the joy of random newsletter subscriptions

I've spoken before about my love of municipal building supplies newsletters (fruit of a period of time I shared a name and city with someone in the business who got me onto lots of mailing lists), but for sheer excellent read-this-during-the apocalypse, which-apocalypse?, doesn't-matter-just-pick-one value, nothing beats my newsletter subscription to the the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER).

I don't know how I got subscribed to them. Maybe I knew someone working there for a while (it's in one of the home town constellation cities) or maybe I saw a news story; maybe I took part in a survey or some online research. I am, after all, apocalypse-interested. In case you're unclear about what they, do, they are an interdisciplinary research centre dedicated to the study and mitigation of existential risks, and in case that is not clear enough for you, they are in the business of the study and mitigation of risks that could lead to human extinction or civilisational collapse.

They're often quite focussed on AI, but this month the CSER newsletter has linked through to a big list of 313 potential non-medical methods for reducing transmission of Covid. Some of these are very bleak:

• Discourage unnecessary speaking when people are in close contact.
• Constrain ‘long’ connections between people in different social groups who seldom or rarely interact.
• Split and separate teams doing key work in case one team gets infected.
• Design system so doors automatically shut once numbers exceed a given threshold as detected by phone signals.
• Individuals queue online and are told when their turn is to leave house, office or desk for e.g. doctor’s appointment or lunch.
• Encourage or enforce walking clockwise around shared spaces.
• Eat at own desk where possible.

But others are intriguing and imaginative, narrowing in on the CSER's central premise; that the fear of impending apocalypse is a great motivator for creative problem solving.

• Create convention that different people touch different areas of objects, for example design refuse bins so collectors touch different areas from householders (e.g. centre element of handle red and marked “do not touch” or designed with separate handle)
• Store items that could be contaminated (e.g. shopping bags) so the one stored longest is taken first.

There are also a few in the can't-believe-this-isn't in-place-already area such as:

• Encourage or require people to stop spitting in public places.

But lock-down traffic silence means that the sound of people spitting is carrying quite a way, and I can confirm that I have regularly heard people spitting in public places during the pandemic, and I really wish that they wouldn't. We have no "No spitting" signs in the UK as local social convention prohibits spitting in any case, but maybe we need to come up with some wording?

"We appreciate that you would never under normal circumstances consider spitting in public, but should you find yourself in a position where this is impossible and you absolutely have to spit (for example while jogging, or as a result of hayfever) make sure you carry a suitable receptacle and dispose of it in safely, your household rubbish."

Reassuringly, the rest of the CSER newsletter is the same tone as usual; how to make AI "trustworthy", biosecurity issues, alternative food production (algae!) to reduce carbon footprint, antibiotic resistance, and generalist doomsday pathogens.

Sounds intriguing? Sign up here.

GDPR emails - the good, the bad and the inexplicable

Great news!!! Most organisations were already compliant with GDPR. Not that that stopped a lot of organisations going quite bananas over it (though not, predictably, the ones who were illegally buying my contact details and then illegally using them to spam me with (at best) grey legal marketing, gambling and dating "opportunities").

I'm going to quote my personal favourite notice here, because it's brief, to the point, and covers all the necessary:

Organisations have different approaches. [Redacted] is proceeding on the basis that people who have already signed up to receive our newsletter might reasonably want to continue to have it sent to their email addresses. This is referred to as relying on processing on the basis of 'legitimate interest'. As always, we will include a link to allow you to opt out of receiving our newsletters at any time.

