, profiting from users who simply forget to unsubscribe or making it painfully hard to unsubscribe). It's also exclusionary for most of the world for whom the subscription price might be a year's income. With downloadable software it was kind of possible to find a crack online, but web apps and content make it almost impossible.It also makes individual property ownership impossible. we need honest,anonymized payments on the web.

<comment> swagasaurus-rex I think subscriptions are fine; it is the banks that give power to corporations by making it impossible to control who bills your accounts.

If you could easily see recurring billing charges and cancel on your bank's end easily, companies would have to step up and offer a useful service.

<comment><USER4> Part of the problem is that they handle much differently than purchases. To buy something you need to have enough money at some point in time. Subscriptions require you to have a stable cashflow. The former is usually easier than the latter.

On top of that, subscriptions are also relationships you have to keep track of. With a lot of subscriptions, it can become overwhelming.

<comment><USER5> Most subscriptions are on credit cards, and having available credit implies a stable cashflow (even if you are operating at a loss).

<comment><USER6> Visa/Mastercard debit cards are a thing.

<comment><USER4> In fact, I'd argue that credit cards are US thing. You can pay for most stuff on-line with debit cards just fine. Over the past decade, I had to use PayPal maybe 3 times, because some braindead payment system wouldn't accept debit cards.

(It may differ between classes and countries, but over here in Poland around people I know, having a private credit card is like shaving with a straight razor - it's awesome if you can handle it without hurting yourself, but most people can't and are smart enough to not even try.)

<comment><USER7> > having a private credit card is like shaving with a straight razor - it's > awesome if you can handle it without hurting yourself, but most people can't > and are smart enough to not even try.

as someone who treats a credit card like a charge card (pay it off in full every month, without exception), I don't really understand this mentality. imo, managing a debit card is way harder. I have to ensure that I have enough money in my checking account every time I make a purchase. it feels like inevitably my payday will line up in such a way that I overdraft on a purchase I could have easily afforded by the end of the month.

<comment><USER4> To use debit card, all you have to do is to know how roughly how much money you have. You have to know this even if you have a credit card, otherwise you risk not being afford to pay it off.

The danger with having a credit card is that you have an _option_ to not pay it off. With debit cards, it's impossible. You can overdraft a little if you're tricky, but that's about it - whereas with a credit card you can end up going negative and finding it difficult to get back to black (whether because of your own faults or external circumstances).

I compared a credit card to straight razor because both are useful and safe in skilled hands, but create danger of hurting yourself if you're unskilled - <USER2> danger that doesn't exist with safety razors / debit cards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The Starcraft community requested subscription content for years during the hots years. The popular reasoning was that the game needed refreshing and updating but that a company can't afford to do it without incentives - and the ongoing revenue would incentivize them to keep the game in great shape.

Then again, you can't use subscription software at all after the company completely moves on either - no windows 95 compatibility mode to keep using your expensive desktop applications. So you still end up with unusable software eventually - longer peak but a shorter life for more cost

The fundamental problem is how difficult and expensive it is to make software and maintain it year after year

<comment><USER9> It doesn't have to be that way though. The company can open source the server.

They could also release a final patch that unlocks all content and removes the license check.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I signed up for "subscribe and save" because it gave me like a 5% discount on my Protein purchase from Amazon.

Before the next 5 lb jar was supposed to get sent, they sent me an email saying they were about to charge me and I had until X date to cancel.

You can make subscriptions work if your intentions are good and you're not looking at them as a revenue stream based on people forgetting to cancel.

I ended up cancelling that next shipment but ordered again a few weeks later.

The model isn't bad. Just depends on the execution.

<comment><AUTHOR> > You can make subscriptions work if your intentions are good

I am afraid investors only care about growth. First they are going to grow untill no more subscribers. Preferably the company will have monopolistic position by that time. Then they will start increasing rates up to "what market will bear". Then they will start tweaking "personalizing" experience with microtransactions etc trying to squeeze more. Add regulatory capture to this. This rent-seeking won't stop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> A year ago I downloaded an interval running app for 10 dollars. Recently I recommended it to a family member only to find out they changed the pricing to 10 dollars per month for the same features.

<comment><USER12> You can't tell me that interval running app is as useful to you as a Spotify subscription. 10/mo is pretty steep comparatively!

