rant

Social norms on teh internets

brad — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 08:12:39 +0200

So, I have been on teh internets for a while, I have been a member of many mailinglists, chatted on irc, etc. etc. So maybe I have a more attuned sense of the social norms of the internet. Years ago a bunch of script kiddies had a mailing list called KiDDiESoc, KiDDiESoc was great, at it's peak it had traffic in the region of 100 messages per day. Between maybe 15 people. Many of these messages were what can only be called spam. Spam and baggy pantsing. We had arguments about top, bottom, and inline posting. We argued, we joked, but mostly, (in my opinion) it was a space to share ideas, and explore the social norms of electronically mediated discussion and socialisation. There were other good things, but for me, we all definitely learned how to be better internet citizens for it. Lessons like:

Be as clear as possible in what you write (especially when arguing) because a lot of subtlety is lost when reading characters on a blinking terminal
Be respectful of people's boundaries, because it is a lot easier to overstep the mark
Try to remain calm and don't vent against someone personally if you are annoyed at their argument
Try at all times to keep the signal to noise ratio as high as possible

There are many more that exist, are unspoken, or are jotted down in RFCs and random pages on the intertubes. What I am getting at is that, like my finely tuned sense of justice, I have a finely tuned sense of the social norms that dictate my interactions on the web.

In a few days time the Digital Citizens Indaba is happening in Grahamstown. Last year I was involved in the indaba, and so my name would have been associated with it (quite possibly on a facebook group or something). So a few weeks ago a guy by the name of With Held* sent me a friend request, with a note saying "Hi there ,I'M looking forward in seeing you at the Digital Citizen Indaba this year.I will be coming with Ramon Thomas.". Now, I am not a fan of Ramon Thomas you are welcome to google him, and look at his website, and even meet him to create your own opinions. Either way, that friend request annoyed me, because it was unsolicited, and, if we deconstruct "friend request" we see that it contains the word "friend". According to that wikipedia link, "'Friendship' is a term used to denote co-operative and supportive behavior between two or more beings". I do not claim that every "friend" on my "friend list" is exactly in that box, but both people involved in those transactions have deemed the relationship as mutually beneficial, and justified. I have never met With Held, I probably will never meet With Held, I am not friends with the person he mentions, and I am not attending the event he mentions (and I personally know a few other people who got the same friend request from With Held, who are in exactly the same position as me). So, if we look at it, he is sending unsolicited, unjustified, non-mutually beneficial, "friend requests" to Random people on facebook. In a way, that sounds like something else I am familiar with. SPAM. Gracefully, I ignored his friend request. Then, yesterday, he sent another one. Which pissed me off. I vented, I channeled, and I may have broken some of the rules I mentioned above, when I sent him this message (Amanda said I should have stopped after the second sentence or so, but I needed to get my point across):

Hi,

I am not going to the DCI, and, while Ramon Thomas may think it is a good idea to "network" with facebook, you are using tactics that are commonly used by spammers. I am not your friend, I have not ever met you, and I probably won't ever meet you. You are breaking social norms, and if everyone on the internet broke accepted social norms, then no one would want to use the internet. It is quite ironic that you are attending the digital citizens indaba, and yet you clearly have no idea what social norms exist in the digital medium.

I know multiple people you have tried to friend, and your behaviour verges on harassment. When I IGNORED your friend request, please RESPECT ME, and back THE FUCK OFF.

So, I feel like the last sentence probably was a little harsh, but, hands up who is tired of spammers and people who think the internet has vastly different rules that govern it?

* Names changed to protect the identity of the person

Dear Standard Bank, Internet banking division

brad — Wed, 07 May 2008 10:50:23 +0200

Hi,

The improvements to internet banking have some bugs, it seems.

I have had the experience twice now during "once off payments" that I get an error of "Internet banking is currently unavailable" when I go through with a transaction. It seems to be related to sending payment confirmations. It is bad behaviour because the transaction goes through, but the user (me) does not get a valid indication the payment has succeeded until a notification (sms, or email) comes through, or manually checks if there is a mention on the account transacted from/to.

I would also like to say that some of the "improvements" are actually a degradation, in terms of usability. The screen is more cluttered with graphics and text, and on my screen (which is running at 1280x800) has information pushed "below the fold". I would suggest that whoever is in charge of usability and new features looks into buying a copy of "Defensive Web Design" (http://www.amazon.com/Defensive-Design-Web-improve-messages/dp/073571410...), and other texts discussing usability on the web. While not absolutely correct, the EyeTRAC studies are a good reference point.

I (as a web developer) find it depressing that a service I am paying for has degraded usability, when the changes were supposedly improvements. It is not a wholely poor experience (there are some improvements, but my general experience is that the interface has become more confusing, not less confusing)

I am posting this email on my blog, and you are welcome to respond publicly (in the form of a comment), or as an email response.

