trms

When a popular, free and open source passion project led by a single dev moves into the hands of a company that needs to sustain its 30-people team [0], you know what happens next.

AnkiHub's modus operandi has been to take over communities or projects where free exchange happens and monetize/paywall them. If you've been a part of the /r/medicalschoolanki subreddit, you know exactly what I mean. It's been hollowed out completely.

In the post, AnkiHub mentions how Anki is "sacred" to them. Yet, they have had no qualms entrenching themselves into Anki's settings menu as the only third-party ever to do so. [1] I am sure more is to come. And the language used in their post almost never helps their case, especially in the pricing and OSS sections.

I understand why Damien felt he was being a bottleneck in Anki's development. This is similar to what was happening with Bram and Vim. Ultimately, the community forked and built Neovim. Gorhill had also similarly transferred uBlock, but then came back and built uBlock Origin. So the precedents are there for a successful community-run or leader-run spinoff.

Syncing is sure to become a paid feature, and access to shared decks too.

Creating a fork pointed to a hosted version of Sync Server [2], and an alternative hub where people can share decks other than AnkiWeb [3] is paramount. As well as saving and preserving all of the decks there, as they are sure to go behind a paywall.

I, and I am sure many other HNers, would be willing to support that with our time and financially.

[0] https://www.ankihub.net/about-us [1] https://github.com/ankitects/anki/pull/3232 [2] https://docs.ankiweb.net/sync-server.html [3] https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks

What a coincidence to see this here - in these days I'm making my first NES emulator and I have your 6502 instruction set page permanently open.

Thank you so much for your work.

For anyone curious what the buses look like: https://maps.app.goo.gl/nQd4EupFcdDBcXaw9

Thank you for the recommendations, I have now gotten the books you recommended and I will be going through them.

Thank you, I appreciate your view. What you said about my "projects" makes perfect sense. My projects are likely not focused enough, and some are definitely upside down. I am currently going through the articles you have sent. Thanks again!

Thank you for the tip, really appreciate it. I do think in the long run, the best way to use my "generalist" powers would be to do something where I am forced to know a bit of everything like entrepreneurship or content creation. That's likely where I need to turn to.

Hi Adam, thank you for your comment. Comments like yours are exactly the reason why I chose to talk about this in a public forum, so that I could get an external point of view.

Sometimes going on a while without talking about things to people can get you in an internal feedback loop where you lose touch with reality. Your point of view is refreshing to see -- it just so happens I love messing around with LaTeX, and I did think of that, just never made it happen. I will. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of benefit these little 'self-books' will bring. Thank you!

Thank you. :)

I have now gotten both books and I will read them. I appreciate the recommendations.

I definitely agree getting an evaluation can't hurt, and the sooner the better. It could save me years of blaming myself for just the way my brain is wired. Thank you for sharing your experiences with me.

Thank you saruken, your comment really hits close to home. I'm glad to know that, at least, I'm not the only one living this problem.

I especially liked the part about trusting your old self, I think you managed to vocalize something I've been thinking for a while but that I could never form into words. I need to trust my old self, and trust that they chose that project for a reason. Now that I look back at it, whenever I find an excuse to stop the project, it's because I grow mistrustful of my old self.

Thank you again and best of luck to you as well!

Thank you for sharing your experience. I do live with my partner as well, but we never 'seriously' tried something like this, where we keep each other accountable. This looks like it might help. Whenever I start something new, I should make it so that others know it so that I'm accontable. Thank you!

Starting small seems to be really helpful as far as I've been able to see in the comments. I will keep that to heart, and I'll commit to making a super small project this very weekend. Thank you, and best of luck for your upcoming game!

I had never thought of it that way. Project coherency looks like a great metric/mission to keep in mind as I go about a project. Am I doing this to learn, or am I dong this to do X? Thank you.

Thank you. It does appear that motivation gets you going in the short term, but it's discipline that gets you going in the long term. I need to seriously cultivate an appreciation and a skill for discipline, so that I can keep going even when the initial rush wears out.

Guilt definitely plays a part. Whenever I'm not 'working' on the next great thing, I do feel like I should. I should just take it easy for a while and really re-evaluate what I want to do and what I don't. Thank you!

That's exactly it -- if you stick to some stuff, at least there is a chance, however small, that you'll accomplish or finish something. If you don't, that chance is reduced to 0.