<comment><USER13> I bet it's all the "social" features running apps cram in now. Last time I looked (admittedly a couple years now) it was slim picking if you wanted an app that didn't sync your data to the cloud or offer some sort of social feature.

I stopped using apps. I run to clear my head and try to stay healthy, not brag that I run.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> [http://archive.is/VryJ4](http://archive.is/VryJ4)

</comment><comment><USER5> Subscriptions for SaaS are essentially a lease, and leases are almost always preferable to sales for the one doing the leasing. See e.g. IBM[1]

[edit]

Software (and other media with a high development cost, but low marginal cost such as films) are particularly valuable to lease, because you remove the secondary market, which can cannibalize sales.

1: [https://www.jstor.org/stable/40751117?seq=1](https://www.jstor.org/stable/40751117?seq=1)

<comment><AUTHOR> For SaaS I agree but subscriptions for stationary bike, for food, for printer ink, for traktors, etc.

<comment><USER5> Stationary bike and tractors fit the mold perfectly; if you can't use it without the subscription, it's effectively a lease.

Food and printer ink are different because they are consumables.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So because of the timing on this article, the notes on Apple's PE ratio are interesting to consider. Apple is now trading at a P/E ratio of 23 (Microsoft at 28), and Apple has made a point of trying to reorient / reclassify revenue as subscription revenue over the last several years. Even still I think this argument is rather weak, I think looking at a coarse metric like P/E to induce a single fact is a little too much.

</comment><comment><USER16> I wonder if sometime in the future, there is going to be subscription fatigue.

<comment><USER17> I'm already there. I just hate random money coming out of my account. I just gave fastmail $130 for three years. I wish I could have given them a thousand for lifetime so I would just never have to think about it again. I bought a lifetime Plex Pass for $150 so I would never have to think about it again. And no hard feelings if these services were to shut down.

I can deal with a large one time payment. A bunch of random 5 dollar a payments a month isn't going to float. I crawl through my credit card statements looking for oddities. And it just bugs me.

<comment><USER18> Selling lifetime services for something like that is very risky. It would be like paying someone a few million dollars and then they have to try to budget it out for the rest of their life. Also what happens if the company runs out of money and cant continue services. You have already paid for a lifetime subscription but they have no money to give you a refund.

<comment><USER17> That is why I said "no hard feelings". Fastmail or Plex could shut down tomorrow. I would be disappointed, but I wouldn't scream for a refund.

As long as I felt that they tried I would be alright.

Our wonderful journey wouldn't cut it. But a simple, we went broke would be cool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The unintentionally amusing part: "To continue reading... Subscribe or sign in"

<comment><USER20> "To continue reading... Subscribe or sign in... or disable Javascript"

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here is an alternative link in case someone cannot read the article because of paywall

[https://www.zuora.com/2018/12/09/how-subscriptions-are- remak...](https://www.zuora.com/2018/12/09/how-subscriptions-are-remaking- corporate-america/)

</comment><comment><USER21> Can't read the article: "Subscribe or Sign In to continue reading".

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.zuora.com/2018/12/09/how-subscriptions-are- remak...](https://www.zuora.com/2018/12/09/how-subscriptions-are-remaking- corporate-america/)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Simple solutions to backup personal data - <AUTHOR> Which simple backup solutions can you recommend for backing up personal data?
I've been doing backups manually because after losing my data a few times (in the distant past) I've been too paranoid to trust any backup software / services. Then again, manually doing backups is error-prone as well, as you might simply forget to copy something, or you might accidentally move files instead of copying them. Data size (due to duplication) is becoming a pain point as well.
Some solutions recently recommended on HN are Borg and Restic. Borg doesn't appear to support Windows. I was really excited about Restic, but then I found some "traps" in the documentation that make me hesitant to use it; I don't want to become an expert in the internals of the backup software, I just want some simple software that I can use with confidence that it's not going to break on me. As an example of a trap in Restic, it will fail to make incremental copies of the same file if the file system modification timestamp and size of the file have not changed (it will simply keep the first version of the file). I've noticed that TrueCrypt containers behave like this on Windows (the file system modification date and size remain the same even though the contents change). This means that Restic will silently fail to backup TrueCrypt containers, while simultaneously pretending to the user that the backup was successful. I don't want to use any backup software that has traps like this.
Basically, I just want simple backup software that deduplicates data, allowing incremental backups over time, and doesn't have any traps that might cause accidental data loss. Does software like this exist? <comment><USER2> Here's what i do:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/ce1cbg/beginne...](https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/ce1cbg/beginner_questions_nas_zfs_and_backups/etya896/?context=3)

1\. RelioSync for mirroring all data from multiple places into single place

2\. DrivePool is a centralized local storage for everything

3\. Arq Backup send everything on schedule to Wasabi cloud.

