Some things about non-legit requests

So I’m not really a newbee, but this is a multi-part question I’ve been curious about for a while…

  1. For other beeminder users: how often do you have to cry “not legit!” on average?

  2. For the beeminder team: how annoying is it for you to cancel charges based on not-legit derailments?

  3. For anyone: is there a way to reduce non-legit derailments for automatic data-tracking methods that are sort of…unreliable? I’m thinking specifically of how sometimes with my goals that get data from IFTTT (especially with location-based triggers, or SMS triggers), the applets just don’t run occasionally and I end up derailing. Obviously I could just get better at checking whether the applets actually ran, but then that sort of defeats the point of automatic data collection for me…

Anyway, I’m asking because I’ve archived goals in the past because they often derailed non-legitimately and I felt bad for having to send a bunch of not-legit emails. So I’m wondering (a) if I’m just overthinking but also (b) if there’s any way around this…

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I checked my emails, and since the end of April (when I turned Beeminder back on after a maternity leave) I’ve legitimately derailed 3 times, and filed at least 20 not legit claims. Some of it is because of autodata issues, like you’ve experienced, some is because of things like internet outages, some are just mommy brain.

I usually catch autodata issues because I check my dashboard before I go to bed every night; that way I see any unexpected reds. At this part, it’s not just part of my bedtime routine, it basically IS my bedtime routine – checking off my bees leads me to do what needs to get done for bed, and I can rest assured that I completed my day as intended.

  1. Maybe 1 in 4 derailments? 1 in 3? As I’ve got more organised and started keeping myself in check because nooo, I don’t want to derail, the proportion that is just due to making a mistake has increased rather.

  2. It’s not annoying. It takes about three clicks after opening your email, and it’s our job! My only suggestion would be to make very sure that you are replying within 24 hours, and the sooner within that 24 hours the better, because refunds cost us (as the processor) a fee.

  3. IFTTT drives me wild with this sometimes. I don’t really have a suggestion on that front since there’s no way to trigger the sync on our end, sigh.

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About non legit derailments: On days where I’m unable to work because of being sick for instance I log a certain amount of work and mark it with a hashtag. My threshold of when to do that or not is basically “is it so bad I’d call in sick at work?”.
Sometimes this doesn’t work. For instance with goals that get their data automatically. If I then derail I run to support and cry “non legit!”.
The amount is either the minimum amount or the mean of the past few days if I have been doing good and actually built up some buffer and not skating the edge.

I do that because a) when I’m sick the best thing is to get some rest. And I don’t feel bad about it. and
b) so far it did not lessen the effectiveness of beeminder for me.
And then once I’m back on my feet I retroratchet like a crazy person.

So far it works great for me.
Had I the willpower to power through my Akrasia to work towards my goals even with a safety buffer planned in because of “I might get sick” I wouldn’t have to use beeminder in the first place. Something like that.
But that’s just me. If I felt like it would harm the effectiveness of beeminder I’d stop doing that. I’d be keen on hearing how others deal with “ugggh I got this major headache and I just want to slam my head into the wall” kinda situations where they are overruled by their body.

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I found this (admittedly old) answer from @dreev which finally won me over to the “please bother support” (and I’m not the only one who feels like this) side:

And I can totally relate to this. This is why I marked my sick days with hashtags so far so you can easily tell them apart from the real data. But… it’s not ideal. And it causes a discrepancy for automatic data goals.
I don’t how how much of this “I don’t want to bother support” feeling is intentional. But I suppose in the end this is the only true option. So bother support it is! :slightly_smiling_face:

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