27 August, 2010
Don't subcontract
I don't like 'chuggers' – 'charity muggers'; the people who accost one in the street or even on one's own doorstep, attempting to obtain regular (Direct Debit) donations to charities. My primary, visceral, objection is the inherently invasive nature of the activity, but I'm also uneasy about their often aggressive, manipulative tactics. And no, that really isn't merely media stereotyping: I've experienced it myself.
It's now emerged that they're a drain on the charities, too. I've always been aware that the chuggers tend to be paid employees of agencies, often paid by results, rather than genuine volunteer supporters of campaigns, but the BBC reports that their fees are startling: it's alleged that "in some cases, it would take the average donor more than a year to cover the fee - the equivalent of about £100."
The British Heart Foundation confirmed it paid the equivalent of £136 per signature. Cancer Research UK said it paid an average of £112 to recruit each donor and in total paid face-to-face fundraisers £3m a year. Guide Dogs said it paid out nearly £2m annually.
That's appalling. I'm happy to donate to
certain categories of charities, but with the major caveat that I want the money to go to the causes themselves, with some going to administration and an absolute minimum being spent on marketing (okay, there's some value in consciousness-raising), but I'm not remotely prepared to fund the fund-raisers themselves.
Uncomfortably, this makes me seriously consider whether I'll continue to support Cancer Research. Very disillusioning.
Less?
10 August, 2010
Get p*ssed
Reporting that thirty- and fortysomethings are occasionally asked for photo ID featuring proof of age when purchasing alcohol, the BBC quotes (paraphrases?) a bar manager (not 'barmaid'!) as saying that:
Sometimes customers lose their temper, but overall attitudes have improved.
People have become more meekly compliant, you mean?
There's no reason to be rude to the bar staff, of course, but nor is there any reason to meekly accept arbitrary 'policies'.
Caroline Nodder, of 'The Publican':
"Is it that much of an inconvenience to carry ID? If as a society we want to stop access to alcohol then we have to put up with this."
Yes it is, and NO WE DON'T.
Less?
5 August, 2010
Content with a shallow identity
Khoi Vinh wishes he'd invented the Tumblr micro-blogging service, not least because he'd change a couple of key aspects. However, I'm rather glad he didn't (dunno why; I haven't even looked at Tumblr, never mind used it), as I disagree quite strongly with his main objection.
Tumblr discourages identity. Or, to be more specific, it promotes shallow identity. Moreso than other blogging systems like WordPress or ExpressionEngine, Tumblr blogs frequently offer only scant few details about their authors. I can’t recall how many Tumblr sites I’ve visited where it wasn’t clear who was behind the posts, what their background was, or what their intent was. Many of these sites are artful, well designed and are actually quite engaging, but I guess I’m old fashioned in that I like to know who’s behind them.
Everyone praises the power of anonymity that the Internet makes possible, and I’m firmly in that camp. At the same time, I prefer it when people use their real identities. It just makes for a better experience. When you post or contribute anything online and you use your real name, and you provide authentic details about your station in life or your passions, it works as a multiplier of the value of your contribution – and for the richness of the network, too.
I really, really disagree. I don't accept that a 'real' name adds any authenticity, or that a pseudonym inherently detracts from
what is actually said.
So far as I'm concerned, the Ministry is about the content. Only the content. There's no 'About Me' page. This isn't an oversight, and I don't have the vaguest intention of adding one. If you're interested in what I write, great. If you're interested in me, well, tough.
Sorry if that inadvertently seems aggressive, but it's important to me: I'm making certain opinions available, but not myself. If my "intent" is unclear from the text of the blog posts, that may be an inadequacy of my writing, but if it isn’t clear "who is behind the posts", that's entirely deliberate.
It's probably a topic for a different posting, but I also dislike the collectivist assumption that one publishes to 'contribute', as if to some meta-conversation or community corpus. **** "the network" – I write for myself, and for you, the individual reader.
That’s what was so compelling, I think, about the first few waves of blogs. By and large, they weren’t just venues for the publication of content. They also served as outposts for your identity, a representation of who you were on the World Wide Web.
Partly, but with emphasis on that final clause: an expression of who I am
online, almost entirely independent of the offline 'me'.
Remember, the person writing this isn't entirely the one you'd meet in the street, even at the moment of writing, and that's a snapshot of who I
was online. Particularly following the life changes encountered over the past nine months, I'm increasingly
disinclined to defend everything the, for example, 2006 'me' said.
Less?
Insert link here - yes, right here
Don't be so ridiculous.
Okay, there may be some, very specific situations where it might make some, very limited, sense to offer hyperlinks as footnotes on a web-published article rather than scattered through the text....
No. No, there really aren't. The whole purpose of inline hyperlinking is to connect to an external resource at the point of reference. If you find inline links genuinely impose a "cognitive penalty", you might try disciplining yourself to avoid following them until you've read the main text; I'm sure it'd become second-nature fairly quickly.
If they're available, readers can follow them, but delicate readers don't have to. If they're withheld (at the point of relevance), the cognitively-impaired hold everyone back. And that's unacceptable.
Less?
8 July, 2010
Could catch anyone
Ooh. Nearly been phished. That's a first.
Well, not really: I clicked a link expecting Facebook (I have an account for work, not private use!), but the unexpected destination offered me free SMS text messages. Sp*m, but not an overt attempt at identity theft.
It does reinforce how easy it is to be fooled: a half-credible message (that someone had commented on 'my' profile picture) induced me to click through without adequately checking – the sender's reply address wasn't even properly masked as Facebook. And, without boasting, I'm fairly experienced, having used email since 1993 and the web since Mosaic later that decade, professionally since 2000.
Be careful out there.
Less?
Posted by Ministry at 10:51
| 109 words