The initial rush gives tons of dopamine, I need to find a way to persist even after the dopamine has worn off. Continuing a project has its own benefits and points of pleasure, I just need to start gaining an appreciation for those benefits and start getting pleasure from sticking to things. Thank you for the comment, I loved your story and appreciate you sharing it with me.

Decoupling the 'satisfaction' from the project itself is something I need to learn. I need to be able to stick to things even beyond 'the horizon,' after they stopped providing the dopamine hit. This is the main hurdle. Thank you for your comment, I'll keep it to heart.

Your comment hits incredibly close to home.

At this point, at least in my career, the ability to learn new things is my ability and 'selling' point. While I do understand this has great benefits and that there's few people like this, one can't help but wonder what being a specialist would bring. I should perhaps be less harsh on myself and reframe what I've done so far as being 'succesful'... with processes. Thank you!

I agree, this is a major issue. The inability to stick with things is shaping my entire life and career.

Having a personal mission statement sounds interesting, and I'm glad to see it's been working out for you.

It hurts like * to give up on things I would like to do, but I can't do them all.

Exactly. It's a sort of FOMO, there's definitely an element of that too.

Committing to a daily/weekly absolute minimum looks really helpful. Back in June I committed to writing a blog post a week and somehow, I managed to stick with it even though sometimes the posts ended up being written in a rush two hours before publication.

I should be taking advantage of this system more. Thank you.

First of all I love Marginalia, thanks for finishing _that_ project. :)

Project scope seems to be key. I often get into things with 'lofty' goals but I should be more realistic about what I want to get from them. That requires a bit of thinking and self-reflection which, I think, I might be skipping.

Acknowledging that not everything is glamorous is also another big part of it. When you just start something it's all new and shiny, but the bulk of the work is the unglamorous oiling of the gears and small improvements. I should internalize this fact.

It is absolutely fine to be a generalist.

Thank you for stating that. It's rare (at least in my circles) to see generalists in startups so it's refreshing to see this.

Your comment hits a nerve. I've been wondering about how to distinguish between something I am genuinely interested in, and something I think I should be interested in. I feel sometimes things get lost in a fog and I can't tell them apart.

Perhaps the real question is not so much how I can stick to things, but what I am _actually_ interested in. Thank you.

There definitely seems to be a sweet spot where projects are challenging enough to be engaging yet familiar enough that you don't get frustrated. Finding that window looks to be key.

It's also a great idea to put a deadline for yourself, say, having a small MVP working within a month, and then that's that. Having something 'accomplished' in that timeframe could be neat, as in, it would likely spur me to keep developing it once I see it working. Thank you.

I have definitely considered ADHD, and while correlation != causation, the correlation is of note nonetheless.

I almost always stick to my projects because they're almost always motivated by a need rather than a fad.

When looking back at my life I now see this pattern as well. The things you end up sticking to are the ones you 'need.' This is something worth taking a look at. Perhaps I should put myself in a position where I would 'need' to complete something, which then would spur me to get ore things done.

And definitely agree on keeping things small and on using the tools you know. These things sound 'obvious' but the temptation to use the latest fad is very strong. Thank you!

Glad to know I'm not the only one on this boat. Hopefully we'll touch land soon.

That sounds intuitively right. Have an MVP you can completely wrap your head around and just work towards that. Then, build on top. Most projects end up in the bin because I was too ambitious, I should start much smaller then iterate on top. Thank you.

Thank you for the book recommendation, appreciated. I'll check it out. Welcome to HN! :)

This circles back to being kinder to oneself and to enjoy the process. I am probably just being too harsh on myself and not actually having fun/enjoying the projects themselves. I'm obsessing over some 'goal' when the real goal should be to enjoy building something and seeing it grow, regardless of outcome. Thank you!

You make a good point. It's more effective to learn something for a 'real' project, rather than to learn it as a random exploration. At least there's a goal, something to aim towards.

I'll take that to heart. Best of luck for your side projects.

I definitely agree that I need to work up my ability to stick to things, that 'routine' is something I'm looking for.

A part of me knows that I would get there if only I stuck to something, but another part fights hard to move on to the next 'greener' thing. Likely, like you said, I need to judge myself more kindly. Thank you! I suppose I should look at 'sticking to things' as a skill that can be learned, and one I should get better at.