--
Brad Whittington

A letter for SAA

brad — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 11:38:46 +0200

I sent this to SAA, in response to the difficulties I had (documented here)

" Hi there Helpdesk person"

If you don't think you can do anything about this, please send it to your boss, it makes it easier to get to someone who can do something about this. Someone who worries about numbers and income, and customer satisfaction.

I was wondering if you could give me a reason why I should continue giving your company business.

I recently purchased four tickets from you, two for me, and two for my partner. I have a voyager card, and I have my credit card linked to my voyager account. I am what you would call a good customer.

Except, you don't treat me like a good customer.

My Pregnant partner (yes, we are going to become three customers soon enough) decided to stay in Durban for longer than we originally planned, to spend time with her family. Usual circumstances. Now, we tried to change her return leg to a more suitible date, only to be told we would have to "upgrade" our ticket to something which cost a lot more than booking a new
ticket on your, or another airline. That doesn't seem right. It doesn't seem right that my freedom is prohibited because you have made it absurdly expensive to me enact changes on a service I have purchased from you. You see, if it had been a reasonable penalty fee, even up to R200, I would have happily paid it, since I would still get voyager miles, a free meal, and I wouldn't have to take my business elsewhere, I like travelling SAA, you are often quick and efficient.

So, it worked out cheaper to spend more money elsewhere, I hope you see the irony here, you made it hard for me to spend more money on your business, which normally is a business no-no. But I take the good with the bad, your loss is my small gain.

Then I thought "Hey, maybe I can just cancel that Leg, and get some money back", and you said "you can cancel it, but we will only give you the tax back". That is 20% of the ticket's cost. You want me to pay a penalty of 80% of the ticket cost, just to cancel it? That's quite crazy. In fact, the tax part of the ticket is not even yours in the first place, it is owned the SA government, so actually you are not giving me back anything, you are letting
me cancel the ticket for 100% of it's cost. That isn't cancelling, thats just informing you she isn't travelling.

So, then I thought, well, if they want to fill the seat on that date, and they won't budge, perhaps they will let my friend travel with me (I get lonely on these flights, and I have a hard time striking up conversation with strangers). You told me you couldn't change the name on the ticket because of company policy, because too many people were buying cheap tickets and selling them to other people, and taking a bit off the top. Let us not get into a discussion about capitalism, because I am happy you are making
effort to keep tickets cheap for me, if i buy direct (like the television products). I am not happy that you enforce this policy in a way that infringe on my rights as a consumer to act on services I purchase from you. I am in the "IT" field, and it seems like a trivial problem to solve. If the same person or company buys lots of tickets, and always changes who the passenger is, you may have an abuser, and you can set a flag somewhere that gets your customer services to phone them up and offer them "premium
services", or you could blacklist them from buying, or you could blacklist their credit card, or, you could call them up when they purchase a few too many tickets in one go. There are many things you could do, so that when someone has a legitimate case to make a ticket change, you could accomodate them.

So, I wonder if you could tell me why I should continue to use your airline. The competition has clear, consumer empowering, policies on each of the three avenues which you have closed to me. I don't see why I should pay an annual fee to link my credit card to my voyager account, if you don't recognise me as a customer who is keen to interact with you as a business. I don't see why I should spend money with you if you make it a difficult economic choice for me to continue being a customer.

Have a nice day, and I hope we can find some middle ground, or at least some place where I am not compelled to tell people why I think they should be flying the alternative.

SAA is a pile of pants

brad — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 11:02:59 +0200

SAA is a pile of pants. I urge you to travel using any one of the other domestic and international airlines.

Why is SAA crap? Well, here is a little saga: We (Mandy+I) bought two return tickets to Durban. We booked in advance so we got a very good rate. Only, by choosing the good rate (which was only R80 better than using another airline) we apparently signed away any consumer rights:

We cannot change dates on the flights without "upgrading" to a ticket which will cost more than booking a new flight on desired date.
We can "cancel" the ticket and get the tax back, which is 20% of the cost of the ticket. So we would pay a penalty of 80% of the cost for a ticket cancellation. The only reason they give the airport tax back is because it isn't money they have control over
So, given that I cannot change it, and cancelling it gives me R79, I figured maybe I could change the person flying. No, not possible, apparently too many people were buying cheap tickets and scalping them off to other people. Not difficult, to discourage ticket scalping (which possibly wouldn't happen if tickets were reasonably priced), but impossible. Don't we live in a capitalist society? Surely legally people can resell tickets? Surely they can put a red flag on someone who buys two hundred tickets and changes all of them to other names? Surely the customer comes first
I only booked SAA because they offer me a few voyager miles, I have my credit card linked to my voyager card (for a fee). If I had realised that by saving R80 I would have given up my ability to act freely on merchandise I purchased, I would have spent the extra money
Just to let you know, other airlines have a fixed cost to change tickets, plus any price difference (which is fair). They have a fixed cost to change ticket owners, and it is fair. So stop using SAA and make them realise that they are a bunch of encumbent twats who deserve nothing more than to fizzle away with the other ogres of this country