That prompts a good question: what does buffer mean in this non-PPR world?
Currently it’s the PPR that enables safety buffer to be calculated, because PPR accumulates at twice the road slope. Does that calculation have any merit in the absence of PPR? As I read @dreev’s post, there’s still a buffer in terms of units, but no longer a buffer that can be expressed in terms of days.
If that’s so, then how fast do you eat through the buffer? Or do you derail immediately the first day you fail to enter data? That sounds way too harsh to me, because I’m forgetful, and I’d frequently derail without doing anything “wrong.” It turns the goal from encouragement to do less of a particular thing into punishment for being forgetful.
I agree, they are very different actions and have different motivation. However, as proposed Beeminder would consider both of those emergency days regardless of personal intent. If I have done a good enough job to clear my board to green before a day when I do not want to log into Beeminder (!?) then why should it be mandated, especially just to type a “0”?
Put another way, my feeling is that do-less goals should follow the same contract as do-more: any buffer that you achieve on a goal guarantees you will not derail before X number of days, even if you input nothing (auto-goals not-withstanding). Any PPR-less proposal for mapping units to days would be very welcome too!
Yes please! This is brilliant and yet seems so obvious.
In fact, I think this should be an option (if not required) for ALL goals. With a do-more goal, with this option enabled, you’d have to enter “0” every day. This would help getting in the habit of entering data every day and solve this problem:
(I assume that was supposed to say “don’t,” right?)
That seems like an argument for it to me.
Though I am totally in support of first-class meta-minding.
Yes please! That sounds amazing, and in general entering data in beeminder is way too frictiony.
You can always turn off PPR. I also think the proposal is that auto derailing could be turned off, too. If auto derailing interval is customizable, then they would both be in effect equally as bad when it comes to being a punishment for forgetfulness.
Let’s say that you require somebody with a do-less goal to enter data every day. Why would you do that and not also require do-more goals to enter data every day, even if its just ‘0’?
Another reason I am against the original idea is that for me Beeminder works as a helpful reminder rather than life-or-death pressure. I don’t enjoy pressure at the best of times, and I would be upset if Beeminder required me to be absolutely on top of entering data every day - especially if I had a goal for an issue that I was sensitive about, or struggled with.
I do think that PPRs aren’t entirely fit for purpose, however - with a decent buffer, it takes ages to derail, and I previously had the idea of adjustable PPRs - a miminim of 2x your data, with the option to select 3x, 4x.
Someone mentioned the idea of being able to select how many days you could go without entering data before derailing, which I’d be more happy with, especially if you really want to kill PPRs. I am definitely against requiring daily data to avoid derailing, though, and my ONE do-less goal (it’s an important one, though!) works very well as is.
nkmunjal, there is a fundamental difference between do more and do less buffers.
If you have a do less goal, and you never enter data, you never derail.
If you have a do more goal with a non-zero slope, and you never enter data, you eventually derail (or the goal ends first).
No, it was supposed to say what it said.
“Beware trivial inconveniences.” If I were thinking about having a do-less goal, being forced to enter data for it every single day would make me just not create that goal. (And of course, no auto-derail at all means I can put off entering data forever and never derail! As you noted, not a very good solution.)
How does it play out in the status quo when you’re forgetful? The PPR is logged and then at some point you remember to replace it? What makes you remember to do that?
Arguably, forgetting to enter data on a do-less goal is such a disaster that Beeminder shouldn’t try to be forgiving about that.
That said, the latest feedback here is pulling me more towards either a more flexible autoderail setting (user specifies how long they want to be allowed to go without entering data) or more flexible PPRs (user specifies the actual PPR amount) or find some way to do all this strictly with metagoals (in some way that wouldn’t be too intimidating for newbees).
I think we should require that of do-more goals as well! Or at least allow an option to require it!
Whereas I’d like it if Beeminder required this!
Ok, sorry, I’m confused then - I thought your point was that people would get confused if one type of goal auto-derailed you and the other type didn’t, because people didn’t see them as different. But you’re saying it would be a UX nightmare because people DO distinguish the two types of goals?
By that logic, you wouldn’t create a daily do-more goal either, right? Since you’d have to enter data every day? I’m not seeing how this is a “trivial inconvenience” in the classic sense - it’s more like being discouraged by the thought of having to act on it later than being discouraged by the thought of having to do something else (like log in) now.
