Live data from Hacker News

Home Loss File System

docs.google.com

61–70 of 113 posts

Re: Home Loss File System

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the biggest advantage of the spreadsheet is that it can be modified easily, even democratically and also on the go. No website offers that kind of ease of use for _adding_ information

Wikipedia is literally a website that does this and has existed for >2 decades at this point.

Most wikis are not very user friendly (UI, not about the rules and moderation), most people have used Word / Google Docs before so it's much more natural.

Re: Home Loss File System

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the biggest advantage of the spreadsheet is that it can be modified easily, even democratically and also on the go. No website offers that kind of ease of use for _adding_ information

Wikipedia is literally a website that does this and has existed for >2 decades at this point.

### Regular _users_ cannot edit [Wikipedia]()

Re: Home Loss File System

#63

I'm on the other side of the planet so it's not my place to comment on the content of any of this. It seems to look like a good resource clearly made with the best of intentions. I understand the people/person behind this wants to quickly and easily impart information, so the best format for the job is whichever one they can distribute info in as quickly as possible -- but I also see this as a sort of indictment of t…

strange comment - this should be a website that would presumably be hosting, where exactly?

the average person would not be able to make something even close to this sheet. where are they going to host it? do they have a domain? certs? do they even know how to write html? css? during a spiky event such as a wildfire, will their website even stay up?

Re: Home Loss File System

#65
As an article posted on HN, I expected this to be about how to cope with losing a self-hosted Linux filesystem. As a resource to deal with "home loss", this is excellent.

Also, I'd like to take a moment to appreciate how close this comes to implementing most of a website within a google spreadsheet. I know that much of this is intended to be duplicated and filled out, but the first few tabs would be right at home as HTML somewhere. You can't beat the hosting cost of doing it this way, and now I wonder how many folks are abusing Google Docs like that.

Re: Home Loss File System

#66

I'm on the other side of the planet so it's not my place to comment on the content of any of this. It seems to look like a good resource clearly made with the best of intentions. I understand the people/person behind this wants to quickly and easily impart information, so the best format for the job is whichever one they can distribute info in as quickly as possible -- but I also see this as a sort of indictment of t…

> And yet, it's being shared through a proprietary office suite service in the form of a spreadsheet that can't be quickly referenced or copied without loading an entire webapp.

I wish this was made obvious to users, but FYI: you can change /edit to /preview at the end of the URL to get something more like a webpage.

Re: Home Loss File System

#67
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the biggest advantage of the spreadsheet is that it can be modified easily, even democratically and also on the go. No website offers that kind of ease of use for _adding_ information

Have you heard of Wikis?

Have you tried to edit just a tiny section of a Wiki while being updated by thousands of Wiki editors?

Re: Home Loss File System

#68
post #60

I'm on the other side of the planet so it's not my place to comment on the content of any of this. It seems to look like a good resource clearly made with the best of intentions. I understand the people/person behind this wants to quickly and easily impart information, so the best format for the job is whichever one they can distribute info in as quickly as possible -- but I also see this as a sort of indictment of t…

The same thing happened with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In Berlin, the entire effort to support refugees was coordinated on WhatsApp and Telegram, backed by Google Docs. It still did a marvelous job until the authorities could catch up and prepare resources. Even then the unofficial resources were far better. I run an information website for a living. There is nothing I could have done that would have beat the…

These ad-hoc efforts are wonderful and extremely effective and are the utopia we all strive for.

Ultimately, I think, the distinction between "products" and ad-hoc effort is that one is tolerant of abuse and bad actors (the "enterprise" or bureaucratic system) and the other simply isn't.

I think I read it somewhere here, that any large project eventually turns into a moderation system.

I'm not sure what actions to take as a result of this observation... except perhaps to be a little bit sad.

Re: Home Loss File System

#69
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

### Regular _users_ cannot edit [Wikipedia]( )

Refusal to learn != can't

Learning is the last thing they want to do in a situation like “I want to update a document about losing homes”, and among the end of the to do list in general. One can argue as much as they want how it’s people’s fault, but the next catastrophe will create more google sheets and whatsapp groups and zero wikis and forum threads.

I believe that developers could bridge this gap easily, if they weren’t in the denial about their own UI/UX issues themselves.

Re: Home Loss File System

#70
But why does this not exist for those who already lost their homes years ago and are living on the streets?

A bunch of rich home owners have their houses burned down it's an emergency.

Tens of thousands of homeless people live on the streets and nobody bats an eye.

Just saying.

Post reply on HN