This, plus a pretty picture, was an elegant sufficiency. But so many went down a different path. And here, in reverse order, are my GDPR email top of the flops:

1. Three paragraphs of whingeing about the GDPR. I understand your woes. I feel them, having been to two briefings, one meeting, a compulsory e-learning and numerous informal chats on the topic this year. But if you're struggling so hard with the concept of data privacy perhaps your orgaisation is, I don't know... the kind that doesn't do that kind of thing?  Newsflash: these organisations exist and they send out LOADS of email, all the time. 
2. Four increasingly needy emails in a row, three after I'd updated my preferences. Can it, Janet, I already said yes.
3. A link to update my preferences, that lead to a form to input my information again, which you already have, or you wouldn't be contacting me. For heaven's sake, do we know each other or not?
4. A link to update my preferences, that lead to a form to input my information again, which you already have, which then returned the error message "[redacted] is already subscribed to this list". I know that, you know that - but will you still love me tomorrow I still get your emails after 25th May?
5. And in top place, standing out as a true beacon of practice in this area: An email explaining that the list you were subscribed to is being closed and you need to subscribe to a new GDPR-compliant list. On click-through, this form is asking you for a lot more personal information than you had previously shared with the company; it also has autofill disabled and a CAPTCHA that will not load in your (only very slightly slightly flaky) browser. Two browsers later, and the problem is still not resolving on desktop. Entry via the ipad (why is so much design still i-pad first?) finally loads the CAPTCHA - it's the notorious picture-style which drops into its usual round of fail. I wrestle the CAPTCHA to a standstill ... and the form crashes.

Never mind, eh.

There has been some really lovely practice in this area too - friendly checks, information pre-loaded, tidy forms, pretty design. Just for balance's sake, you understand.

the spam filter falls out of sync with online registration requirements

Today's message is brought to you by the colour grey and the letters f, m and s,

Dear [Redacted]

I'm assuming what I am responding to is an automated marketing email that gets sent when someone has started the process of looking at a report but not registered. So I'm not especially expecting a response. However, I do in this circumstance have a thing to say, so I'm going to say it, even though I might be howling into the empty void of a shared inbox in an abandoned marketing department (though the individual name was a nice touch, [Redacted]).

Straightforwardly, I AM interested in looking at your reports. I was slightly disappointed to discover that I have to register my details to do so, but understand that information is often transactional; and be reassured that, though my password lists now run to eight pages, like most adults working in the sector I've grown hardened to this. So here I am, trying to register on your website right now, but it's not going well. Not because I'm unwilling to register (although I am, a little - if's cheeky to call something free when the cost is actually registration and consent to be marketed to) but because though I've certainly started the registration process, I really can't complete it.

The problem occurring is that your verification code emails aren't getting through our spam filters. Yes, yes, yes. I know. Check my spam folder. But in common with many large organisations nowadays, we don't have "spam folders" as such to check (well, I do, but let's leave that aside for now, your verification email won't be in it). Instead, emails considered to be potentially spam are quarantined at server and sent on at midnight for me to review and release if non-suspicious the following morning. It stops about half my spam and quarantines about the same amount of legitimate mail, which is annoying enough that I've put in a service call about it, but tolerable enough that when I was told there was nothing that could be done I accepted it, shrugged and carried on.

But it's just starting to quarantine verification emails, sometimes, now. You're the second site it's done it for. I did a thing for the last site, but for you, I've just let it sit for now. I'll come back to the problem tomorrow. 

If your verification links don't expire, I can just click it tomorrow morning. That would be pretty poor security practice though, and I would expect better of you, [Redacted], even though this bit of your service is barely more than an email-harvest to allow access to faully anonymised content. There's no help available, either specific to registration and log-on, or generally on the site, so any solution would need to be mine, and mine alone. I did, as you always do, that quick time cost vs. information benefit calculation and decided to shelve fixing it until tomorrow and then decide if I wanted to activate a workaround.

Then your email plopped into my inbox, offering to help me realise how many reports you had and how valuable they were, and how I really should register. Trying to win my heart, this with superlatives and oily with salestalk. I only say this, [Redacted] because you are a Marketing Manager, and salestalk is what you do. I mean no criticim. But you see, the trouble is, this spam thing I'm using, it's not something odd or boutique. It's one of the major, major solutions in use in big organisations. What I'm saying, [Redacted], is that it won't just be me. It's going to be lots of people, and this mail is going to go to all those people.

So please, check your stats. Revisit your registration story. And for heaven's sake, rein in or differentiate the follow-up emails. The user isn't always saying f*** this. Sometimes they are saying this is f***ed.

