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Regardless of account deletion attempts, they knew they had an active account and didn't change any notification settings. They still expected Facebook to magic

Regardless of account deletion attempts, they knew they had an active account and didn't change any notification settings. They still expected Facebook to magically know to stop sending them notifications. That is weird.

mariallery 9y ago
"Regardless of account deletion attempts"? Seriously? First step of account deletion is, that Facebook deactivates the account, therefore, they should also know better to not send notifications. Why would they burden the user with notification settings, when the users wish/intent is clear enough? Spamming them with unwanted notifications is unethical behavior.
- epicide 9y ago
  Yes, seriously. They made it pretty clear that _their account was still active_. That's why it's "regardless": it doesn't matter for the situation at hand. > when the users wish/intent is clear How is it clear? Their whole post is stating that all they did was not use the site for a bit. Given that they have an active account and notification are set to notify, why would they ever assume you no longer want notifications? They could very well want all of those notifications (since they have them turned off), so not sending them would actually be the exact opposite of what it should do. This would be like if my post office stopped delivering my mail because I didn't call them up and tell them to keep delivering my mail.
dahart 9y ago
Yes, you're right, this time they didn't try to delete. I read the comment, I understand what happened. Why should @bmelton expect Facebook to respect the notification settings after he has evidence they didn't respect the account deletion request multiple times? It's not weird nor is it magic to expect Facebook to stop the notifications. That's what pretty much all other web sites and services currently do. They may ping you several times, but eventually they will stop. I know because I run a service that does this, and I pay attention to what other services are doing, and I care about what is socially acceptable. Facebook, unlike other services, ramps up their notification schedule when you get quiet, rather than assuming that no contact and no response after multiple attempts means you don't want to use their service. What Facebook is doing is what's weird here. Elsewhere in this thread, @wpietri makes a compelling argument that were Facebook a person in your life, the increasing notifications would be considered very annoying and needy. This is the reason it's weird for a company to do the same thing. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15392947 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15392947
- bllguo 9y ago
  You're just conflating issues here. Nobody disagrees that Facebook is behaving in a scummy way. People simply think it's weird to complain about an endless stream of FB messages when the solution is in plain sight.
- epicide 9y ago
  > It's not weird nor is it magic to expect Facebook to stop the notifications. That's what pretty much all other web sites and services currently do. No, it's not. This would be like if my post office stopped delivering my mail because I didn't call them up and tell them to keep delivering my mail.
  - dahart 9y ago
    The post office isn't a web site. Many web sites do stop delivering mail, I know because I've checked, and because I run one. The post office does stop delivering your mail if it's returned to sender multiple times. The post office will also respect your first cancellation request, and they don't send you letters or text you every day reminding you to use the post office more because they noticed you haven't sent a letter today. So I don't buy your analogy.
    - epicide 9y ago
      Alright, let's ignore the analogy, then. What is the correct functionality for Facebook given this user's settings? I do not agree that it should stop sending notifications. Let's say I _want_ to keep getting notifications via email without having to open Facebook every so often. I would have my settings match theirs and I would be quite annoyed if it just stopped working because I didn't log in.
      - dahart 9y ago
        You don't have to open Facebook, you just have to receive your notification, e.g., read their email. They know when their reminders to use Facebook are being avoided. You might be lumping all notifications into the same bucket. There's a difference between a Facebook message that notifies you of someone else IMing or commenting on your photo, and a Facebook message that reminds you to use Facebook or upsell you on services. That difference has standard terminology in the web business sphere: transactional email vs marketing email. Generally speaking these things have a hard line between them, and are easy to define & separate. Marketing is sales, and transactional is private notifications about your account activity & private notifications from social contacts. Marketing is what other sites stop sending after too much inaction, and marketing is what Facebook is increasing in response to inaction. Transactional notifications don't stop, and they shouldn't stop. I suspect you're misunderstanding me and assuming I'm talking about all email, and not just marketing.
quadrangle 9y ago
That's not what they expected. They didn't explain expectations. They didn't expect what happened though: FB notifications got more and more pushy over time. That's interesting to remark on regardless of whether or not you'd expect it.
- epicide 9y ago
  You make a fair point that the OC didn't explicitly declare that they expected the emails to stop. However, if that isn't the basis of their expectation, I don't really understand the rest of their post. Especially "knowing full well that I didn't see them" (how?) and proceeding to mark the emails as spam... instead of turning off the notifications... The latter is why I believe they expected the notifications to stop. Edit: as far as the notifications getting more frequent, that actually is pretty interesting, but not really relevant to the other points made.
  - dahart 9y ago
    > Especially "knowing full well that I didn't see them" (how?) Are you not aware that Facebook is attempting to track emails and links for everyone? The mechanisms are numerous and varied, but putting "tracking pixels" in HTML emails is standard practice. If you ever ran a Mailchimp list, you'd know you get reports on who received your email, who opened and looked at them, who clicked any link in them, etc. Facebook also track visits to any site on the web with Facebook integration, via cookies, which is a large number of popular sites. They know when you've seen their emails, if you're like "most people" and you use hotmail or gmail and not pine. You have to be pretty privacy & security adept to have a Facebook account and avoid getting tracked. 99% of people who use Facebook are not adept enough (or just don't care enough to fight it), and their emails & visits to Facebook and elsewhere are tracked.

