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Monica – Personal CRM, Remember everything about friends and family

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11–20 of 52 posts

Re: Monica – Personal CRM, Remember everything about friends and family

#11
post #2

Was excited to see this because there is a serious lack of good contact managers / address book software and signed up to their demo right away but was quite disappointed to see their default options for adding a new contact were: 1. First Name 2. Last Name 3. Gender: Male / Female / I'd rather not say I would not trust the software from a project that thinks the third most important thing about a person is their gen…

How strange that you would associate a person's software development skills with how up to date they are in terms of gender politics.

Re: Monica – Personal CRM, Remember everything about friends and family

#13
post #9

Would have loved to try this (I know hundreds of people, but I only interact with them every few months), but this is unnecessarily hard to install. I would have to change my webserver config just to run this, which seems really strange for a PHP application... And I'm a sysadmin! Not sure if I want to deal with this in the long term, if even installing it is a pain.

Why not use Docker? https://github.com/monicahq/monica/blob/master/docs/installa...

If you can only install an app without hassle with Docker, it's a really bad sign.

I'm not against Docker, I run a whole cluster of Docker hosts as my job, but touting it as a solution to a hard install for a _php app_ is crazy.

Besides: You're cutting a whole lot of people off because this is apparently not installable on regular shared hosting, etc. Running a Container is even less of an option for these people. And then their only option is to use their hosted version, having to trust them.

Also: Running a Docker Container again requires me to add additional config, be it via labeling (when using reverse proxy with SD, e.g. traefik), or setting up a new nginx config file for that. No benefit in reality.

I'm not against having an additional Docker Image (I like those!) but these should only be considered a option for people who are looking for a Docker image explicitly.

Re: Monica – Personal CRM, Remember everything about friends and family

#14
post #5
post #2

Was excited to see this because there is a serious lack of good contact managers / address book software and signed up to their demo right away but was quite disappointed to see their default options for adding a new contact were: 1. First Name 2. Last Name 3. Gender: Male / Female / I'd rather not say I would not trust the software from a project that thinks the third most important thing about a person is their gen…

File an issue and discuss this or commit a merge request that includes the options you think are missing. While I'm with you politically: If a narrow perception on gender was a reason for not using a specific software, I probably couldn't use any software at all. AFAIK, Microsoft, Apple, Google and others don't give you more options in this regard either. So I find it quite harsh to abandon a small project like this…

I don't accept this view from bigger tech companies either and really have no interest in using Microsoft, Apple, Google or any of the other big tech companies which I trust less and less every passing day with their adherent behavior.

I will indeed file an issue and believe that its worth discussing with them. My main point was not even their narrow view of gender being a binary but that it deserved to be included as the only other thing to fill out on the first screen when you click the new contact button. If they had 'first name', 'last name', 'note about person' as the three fields being the default and had this gender drop down on the same page with the rest of the options for contact details on the next page I wouldn't have even noticed it.

You sure about your comment "I probably couldn't use any software at all." All the software you use asked to know your gender? Most of the software I use on a daily basis has no concept of gender and doesn't have any reason to.

Re: Monica – Personal CRM, Remember everything about friends and family

#15
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not use Docker? https://github.com/monicahq/monica/blob/master/docs/installa...

If you can only install an app without hassle with Docker, it's a really bad sign. I'm not against Docker, I run a whole cluster of Docker hosts as my job, but touting it as a solution to a hard install for a _php app_ is crazy. Besides: You're cutting a whole lot of people off because this is apparently not installable on regular shared hosting, etc. Running a Container is even less of an option for these people. An…

Not all projects that I want to run locally are written in the same language (PHP for example). So setting up a small docker host in your local network and saving its config in a `docker-compose.yml` seems like a far more lightweight solution than having some PHP server that you need to update and copy-paste files to.

Re: Monica – Personal CRM, Remember everything about friends and family

#16
post #2

Was excited to see this because there is a serious lack of good contact managers / address book software and signed up to their demo right away but was quite disappointed to see their default options for adding a new contact were: 1. First Name 2. Last Name 3. Gender: Male / Female / I'd rather not say I would not trust the software from a project that thinks the third most important thing about a person is their gen…

There's no good excuse for this in a contact manager when we fixed it in vcard years ago https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6350#section-6.2.7

Re: Monica – Personal CRM, Remember everything about friends and family

#17

Would have loved to try this (I know hundreds of people, but I only interact with them every few months), but this is unnecessarily hard to install. I would have to change my webserver config just to run this, which seems really strange for a PHP application... And I'm a sysadmin! Not sure if I want to deal with this in the long term, if even installing it is a pain.

What specifically seems strange to you? Reading the Ubuntu docs, seems pretty reasonable, although they could’ve made a prepackaged version with composer dependencies.

Re: Monica – Personal CRM, Remember everything about friends and family

#18
post #7

I personally use FullContact for this purpose with custom fields and notes. I love that it syncs with my contacts on iOS and google.

You should be aware that FullContact is known to sell customers data. I didn’t know that either and have tried the iOS App once but did not upload anything to them, I just wanted to see what the App could do/how it feels like. Then I read their Privacy Police and ToS and did some searching. I very quickly decided that this is not a service I’d want to use. So I send them a GDPR request demanding the deletion of my ac…

Seems like it would be interesting to report them for a violation of GDPR. They’re a good example of a company that should be zealously compliant.

Re: Monica – Personal CRM, Remember everything about friends and family

#19
post #14
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

File an issue and discuss this or commit a merge request that includes the options you think are missing. While I'm with you politically: If a narrow perception on gender was a reason for not using a specific software, I probably couldn't use any software at all. AFAIK, Microsoft, Apple, Google and others don't give you more options in this regard either. So I find it quite harsh to abandon a small project like this…

I don't accept this view from bigger tech companies either and really have no interest in using Microsoft, Apple, Google or any of the other big tech companies which I trust less and less every passing day with their adherent behavior. I will indeed file an issue and believe that its worth discussing with them. My main point was not even their narrow view of gender being a binary but that it deserved to be included a…

I'm also with you "politically", but not everyone is at the same pace "politically". Maybe you could be persuaded to raise the issue with them, and see how they take it, instead of "leaving them behind"?

Re: Monica – Personal CRM, Remember everything about friends and family

#20
post #2

Was excited to see this because there is a serious lack of good contact managers / address book software and signed up to their demo right away but was quite disappointed to see their default options for adding a new contact were: 1. First Name 2. Last Name 3. Gender: Male / Female / I'd rather not say I would not trust the software from a project that thinks the third most important thing about a person is their gen…

How often do you optimise your work for less than 1% of the population?
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