One new idea for make tracking more reliable...

[Schaza]

There would be somekind of date-field in note inserting form.

I founded this problem when i was travelling around, without possibility to insert notes in that time. Then when i get front of computer, i had dates with other note informations. But... because i cannot choose day when i have note, those all notes are now inserted in same date.

This is not maybe good idea, but i just thinked it when i'm go somewhere where i can't use internet.

[Antti]

Hello and welcome! I was wondering why you hadn't registered on the forum

There is the comment-field where you can write whatever you want about the note, for example the date when you had it

[Schaza]

Hi Antti,

Why didn't i notice that before...

I haven't used that comment line for nothing ever, but now i got some use for it. But... now i have most of my 411 notes with wrong date.

[Dakkus]

Writing the serials down for later entering them to EBT is a bad thing to do.
The reason is that the notes may circulate to some other EBT users who then enter the notes before you.

An example:
You're a Finn from Helsinki and visit Malaga (in Spain). You stay in a hotel where most of people are Finnish.
You get a 20e note from ATM and write it's serial down.
Then you go to your hotel's restaurant and pay with that 20e note.
A few minutes later someone pays his food with a 50e bill and gets 20e back. And the 20e note he gets is the same you just used.
That someone goes back to Finland a week before you. He lives in Turku. He gives the note to his friend who then enters it to EBT as seen in Finland.

When you come back to Finland a week later, you of course add the serial you have written down. You enter the country to "Spain" and the city to "Malaga".

Then the 20e note you used in Malaga circulates a while in Turku, Finland and is entered to EBT again within a week or so.

Now what will the map look like?
First hit: Turku, Finland
Second hit: Malaga, Spain
Third hit: Turku, Finland

So the note seems to have travelled about 6000 kilometers.

What has really happened:
First: Malaga, Spain
Second: Turku, Finland
Third: Turku, Finland

So the note has only gone from Malaga to Turku, only about 3000 kilometers.

You probably get my point already.

Writing the serials down is ok only if you are absolutely sure the notes will NOT be circulating again before you enter them to EBT.

[bhoeyb]

You probably get my point already.

Writing the serials down is ok only if you are absolutely sure the notes will NOT be circulating again before you enter them to EBT.

The chance of getting this problem is so small, it doesn't matter to write down numbers.

[codi]

I agree with bhoeyb.

Sometimes I enter a note 4 or 5 days after use it... and till now I had no problems.

[avij]

Writing the serials down for later entering them to EBT is a bad thing to do.

Sorry, but I'll have to disagree. Anything that brings more notes to EBT is a good thing.

It really doesn't matter if the dates are a few days or even weeks off if it takes a few months to get a new hit for that note. However, it's important to preserve "causality", ie. the correct order of registered hits. In the unlikely event that someone manages to reenter the note before you enter it, it's just a matter of sending a simple email to EBT support team to fix the date to the correct value for that particular note. If there's no hit, you really don't need to worry about getting the exact date for your note entry.

Of course it's preferred to have a reasonably accurate date for note entries, but sometimes it's just not possible. I've taken care of these problems by two methods: 1) I try to keep enough tracked notes in my wallet so that I don't have to use untracked notes and 2) if I urgently need to use an untracked note, I enter its information directly to EBT with my GSM phone before using it (see the topic Wireless Euro bill tracking).

[Mr Euro]

I'm not in favor of letting people enter the date themselves. This would encourage to manipulate the hits. I could enter a date before the EURO even existed. (A figure of speech)

Mr Euro

More Bills>>>>more hits>>>>more fun!!!!

[BogPoet]

Well, if something like that existed, it would probably have some sort of checking procedure to insure that no date could be changed to before 2002. Anyway, I'm glad there isn't one, due to the problems already pointed out. I used to have the opposite opinion, but now I firmly believe that there shouldn't be a date insertion field. There's a comment field, use it!

[Olivier]

There's a comment field, use it!

True! Most of the interesting notes in the hits don't even have a commentary.

[Gauss]

Maybe the comment field would be used more often if it were larger. Or appeared to be larger.
Of course I see the disk space constraints.

[BogPoet]

Something that seems to work: when someone doesn't insert a comment, instead of inserting the bill right away in the DB, there could be a confirmation. A page would be displayed showing something like:

**********************************************************
Bill Mxxxx9999xxx U000A0 Lisboa Portugal 1000 (no comment)

Are you sure you want to enter this bill without a comment? Yes No
**********************************************************

This way, most people would start entering comments only to get rid of the pesky screen

[airis]

Maybe the comment field would be used more often if it were larger. Or appeared to be larger.
Of course I see the disk space constraints.

I always try to write a comment (Where I got the note and the condition of the note). I also think the comment field is too small.

Something that seems to work: when someone doesn't insert a comment, instead of inserting the bill right away in the DB, there could be a confirmation. A page would be displayed showing something like:

**********************************************************
Bill Mxxxx9999xxx U000A0 Lisboa Portugal 1000 (no comment)

Are you sure you want to enter this bill without a comment? Yes No
**********************************************************

This way, most people would start entering comments only to get rid of the pesky screen

I am afraid people wouldn´t like that. I bet many people would write No comments .

[avij]

Maybe the comment field would be used more often if it were larger. Of course I see the disk space constraints.

There's currently over 30GB free space, I don't think we'll be hitting the disk space limits any time soon.

I also think the comment field is too small.

OK OK, point taken. It'll be 100 characters soon (doubled from the previous limit of 50 characters). In fact, some of the bills already have longer than 50 char comments, see this note (57 is the number you're thinking). I've run into this limitation myself as well and I've been thinking to do this for a while.

instead of inserting the bill right away in the DB, there could be a confirmation.

Umm... ... no. But there could be some text somewhere (in the FAQ or somewhere) that'd encourage people to enter comments for their bills.

[BogPoet]

Umm... ... no. But there could be some text somewhere (in the FAQ or somewhere) that'd encourage people to enter comments for their bills.

I don't see why people would write "no comments", but what I can see is that maybe nagging people off wouldn't be the best way to make them stick around entering bills on EBT. New suggestion: putting the comment field in last place in the form and making it bigger (psychological suggestion - Where's George? style). Also, a more descriptive helptip could be written to that particular field (current one is simply "Enter a comment about your note").