Hi all,
Habits are a tough thing to break, this is obvious if you know a smoker.
I've heard many anecdotes about habits but I never really understood any of the psychology or neuroscience about habits until I recently read the book "The Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg (Random House, 2013)
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/202855/the-power-of-habit-by-charle...
Nasty things like Doodle, Meetup and Facebook keep popping up throughout FSFE and the wider free software community. Even when we discuss them, it is not long before they pop up again.
When people are exposed to this elsewhere, all the time, it is not so hard to understand how the FS message is being drowned out. Our own way of dealing with these challenges may also include some bad communication habits, undermining the effectiveness of our responses.
One thing that comes to mind: are there browser plugins and Thunderbird email plugins that can help people avoid visiting or linking to things like Facebook, Meetup, Twitter and Doodle? I'm not talking about giving electric shocks through the keyboard, maybe just a popup alert would be enough. This could be a far more effective way of helping members of the community improve their habits and it can step in just at the moment when they really need it. The reality is, many people don't deliberately do these things and they would change with just a little bit of help.
The book includes an appendix on "using these ideas" and this would provide an excellent recipe for designing or optimizing such a plugin or app.
Regards,
Daniel
Daniel Pocock daniel@pocock.pro ha scritto:
[...] One thing that comes to mind: are there browser plugins and Thunderbird email plugins that can help people avoid visiting or linking to things like Facebook, Meetup, Twitter and Doodle? [...]
Yes, there are. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/leechblock-ng/ The user can select how, what and when to block (always or only on some times/days). How: the user must wait ## seconds before being shown the blocked site, or the user will get blocked after ## seconds of viewing the site, or the user will be completely forbidden from viewing the site. As with all habits/addictions, there cannot be a silver bullet, but I suppose this tool can help. /b
Dear Daniel and list,
Op woensdag 17 januari 2018 11:56:21 schreef Daniel Pocock:
Nasty things like Doodle, Meetup and Facebook keep popping up throughout FSFE and the wider free software community. Even when we discuss them, it is not long before they pop up again.
When people are exposed to this elsewhere, all the time, it is not so hard to understand how the FS message is being drowned out. Our own way of dealing with these challenges may also include some bad communication habits, undermining the effectiveness of our responses.
One thing that comes to mind: are there browser plugins and Thunderbird email plugins that can help people avoid visiting or linking to things like Facebook, Meetup, Twitter and Doodle?
With the uMatrix plugin I can enable/disable connections to websites, also when they are backdoor third party to another website. So you can disable the connections to e.g. FB and that works on all their websites and their business partners. It works on IceCat, possibly also on IceDove and Firefox.
Best regards,
On 17/01/18 18:20, André Ockers wrote:
Dear Daniel and list,
Op woensdag 17 januari 2018 11:56:21 schreef Daniel Pocock:
Nasty things like Doodle, Meetup and Facebook keep popping up throughout FSFE and the wider free software community. Even when we discuss them, it is not long before they pop up again.
When people are exposed to this elsewhere, all the time, it is not so hard to understand how the FS message is being drowned out. Our own way of dealing with these challenges may also include some bad communication habits, undermining the effectiveness of our responses.
One thing that comes to mind: are there browser plugins and Thunderbird email plugins that can help people avoid visiting or linking to things like Facebook, Meetup, Twitter and Doodle?
With the uMatrix plugin I can enable/disable connections to websites, also when they are backdoor third party to another website. So you can disable the connections to e.g. FB and that works on all their websites and their business partners. It works on IceCat, possibly also on IceDove and Firefox.
As well as blocking, does it give the user any encouragement to use alternatives?
Another thing that comes to mind after reading that book: is there a way a plugin could reward people for doing the right thing? Rewards are more effective at bringing about change than criticism.
Regards,
Daniel
On Wed, Jan 17, 2018 at 6:31 PM, Daniel Pocock daniel@pocock.pro wrote:
On 17/01/18 18:20, André Ockers wrote:
Dear Daniel and list,
Op woensdag 17 januari 2018 11:56:21 schreef Daniel Pocock:
Nasty things like Doodle, Meetup and Facebook keep popping up throughout FSFE and the wider free software community. Even when we discuss them, it is not long before they pop up again.
When people are exposed to this elsewhere, all the time, it is not so hard to understand how the FS message is being drowned out. Our own way of dealing with these challenges may also include some bad communication habits, undermining the effectiveness of our responses.
One thing that comes to mind: are there browser plugins and Thunderbird email plugins that can help people avoid visiting or linking to things like Facebook, Meetup, Twitter and Doodle?
With the uMatrix plugin I can enable/disable connections to websites,
also
when they are backdoor third party to another website. So you can
disable the
connections to e.g. FB and that works on all their websites and their
business
partners. It works on IceCat, possibly also on IceDove and Firefox.