That seems like a good idea - and you could get rid of PPRs that way. Could the more flexible autoderail setting be an option for all goals? So if you wanted you could set autoderail on a do-more goal so that you derail if you don’t enter at least a “0” every X days?
Yes. To elaborate… here is the bit I had in mind as I was replying:
I said that people think there is a difference because (some) people expect that a do-less goal will never derail them unless they enter data showing that they did the thing they weren’t supposed to. They haven’t done the thing, so their thinking is that they shouldn’t derail, and we shouldn’t assume they have. Therefore, making the goals more similar is not necessarily an intuitive step from the user point of view.
This is a genuine complaint about PPRs which makes some people really angry, to the point of accusing us of trying to steal their money… but I think it would be worse with an auto-derail instead, because at least PPRs probably won’t derail you every day that you don’t enter data, and auto-derail would.
Not as it stands with PPR… that was the whole point of PPR, to make the behavior as close to identical as reasonably possible. If I have a do-less goal with a non-zero slope and I do not enter any data, the PPR will force derailment in a number of days roughly proportional to a ratio between my buffer and my slope.
I’m not staunchly defending PPR, but mandatory daily data entry is not my favored implementation either.
I check Beeminder every day, so usually I remember to do it the next day when I see the note that the pessimistic presumption data point was entered.
Can you explain how it’s a disaster? I forget constantly, like maybe half the time. Rather than derail all the time, I’d turn off auto-derail, or if that wasn’t possible, I’d archive my do-less goals.
In general, I prefer automatic to manual entry goals, but there are some things I haven’t figured out how to track automatically, even though I’d still like to track them.
Last night, I forgot to set up our automatic drip machine to brew coffee in the morning. Now that was a disaster.
Beware those who beware trivial inconveniences, then?
I don’t entirely rule out creating a daily do-more goal (or a do-less goal under this proposal) but they’d have to be much more compelling goals to justify the IMO very large overhead of needing to enter data every single day. It’s bad enough if that were just how Beeminder works, period, I’d probably quit using Beeminder, period.
I could live with the goal turning red on the day after I failed to enter a data point – then I’d have 24 hours to enter it before the goal derailed. Then when I entered data . . . I’m not sure. Maybe it would behave as if I were entering the data the previous day?
I like the auto-derail idea and as others have said I think it could be applied to do-more goals too. I feel it may be less confusing if it’s an identical opt-in setting for both goal types. Perhaps it could then be primarily marketed as a way of making yourself enter data every day, rather than primarily as a better alternative to the (potentially confusing) PPR feature. The footnotes could go into the gory details for do-less goals. 
I like the idea of the feature encouraging me to make at least a little progress on do-more goals each day even when I’ve built up a safety buffer (daily action keeps momentum / habit going). I could still enter 0 of course but the act of needing to do that may prompt me to make it more than 0.
This highlights an important usage variation - I almost entirely use Beeminder on Android, and I have homescreen widgets for all my goals, so I never need to “log in” to Beeminder. The goals are right there on my homescreen, and I’m constantly looking at my phone. That makes checking all my goals and entering data easier.
The Android app and widgets are amazing - you can enter data without ever needing to even open a web browser!!! 
Since opening a web browser is a huge pain and distraction for me, having that option is really key for my Beeminder usage.
But perhaps others don’t use it that way? I know that iPhone beeminder doesn’t have the same option due to Apple’s restrictions.
As I understand the proposal, you derail after X days, where X is set by the user per-goal.
Hmm… maybe the auto-derail should be opt-in then.
If you check it every day, why couldn’t that be your trigger to enter data for do-less goals, under a hypothetical auto-derail regime?
What are your current goals, then? How often do you typically enter data?
That would be fine with me.
For some do less goals, I have to enter the data point at the very end of the day for it to be accurate. Otherwise, I’ll have more opportunities to do the thing I’m trying to do less. Also, I might be doing a quick scan of my goals and think that one is OK, because it’s green. It’s only the next day, when it’s blue or yellow, that I pay attention to it.
This does sound like a universal meta-goal thing; “make sure I enter data at least every N days”
And that’s probably something that we could distinguish in the UI from goals that are on an emergency day (because of the datapoint values vs the road)
Looking at my do-more goals, I have some that force data entry (aka doing) every couple of days thanks to the ‘max safe days’ setting. Some of those could be softened to just bring the goal to mind (by forcing data entry) rather than messing with the slope.