The internet was so fucking great up until around the time facebook showed up and became overbearing. Starting with an era of 'multimedia' CD-ROMs and first wave of internet, through the second wave of internet around the dotcom era and the third era of "AJAX" it felt really open, accessible, full of everything.
I can't tell for sure what happened around 2005 or so, youtube spawned up as well and it seemed for a while it was going great and then things started dying off, getting walled-in and dying within those walls as well.. I don't know how it happened, maybe as Hemingway put it - two ways. gradually, then suddenly.
Factbook was one such place that carried memories of ye olde past.
Also, CIA FACTbook, not CIA FACEbook, although when you think about it and In-Q-Tel lol.
Thank you for including data sources as well as some basic data analysis. The scatter plots are quite helpful in analyzing some demographic assumptions that often arise when discussing economic and social development.
You know what else they killed? The SIGAR.mil website (special inspector general for afghan reconstruction), the congressionally chartered oversight/audit entity that had a very well laid out website with chronological ordered list of every document that the SIGAR had ever produced. But no, let's sweep it under the rug.
All of its PDF are still out there in the public domain, just scattered and not well organized in a single set of tabular pages. Here's its final report for an example of what it did.
The Biden admin already had a plan in place to dissolve the agency months before the 2024 election even took place. The government tends to not maintain websites for organizations that don't exist anymore. It's hard to get staff to keep the site running when you have zero employees. Not everything is a conspiracy.
You are just making stuff up.
This is what happens when you get your facts from Reddit.
"On February 4, 2026, following the restriction and closure since 2025 of other government-funded information websites, the CIA announced, with no warning and no explanation, that The World Factbook was discontinued."[0]
The real irony about the seething and salty tears being spilled over the loss of the site: Aren't the CIA world-renowned experts in propaganda? What better way to run an influence campaign than publishing your own "factbook"?
That proves the reflexive reaction was never about the content; rather, the time and by whom it was removed. 9/10 complainers probably went directly to Wikipedia or accepted the regurgitated AI slop Google returned to your query as "facts".
CIA Factbook was mundane things like population, land area, system of govt, major exports, etc. Stuff that is now on the right-hand sidebar of Wikipedia. Presumably it was made for US govt employees to have a basic understanding of other countries. It was useful to do a 7th grade research report on Uzbekistan circa 1997.
I can't tell for sure what happened around 2005 or so, youtube spawned up as well and it seemed for a while it was going great and then things started dying off, getting walled-in and dying within those walls as well.. I don't know how it happened, maybe as Hemingway put it - two ways. gradually, then suddenly.
Factbook was one such place that carried memories of ye olde past.
Also, CIA FACTbook, not CIA FACEbook, although when you think about it and In-Q-Tel lol.
https://worldfactbookarchive.org/
(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47114530)
darkreader.org helps.
You’ve earned yourself a bookmark :)
All of its PDF are still out there in the public domain, just scattered and not well organized in a single set of tabular pages. Here's its final report for an example of what it did.
https://www.ecoi.net/en/file/local/2145129/sigar-final-repor...
The Biden admin already had a plan in place to dissolve the agency months before the 2024 election even took place. The government tends to not maintain websites for organizations that don't exist anymore. It's hard to get staff to keep the site running when you have zero employees. Not everything is a conspiracy.
You are just making stuff up.
This is what happens when you get your facts from Reddit.
Source? (I know nothing about this, so I'm just trying to establish facts.)
> This is what happens when you get your facts from Reddit
Don't do this.
https://youngkim.house.gov/2024/11/08/reps-kim-crow-lead-bil...
> In June 2024, the Office of the SIGAR submitted a sunset plan to ensure a smooth shutdown process and effective and timely transfer
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Factbook
Maybe @dang can fix the autocorecto
Traffic was likely low and did not justify the manpower for upkeep.
That proves the reflexive reaction was never about the content; rather, the time and by whom it was removed. 9/10 complainers probably went directly to Wikipedia or accepted the regurgitated AI slop Google returned to your query as "facts".