As well as blocking, does it give the user any encouragement to use alternatives?
Another thing that comes to mind after reading that book: is there a way a plugin could reward people for doing the right thing? Rewards are more effective at bringing about change than criticism.
Regards,
Daniel
Instead of "punishing" people for using these services it would probably be better to encourage the usage of alternatives. But are there any good alteratives? These services usually have become monopolists for a reason - usually offering the right kind of service at the right time and place to the right audience.
I'd be really interested if you knew any seriously recommendable alternatives to Doodle. There is Dudle [1] which looks promising, but its usability is pretty horrid and comes nowhere near Doodle, and sadly feature requests do not seem to get integrated. BR Michael
Hi Michael,
# M [2018-01-17 20:50 +0100]:
Instead of "punishing" people for using these services it would probably be better to encourage the usage of alternatives.
My opinion exactly.
I'd be really interested if you knew any seriously recommendable alternatives to Doodle. There is Dudle [1] which looks promising, but its usability is pretty horrid and comes nowhere near Doodle, and sadly feature requests do not seem to get integrated.
Yes, I've been using Framadate lately. I'm not sure which features it's lacking in comparison to Doodle but it does everything I need for scheduling meetings and executing smaller polls:
https://framadate.org/ Git: https://git.framasoft.org/framasoft/framadate
Best, Max
Le 17/01/2018 à 18:31, Daniel Pocock a écrit :
As well as blocking, does it give the user any encouragement to use alternatives?
Another thing that comes to mind after reading that book: is there a way a plugin could reward people for doing the right thing? Rewards are more effective at bringing about change than criticism.
Hi, it can be done with a proxy server but I guess it's not a good solution for what you've got in mind :-/
Am 17.01.2018 um 18:20 schrieb André Ockers: ...
With the uMatrix plugin I can enable/disable connections to websites, also when they are backdoor third party to another website. So you can disable the connections to e.g. FB and that works on all their websites and their business partners. It works on IceCat, possibly also on IceDove and Firefox.
Would it also allow me to "kill" the connection to a tab in Firefox and Co.? I often have the problem that a crumby website blocks Firefox (or Palemoon) completely and I have to "kill" Firefox. Would this help here?
Cheers, Theo
On Wednesday 17. January 2018 11.56.21 Daniel Pocock wrote:
One thing that comes to mind: are there browser plugins and Thunderbird email plugins that can help people avoid visiting or linking to things like Facebook, Meetup, Twitter and Doodle? I'm not talking about giving electric shocks through the keyboard, maybe just a popup alert would be enough. This could be a far more effective way of helping members of the community improve their habits and it can step in just at the moment when they really need it. The reality is, many people don't deliberately do these things and they would change with just a little bit of help.
It seems like a niche problem, really, targeting people who know that using Facebook and friends can be problematic, but who make other people use these services for the usual reasons of "convenience", "popularity", and so on. (The distinction between going along with someone's Doodle invitation and actively sending one out to others is important here.)
If people are reaching for proprietary services instead of using something that is free and open, and if they know that they should be using the latter instead of the former, particularly because they advocate things like Free Software to others, then is it not just a case of self-discipline and having some ability to reflect on one's own image and integrity? If habits are so deeply ingrained, then might they also need to reflect on why this is?
Perhaps the free alternatives need improvement, for example. Or perhaps people feel that they cannot readily convince others to break their own habits. Perhaps they feel bad making a point that might be considered "ideological" (even though it is sound).
I participate in some forums where newcomers can occasionally be seen linking out to Facebook. I could understand that asking people not to do that might be seen as unkind, given that for some people Facebook is their gateway to the Internet (sadly and disturbingly enough) and I would be perceived as lecturing them. They might not have given their use of Facebook a second thought because, amongst other things, "surely everyone is on it".
But then again, the whole point of such forums is to have a place that people fully commit to in their collaboration, and if people choose to post stuff elsewhere and then expect others to go there to get a complete picture of a discussion or collaboration, then they undermine those forums. That can upset the people who set such forums up, partly because it starts to look like people are just using them to get what they want and not give anything back.
(There are also interesting observations to be made about eBay, and how that can be a harmful influence within the scene in question and on those forums, too. When it seems like people are using a resource as an advertising medium to make more money, that can really focus the mind around ethics, rules, and what is considered acceptable behaviour.)
So, why is it that Free Software advocates want to use proprietary services? Are they dissatisfied with free and open solutions for a good reason? Do they need to set such things up and so see them as a distraction? Do they have a disagreement with the developers of such solutions at some level? Or are they just unaware that solutions exist for their needs?
This last issue is perhaps the only thing I can think of where a plugin as described might be genuinely helpful, but it seems to me that addressing these issues is a lot more constructive than administering a slap on the wrist, even if that is what some people might want.
Paul