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Send someone you appreciate an official 'Continue and Persist' Letter

continueandpersist.org

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Re: Send someone you appreciate an official 'Continue and Persist' Letter

#91

Post by sharkweek »

bragr wrote: post #22

This reminds me of how my father (a lawyer) sent fake subpoenas to invite people to his brother's bachelor party. Most found it hilarious but it freaked a few people out. I suspect that this would have the same problem.

I remember in college (early 00s when music piracy was huge) someone set up a site where you could enter an email and it’d send them a fake letter from the RIAA about the downloading they were doing.

Sent one to my college roommate and sat quietly while he got home from class and checked his email. He obviously started panicking until the link in the email revealed the joke. He didn’t think it was funny and swore cold blooded revenge that I’ve yet to receive. Still keep one eye open at night.

Re: Send someone you appreciate an official 'Continue and Persist' Letter

#92

Post by Tempest1981 »

omoikane wrote: post #66

> A official-looking legal letter [...] Surprise someone Having received actual legal letters before, my personal experience is that I would much rather receive normal looking holiday cards to encourage me in continuing whatever I was doing, rather than being surprised by official-looking letters. It might be different if this service offered help in other ways, but currently it seems like a practical joke of dubious…

Yeah, rather dark lawyer humor, I guess. No thanks.

Re: Send someone you appreciate an official 'Continue and Persist' Letter

#93

Post by sharkweek »

rietta wrote: post #64

As a business owner, I can tell you certain letters have a look to them before opened and can trigger anxiety and “heart skip a beat.” A letter looking like its from a law firm is going to trigger concern and even calling an attorney. Not fun to then have the rug pulled out. Reminds me of the terrible pranksters who worry people and then say “it’s just a prank.”

When I owned a small business every letter from the IRS, no matter how benign, was nightmare inducing.

Never got anything serious from them as most were “we’ve update some random piece of info on your profile” notifications, but still made me nervous every time.

Re: Send someone you appreciate an official 'Continue and Persist' Letter

#94

Post by DocTomoe »

Oh, wow.

I mean, I love the sentiment. It's a cute idea.

But something that on first look looks ike another legalese quagmire on my desk would raise my blood pressure way beyond what my doctor tells me is healthy. By the time I realised this was meant as an encouragement, the damage would already have been done.

Maybe show appreciation in something that masquerades less as yet another fire to put out.

Re: Send someone you appreciate an official 'Continue and Persist' Letter

#96

Post by nl »

nine_k wrote: post #90
com2kid wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It started out on slashdot, the forum that invented the entire concept back in the late 90s.

It's still around, and looks alive. I remember when Slashdot introducing the karma cap, far below my then extant karma. It mostly made karma farming irrelevant. I also like their mod points plus meta moderation approach.

Slashdot has a karma cap now?...

(goes and logs in for the first time in maybe 10 years) How do you even see your karma now?

Is having a 4-digit UID from before the new 1998(?) green look still cool?

Re: Send someone you appreciate an official 'Continue and Persist' Letter

#97

Post by cootsnuck »

ldoughty wrote: post #49
revscat wrote: post #16

As someone who is coming to increasingly believe that 99% of the world problems are caused by powers seeking to intentionally divide us one from the other, I cannot tell you how much joy this brings me to see. I wish you great success in this effort, however small it might appear to be in the scheme of things.

I agree so much, but the pessimist in me says that this isn't _really_ free, and I don't want to plug in a cool person's info without knowing who the info is being sold to. If this was publicly available document so I could fill in the missing bits, I'd send a dozen of these tomorrow.

> I don't want to plug in a cool person's info without knowing who the info is being sold to.

Have we reached peak data privacy paranoia? Harmless lil projects that harken back to the good ol' days of the internet are somehow actually devious PII honeypots?

Why do people think their data is so valuable on its own without being connected to their actual consumer related behavior? Truly, what is a name and address worth vs. anonymous user on smart TV id_8z6748dxzh watched 3 hours of Hoarders on Amazon Prime, skipped 85% of ads, but did not skip 50% of ads relating to early onset male pattern baldness, and resides in Ohio?

We somehow both overestimate and underestimate the value of our personal data. Which leads to unwarranted paranoia in inappropriate contexts and alarming indifference in the most common but mundane contexts.

Re: Send someone you appreciate an official 'Continue and Persist' Letter

#98

Post by mdorazio »

sharkweek wrote: post #89
DavidSJ wrote: post #67

On a few occasions I’ve called the phone number on a professional vehicle’s “how’s my driving?” bumper sticker to report the driver for good driving. It’s always a fun experience.

Amazing idea. I’m sure the person on the line is… not used to this. I remember one time having a super helpful person at Home Depot walk me through a home project I needed some advice on so I asked to talk to their manager to compliment/thank them. After a few minutes the manager came over and looked so ready for me to berate them about something only to look incredibly shocked that I was actually complimenting the s…

I’ve done this a few times in the past as well. But I found it’s less stressful for everyone if you preface it first like, “You’ve been really helpful. Can I tell your manager or mention you in a survey or something?” (Note: direct managers at stores don’t always have the ability to do much to reward good employees and it might be more helpful to fill out a survey or something that corporate sees.)

Re: Send someone you appreciate an official 'Continue and Persist' Letter

#99

Post by costcofries »

bragr wrote: post #22

This reminds me of how my father (a lawyer) sent fake subpoenas to invite people to his brother's bachelor party. Most found it hilarious but it freaked a few people out. I suspect that this would have the same problem.

[flagged]

Re: Send someone you appreciate an official 'Continue and Persist' Letter

#100

Post by cootsnuck »

aoanevdus wrote: post #76
MichaelCharles wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pessimist in me says this is the regular old "If it's free, then you're the product" situation. This seems like a clever way to collect valid mailing addresses. People are also likely to include personal information in their praise messages, which could be valuable data. Their Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy state they reserve the right to share collected information with service providers, business partn…

Aren’t there data dumps freely available online with contact information for pretty much anyone? In that context, why would the data from this small project have any monetary value?

It wouldn't. This site just has a strong bias towards reactionary yum yuckers.
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