(Premium) Feature Request: Disable "Archive Goal"

Context: Sometimes one week is just not enough self-binding. I’m reasonably sure that at some point I’m going to cry uncle and archive my caffeinefree goal, because I have never resented a beeminder goal so much as I resent this one and actually stuck with it. I would like to be able to pre-commit to sticking with it.

This isn’t a perfect solution because I can of course just schedule indefinite breaks, set the goal rate to 0, etc. but I feel like I’m significantly less likely to do that. Still, I’m definitely open for alternative suggestions for beeminding on hard mode.

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I like the idea of a Hard Mode to opt into! We have some of these types of things as part of weaselproofing (like editing autodata, not being able to delete a goal in the first week). What if we made two changes:

  1. You can unweaselproof a goal with a one-week wait
  2. Weaselproofed goals can’t even start the archive countdown

Then you’d have to wait a week to unweaselproof and then another week to archive. Would that work for you, @drmaciver?

I’m not sure if there are other weasels who really don’t want to be able to unweaselproof, even with a week delay. Ideally that could be another thing to opt in to – permanent weaselproofing.

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I don’t really feel like weaselproofing is what I want. I feel I can be relied on to be scrupulously honest in all my data reporting (Of course, if I couldn’t would I tell you? :thinking:), but I am weak and thus would like some extra help committing to my goal.

ETA: That made me think though: Being able to set my akrasia horizon for a goal might be a good solution here.

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I’ve been wanting to post about this anti-pattern I noticed. I’d start to archive a road when feeling the heat and Beeminder would work as intended to make me accomplish my intentions during the archival countdown (so far, so normal). Then I’d forget the road is being archived and a day or two after archival I’d want to lookup the deadline information (for example) and end up surprised/annoyed that the goal has been archived.

The problem for me is there’s nowhere (except the goal page, so in the gallery, on the dashboard, in iOS, …) any visual reminder that a goal is being archived or imminently close to being archived. Even a pop-up or e-mail reminder that a goal is about to be archived would hopefully fix this anti-pattern for me.

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@drmaciver, This was my solution for that same problem: Community Policing of ChipManaged's Caffeine Goals

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PS - Feel free to takeover that thread for your purposes now that my time with that goal is done.

Hmm. I’ll give that a try, thanks!