Above strategy supports (but not limited to) Windows, versioning, undelete protection, local storage resiliency (multiple local drives could contain multiple copies of important stuff), client-side encryption, cost-efficient offsite backup.

<comment><USER3> RelioSync...? I think you meant Resilio Sync[0] (formerly btsync). Excellent tool.

[0] [https://www.resilio.com/individuals/](https://www.resilio.com/individuals/)

<comment><USER2> Yes sorry for mistype

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I use Arq on my windows machine, there are no traps that I'm aware off. On my linux machine i use rclone to sync the data with s3. Had no issues what so ever with getting stuff back.

</comment><comment><USER5> I use rsync, it is incremental but does not deduplicate.</comment>


Paper-Pushing Flight Controllers See Future in Canada's System - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-12/paper-pushing-flight-controllers-see-future-in-canada-s-system <comment><USER2> >The two technology chiefs attribute NAV CANADA's ability to adopt new technology to several factors. They have involved controllers throughout the process, which helps with design and testing. If an off-the-shelf product exists that meets their needs, they don't bother building it in-house. And they work on manageable, small improvements rather than the moon-shot projects that are typical for air-traffic providers.

>"We don't take too big a bite," Koslow said. "We do it incrementally."

So, by following standard software development best practices, they avoid the massive failures that characterize large government contracts. Who'd have thunk it?

</comment><comment><USER3> > U.S. debate to privitize air-traffic control spotlights Canada

Heaven forbid, we would pay the Canadians for what they have that is already proven to work well and efficiently...

<comment><USER4> It works well for them. Keep in mind the US has thousands of more airports and significantly more air traffic. Just like in the tech world something might work for 100 users of an app but may not work at scale. I am not bashing the NAV Canada system just saying the comparisons to the US ATC aren't apples to apples for numerous reasons.

<comment><USER5> It seems the US can't learn anything from anywhere in the world because it's too big, too many states, too small (in comparison to China) or for some other reason.

<comment><USER4> Your words not mine. I said nothing about learning and only about making comparisons.

<comment><USER5> Sorry, I didn't want to attack you. I just notice that whenever something works in another country (see healthcare or public infrastructure) a lot of people in the US will say it can't work in the US: Either the US is too big or it's a "socialist" thing and therefore needs to be avoided.

I think this attitude is a big danger for the US. There was a time when the US could teach the world but that time is coming to an end. Other countries have learned whatever advantages the US system has and now they are building on that knowledge and they are sometimes coming up with better solutions. If the US keeps ignoring these developments it will slowly fall behind until it's too late.

<comment><USER4> No worries. I agree completely that the US can learn plenty from other countries regardless of size on tons of topics. I was just trying to point out the typical over simplification/comparisons that news articles tend to make about technical things especially aviation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Everything listed in the article is actually already used by the FAA. Paper strips went away about 10 years ago in ATC centers and more recently in towers [0]. FAA has ADS-B for satellite-based navigation over Alaska and is deploying it elsewhere (notably oceanic regions) [1][2]. Digital communication ("text messaging") is coming to towers [3] and variants of it have existed for years in control centers for certain aircraft.

Check out [https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/](https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/) for lots of info on their improvement efforts.

None of this is to say the FAA is perfect--it's not, but it's definitely improving and they have an immensely difficult problem to manage. The FAA handles a much larger traffic volume than Canada, including many of the most congested regions in the world. (Planes are not evenly distributed!) The Advanced Automation System was the wrong approach, trying to overhaul the entire system at once, and NextGen is successfully taking the incremental approach.

