> I don't really think that this explains the paper mill business, but you could make the argument. I was thinking along those lines (then thought it relevant

> I don't really think that this explains the paper mill business, but you could make the argument. I was thinking along those lines (then thought it relevant to the way students are judged too, as well as coders). Teaching used to be a well-regarded profession and has instead become much lower status (and low paid). Some random stats I googled for seem to support this (possibly biased source): http://www.nea.org/edstats/losingground.html http://www.nea.org/edstats/losingground.html I would think that you would be less likely to get away with the paper mill business if your teacher was a highly motivated professional. In the UK at least, teaching is rigidly controlled, with schools' success or failure being evaluated according to various metrics. These are can be easily gamed (e.g. # of pupils achieving 5 A-C grades at GCSE. You focus effort on the C/D students, and push kids towards 'soft' subjects) - but only by teachers who are prepared to put the score-against-metric above the quality of the education they give. Of course, if you don't perform to those metrics, the school suffers (lower in league table => fewer pupils => less cash for school => worse education for kids), so you're effectively screwed either way. Basically it's the old perverse incentive business, but yes, I do appear to have pulled a random rant out of thin air, so apologies to the regular HN readers. We now return you to your regularly scheduled viewing. HN question: given that management needs info to make decisions and metrics are often gameable/perverse, how does one approach this problem? Is it just "good metrics"? > Second possibility: Jbert is paying a starving blogger a couple of bucks to write his comments for him! Now that's a startup waiting to happen: karmachameleon.com - "building your online reputation" (name appears to be squatted).