Sincerely,

[insert standard sig here]

your marketing materials are deadnaming me again

I first came across the term deadnaming quite recently, which might seem quite odd for someone who doesn't use the same name as they were given when a child (I don't) but firstly in my family selecting a different name in teenage years is common practice (all part of growing up - every one of my sisters made a similar transition) and secondly pretty much nobody calls me by my childhood name, largely because I don't have any friends I'm in regular contact with who also knew me as a child.

It may also have something to do with the fact that when I changed my name from a gender neutral to a gender inappropriate name, I was making a statement about gender, but not one of conformity. It was more a statement of anti-gender, an acknowledgement of disruptive nature, like punk clothes, tattoos, or too many piercings. In that, I was just part of a general loosening of cultural norms, and accepting my name went alongside all of those other things.

But in recent years, there has been a growing trend for marketing emails from companies of which I am a customer to address me by first name. This has been followed by online systems of which I am a listed user (online administration systems, moodles, etc.) starting to do the same. The vagaries of registration systems means that sometimes I can use my initials, but sometimes that won't validate. My documentation (and indeed some of these systems) include my used name, but most places which address you by name draw from the master First Name field, not preferred first name.

So it is that there is a constant dip dip drip of automated systems addressing me by a name I don't use. It's dislocating, irritating and occasionally distressing, if it catches me at low ebb, like a reminder of old battles I don't want to fight again. In particular one provider of services, who uses a friendly chummy tone and FIRST NAME IN CAPITALS in the email headers of all its contacts with me (which really does make it look like spam or scam) has me pretty much constantly annoyed with them (it is a company that seems to derive a certain satisfaction from dissatisfied customers).

Complaining and correcting can sometimes be done (although it's not practical and sometimes not possible within some systems, and hard to predict which it will be before you start the process). But fundamentally, I don't want to be an exception. In this world, there are names people are called, and suggesting they do things using those names often makes those things more likely to be done. Acknowledged. There are also the names on their passports, Doctor's records and birth certificates. These are often not the same, for many people. The changes can be big or small, but we hear them. We hear them all.

Don't cross the beams. If you're talking formally, keep it formal and and keep FIRST NAME down in official spaces (For the Attention of: X, Dear X, According to our records your name is X). If you're striking an informal note (Hi X, Hello X!) make sure that field is draws from a preferred name field or is user editable. Otherwise that name will have precisely the opposite effect to the intended.



 

cookies set to stalker

I'm trying to identify a yellow flower that's all over the walls at Iffley Turn this year. It's a crack grower, a pioneer of loose mortar and cracked concrete. The leaves and growth habit look like a perennial geranium, though I'd be the first to admit that as it's yellow, it's far more likely to be a buttercup of some kind. Is there even such a thing as a yellow geranium?

My exploration of the concept of yellow geranium took me first to one major online gardening supplies company, and then (while listing enthusiastic self-seeders for my gardening blog) to a second, where I viewed two somewhat beguiling plants that were wholly tangential to my investigations of what is probably (on reflection) some kind of Waldsteinia.

Less than two hours later, into my inbox they crept.

Thank you for visiting [name redacted], Thank you for your visit to [name]. 

We noticed you were looking at [x]. We hope you liked that. We hope you had a nice time. Did you use the magnify tool to check the petals? You really should have done. You didn't buy anything but that's cool, it's fun just to hang out. Do come back. Do bring your credit card, that special one you use just for the internet. Here's out phone number, here's our email. We don't have to do it on the website. You could call us.  In fact, here's my name; and we're open right now! You could call me right now. Right now! Wouldn't that be amazing? Isn't there a hole in your life, the shape of [x]? Wouldn't you like me to fill it? I'd like that. I'd like that very much. Because I'd like to help you. I'd like to help you so very, very much.

Yours in anticipation

The automated customer service robot who loves your cookies 

When the robots come to take over the world, that's the sort of language I'm expecting. Enthusiastic, positive, helpful to a fault; fully concerned about offering us the best variety of choices when it comes to ways to terminate our unreasonably wilful organic processes. Oh, and there's an encouraging thought. The wall we're up against will probably be beautifully planted. Maybe with Waldsteinia.