[0] [https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/snapshots/stories/?slide=37](https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/snapshots/stories/?slide=37) [1] [https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/programs/adsb/](https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/programs/adsb/) [2] [https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/snapshots/stories/?slide=26](https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/snapshots/stories/?slide=26) [3] [https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/update/progress_and_plans/data_c...](https://www.faa.gov/nextgen/update/progress_and_plans/data_comm/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Tokyo Haneda, one of the world's busiest airports, still uses paper strips, by choice. They like the explicit handoff of passing a strip to another controller. Here's a human factors study from France on that subject.[1]

[1] [http://www.atmseminar.org/seminarcontent/seminar4/papers/p_0...](http://www.atmseminar.org/seminarcontent/seminar4/papers/p_087_hf.pdf)

<comment><USER8> Are you able to explain what this paper strip system is and what it's for?

<comment><USER7> The link above has an explanation. For a simpler version, see this video, which is at the beginning of a Japanese drama about enroute air traffic control.[1] Note that the towers use paper strips, but enroute and area control use screens with images of strips. This is all about who has responsibility for the aircraft right now.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX4WB_VlD88](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX4WB_VlD88)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Woah. A great system for drones to start self-reporting flight plans into .

</comment><comment><USER10> Does anyone have first hand information about this system? It looks too good to be true. Not even a problem with it.</comment>


Where Dollar Bills Come From - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=757617674 <comment><USER2> Pretty interesting story - basically one company in USA has "monopoly" on providing "paper" for your banknotes and the reason is mostly because they have been in business for centuries.

Funny story from my early days at one of financial corporations in NYC. I had a buddy who loved to collect money. So on his birthday one time I bought him and brought to the office an uncut 50-pieces $1 sheet that you can easily buy from BEP even up to $100s [1]

He loved the gift and many people were impressed you can buy them by uncut sheets. Unfortunately an HR lady was not convinced; next morning I have Secret Service (!!) at my desk with police officers ready to arrest me! Gladly they believed my story but only after I forwarded them an email receipt from BEP to prove I actually bought it from them, not printed at home myself! She never apologized to me but frankly I wasn't looking for one. Good times.

[1] [https://catalog.usmint.gov/paper-currency/uncut- currency/](https://catalog.usmint.gov/paper-currency/uncut-currency/)

EDIT: thanks for posting Woz story, never seen it before.

Interesting fact about $2 bills (I am collector myself) - never buy them online at premiums, simply ask in bank especially before New Year where Chinese people ask for these (form of good luck) and you may get a freshly printed. BEP continues to print them and they are quite popular, but careful how you use them, you can get arrested if cops don't know they exist!

[https://geektyrant.com/news/a-man-was-arrested-for- using-2-b...](https://geektyrant.com/news/a-man-was-arrested-for- using-2-bills-at-best-buy-because-the-employee-and-cop-had-never-seen-one- before)

<comment><USER3> You might like Woz's story about how he bought uncut $2 bills, and had them cut to 1x3 sheets, perferated between the bills, and glued the top edge and handed the $2 bills like they were novelty items. He also was investigated by the Secret Service.

Previous HN discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9319034](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9319034)

<comment><AUTHOR> That is hilarious. I thought I had read all the funny Woz stories but this is new (or forgotten at some point)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A month or so ago I discovered the Planet Money podcast and it has become one of my favorites.

<comment><USER5> Check out The Indicator also, daily 10 minute economic podcasts that is a Plant Money spinoff.

<comment><USER4> Agreed, I found The Indicator via Planet Money and have really enjoyed that too. Another of my favorites is "Smashing Security", which is computer security focused, but it is more infotainment. It is on the longer side though, where the NPR ones above are much shorter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've always found it fascinating that dollar bills are actually made from a kind of cloth, the better to endure a rough life in some schlub's pockets (or the pockets of a succession of schlubs).

I used to wish the USA would switch to an Australian style plastic currency, but in light of recent concerns about plastics in the environment, those wishes have been tempered somewhat.

<comment><USER7> Polymer banknotes are perhaps more environmentally friendly compared to its counterpart due to its durability (resulting in fewer banknotes being manufactured). They can also be recycled after its life in circulation. On the other hand, cotton/linen banknotes are typically shredded and landfilled after their circulation life.

<comment><USER8> What is wrong with landfilling biodegradable material?

<comment><USER9> It's extremely wasteful to produce them: [https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/12/17337602/plastic-tote- bag...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/12/17337602/plastic-tote-bags-climate- change-litter-life-cycle-assessments-environment)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The 1914 $10 Dollar Bill was printed on hemp paper. Today, they're worth like $49.99. IDK how steady that price is over time; relative to the prices of other CPI All goods.