mariallery 9y ago

"Regardless of account deletion attempts"? Seriously? First step of account deletion is, that Facebook deactivates the account, therefore, they should also know better to not send notifications. Why would they burden the user with notification settings, when the users wish/intent is clear enough? Spamming them with unwanted notifications is unethical behavior.

epicide 9y ago
Yes, seriously. They made it pretty clear that _their account was still active_. That's why it's "regardless": it doesn't matter for the situation at hand. > when the users wish/intent is clear How is it clear? Their whole post is stating that all they did was not use the site for a bit. Given that they have an active account and notification are set to notify, why would they ever assume you no longer want notifications? They could very well want all of those notifications (since they have them turned off), so not sending them would actually be the exact opposite of what it should do. This would be like if my post office stopped delivering my mail because I didn't call them up and tell them to keep delivering my mail.

dahart 9y ago

Yes, you're right, this time they didn't try to delete. I read the comment, I understand what happened. Why should @bmelton expect Facebook to respect the notification settings after he has evidence they didn't respect the account deletion request multiple times? It's not weird nor is it magic to expect Facebook to stop the notifications. That's what pretty much all other web sites and services currently do. They may ping you several times, but eventually they will stop. I know because I run a service that does this, and I pay attention to what other services are doing, and I care about what is socially acceptable. Facebook, unlike other services, ramps up their notification schedule when you get quiet, rather than assuming that no contact and no response after multiple attempts means you don't want to use their service. What Facebook is doing is what's weird here. Elsewhere in this thread, @wpietri makes a compelling argument that were Facebook a person in your life, the increasing notifications would be considered very annoying and needy. This is the reason it's weird for a company to do the same thing. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15392947 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15392947

bllguo 9y ago
You're just conflating issues here. Nobody disagrees that Facebook is behaving in a scummy way. People simply think it's weird to complain about an endless stream of FB messages when the solution is in plain sight.
epicide 9y ago
> It's not weird nor is it magic to expect Facebook to stop the notifications. That's what pretty much all other web sites and services currently do. No, it's not. This would be like if my post office stopped delivering my mail because I didn't call them up and tell them to keep delivering my mail.
- dahart 9y ago
  The post office isn't a web site. Many web sites do stop delivering mail, I know because I've checked, and because I run one. The post office does stop delivering your mail if it's returned to sender multiple times. The post office will also respect your first cancellation request, and they don't send you letters or text you every day reminding you to use the post office more because they noticed you haven't sent a letter today. So I don't buy your analogy.
  - epicide 9y ago
    Alright, let's ignore the analogy, then. What is the correct functionality for Facebook given this user's settings? I do not agree that it should stop sending notifications. Let's say I _want_ to keep getting notifications via email without having to open Facebook every so often. I would have my settings match theirs and I would be quite annoyed if it just stopped working because I didn't log in.
    - dahart 9y ago
      You don't have to open Facebook, you just have to receive your notification, e.g., read their email. They know when their reminders to use Facebook are being avoided. You might be lumping all notifications into the same bucket. There's a difference between a Facebook message that notifies you of someone else IMing or commenting on your photo, and a Facebook message that reminds you to use Facebook or upsell you on services. That difference has standard terminology in the web business sphere: transactional email vs marketing email. Generally speaking these things have a hard line between them, and are easy to define & separate. Marketing is sales, and transactional is private notifications about your account activity & private notifications from social contacts. Marketing is what other sites stop sending after too much inaction, and marketing is what Facebook is increasing in response to inaction. Transactional notifications don't stop, and they shouldn't stop. I suspect you're misunderstanding me and assuming I'm talking about all email, and not just marketing.

quadrangle 9y ago

That's not what they expected. They didn't explain expectations. They didn't expect what happened though: FB notifications got more and more pushy over time. That's interesting to remark on regardless of whether or not you'd expect it.

epicide 9y ago
You make a fair point that the OC didn't explicitly declare that they expected the emails to stop. However, if that isn't the basis of their expectation, I don't really understand the rest of their post. Especially "knowing full well that I didn't see them" (how?) and proceeding to mark the emails as spam... instead of turning off the notifications... The latter is why I believe they expected the notifications to stop. Edit: as far as the notifications getting more frequent, that actually is pretty interesting, but not really relevant to the other points made.
- dahart 9y ago
  > Especially "knowing full well that I didn't see them" (how?) Are you not aware that Facebook is attempting to track emails and links for everyone? The mechanisms are numerous and varied, but putting "tracking pixels" in HTML emails is standard practice. If you ever ran a Mailchimp list, you'd know you get reports on who received your email, who opened and looked at them, who clicked any link in them, etc. Facebook also track visits to any site on the web with Facebook integration, via cookies, which is a large number of popular sites. They know when you've seen their emails, if you're like "most people" and you use hotmail or gmail and not pine. You have to be pretty privacy & security adept to have a Facebook account and avoid getting tracked. 99% of people who use Facebook are not adept enough (or just don't care enough to fight it), and their emails & visits to Facebook and elsewhere are tracked.