8 ms·
An interesting and somewhat related (but only tangentially) article I read a couple of days ago found that nearly 1/3rd of World Bank reports are never read, no
by mileswu 12y ago
An interesting and somewhat related (but only tangentially) article I read a couple of days ago found that nearly 1/3rd of World Bank reports are never read, not even by a single person: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/05/08/the-solutions-to-all-our-problems-may-be-buried-in-pdfs-that-nobody-reads/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/05/08/t...
It was submitted to HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7715881 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7715881) by another user, but probably never got traction because the title of the article is very vague.
- ohashi 12y agoIt sounds like a marketing problem. Although, I suspect the PDFs aren't the only dissemination method (as stated in the article). After someone spends so much time writing a report, it probably sits in their consciousness and spreads via the person's other interactions (eg shaping their perspective, thinking, and pursuits). With so many people producing so much content on a daily basis, it's hard to imagine people actually reading it all. So hopefully the good ideas get kept in the person's thoughts and come out repeatedly until it's heard. Otherwise, I am not sure there really is a good filtering mechanism on a system scale.
- frozenport 12y agoOr maybe they are spreading bad ideas, we won't know unless somebody reviews them.
- alecco 12y agoLuckily there is TabulaPDF https://github.com/jazzido/tabula https://github.com/jazzido/tabula (Open source, made with a grant by the Knight Foundation) A lot of praise from journalist in their twitter feed: https://twitter.com/TabulaPDF https://twitter.com/TabulaPDF