<comment><USER11> $10 in 1914 → $256.57 in 2019

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The article only touches on US currency, but it seems that Crane Currency makes paper for currencies all over the world. I couldn't find an explicit statement, but the homepage[0] carousel photos definitely imply they make at least Swedish and Ukrainian paper as well.

[0] [https://www.cranecurrency.com](https://www.cranecurrency.com)

<comment><USER13> Worked for Crane Currency a year ago...left after only a year there just after the acquisition by Crane Co.

The company has facilities in Tumba, Sweden as well as their new production facility in Malta.

There are some very talented engineers, scientists, designers and artists on staff there.

Hopefully Crane Co will be good stewards of what they have purchased, because Crane Currency provides an essential service for many countries around the world, but I'll just say that I was not inspired nor impressed by the new acquirers and I hope the new ownership doesn't drive too many more people away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I have listened to Planet Money for over a year now, really enjoy the fast podcasts like the Indicator and Marketplace Tech.</comment>


The Life of a Person Who Wakes Up Early - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/08/how-know-if-youre-morning-person/595990/ <comment><USER2> I was the opposite. I used to stay up till 4 am most nights. I'd get so much more done when everyone else was asleep.

<comment><USER3> While you can work unbothered in these late night hours same as morning hours, I did personally find greater benefit in working in the morning over late at night: opening hours of shops, sports facilities, etc. are more convenient. You're mileage may vary depending on where you live of course but here in Western EU there are almost no 24h stores so good luck doing any shopping after 19:00pm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I quit tobacco and got my addrenals fixed with supplements now I'm always up by 5 even though I don't have a job.

<comment><USER5> What supplements help with that?

edit: I'm reading adrenal fatigue is not really supported as a condition in medical circles.

<comment><USER3> Adrenal fatigue is indeed pseudoscience. There is no scientific basis for the existence of adrenal fatigue, and the term should not be confused with a number of actual forms of adrenal dysfunction such as adrenal insufficiency or Addison's disease.

Sources: 1\. Shah R, Greenberger PA (2012). "Unproved and controversial methods and theories in allergy-immunology". Allergy Asthma Proc. 33 Suppl 1 (3): S100–2. doi:10.2500/aap.2012.33.3562. PMID 22794702. Quote: "There is no scientific basis for the existence of this disorder and no conclusive method for diagnosis."

2\. "Adrenal Fatigue: Is It Real?". WebMD. Metcalf, Eric. Retrieved 2014-03-19..</comment></comment></comment>


Trading Places with Indian Outsourcers - <AUTHOR> http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/06/07/060708-trading-places-with-indian-outsourcers/ <comment><USER2> If it's a commodity, and it's apparent his skills are, it makes sense to hire the cheapest.

</comment><comment><USER3> Very eye opening and very touching.</comment>


Ask HN: Google Search Omissions? - <AUTHOR>

I've noticed gaps in the Google search results in recent weeks; data that I know exists on the net, but that is missing from Google search results.  In one group of omissions, from searches targeting data archives that are (were?) resident at Google itself.<p>Has anyone else noticed search results omissions? <comment><USER2> you could try international search

<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5977>

Also, google has always struggled with massive duplication of mailing lists/news groups (gmane, nabble, osdir). If there are mirrored/gateway'd lists, you could try the others.</comment>


Even the best AI for spotting fake news is still terrible - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612236/even-the-best-ai-for-spotting-fake-news-is-still-terrible/ <comment><USER2> Last time I checked AI does not know how to fact check and without fact checking one cannot determine with a high degree of certainty if news is fake or not.</comment>


The Power of Connectedness - <AUTHOR> http://davidvandegrift.com/blog?id=83 <comment><USER2> The description at the end of this article is exactly what I want as well. I've searched and searched for it, not believing that it doesn't exist.

I'm not trying to make a sale. I'm not in sales. But relationships are very important to me and my work, and I just want a tool to track them...

Anybody have any recommendations?

<comment><USER3> "This is a Great Story. There is an app I checked out that is great for something like this called WeKenect (www.wekenect.com). You should check it out. It's pretty cool"

<comment><USER4> (Add an [https://](https://) to the link) i.e. [https://wekenect.com](https://wekenect.com)</comment></comment></comment>