Octopus Saving Session

powerful_Rogue

Chrysalis said:

alleycat` said:

Mstty said:

This may mean they realise not all is well 

Unless Octopus are blaming "sendgrid", their mass mailer service of choice (which is a bit unclear), then this is the usual nonsense of when marketing people are put in charge of e-mail campaigns and then shifting the blame anywhere else.

Firstly they should be well aware that e-mail is not a guaranteed time / delivery medium. There's nothing in e-mail specification for a guarantee on when e-mail will be delivered at all. There are some basic premises about it telling you when mails are delayed, delivery retries, etc but nothing is said about a guarantee on delivery. It's quite frightening that very large companies believe services like e-mail have some sort of guaranteed time basis on them (and they make business decisions based on it).

This was always going to end badly if they were expecting a reasonable "click through" rate and had any basic knowledge about e-mail as a service.

They've then doubled down by using a "mass mailer" service that is, most likely, rate limited by many ISP / Service providers.

Sendgrid, silverpop, mailgun and the like are known as "spamvertisers" in the industry for a reason. These "mailer" companies ignore many of the basic principles of mail behavior to try ram as much e-mail out as possible. It's a "fire hose" approach to sending e-mails. They're typically heavily restricted as they allow all their clients to run "campaigns" at any time of day or night they feel like. Usually the people involved have all done the same marketing/psychological courses and all want to send their mails at the same time. Thursdays, certainly were, the big day they all liked to target (typically around 11am).

I suspect this means that loads of mails got backed up on their side with delivery retries and many of us at the bottom of the list were left receiving mails after the event had started.

I run my own mail server and the only connection i received from them was at 18:29 and the mail was delivered to my "inbox" 2 seconds later. That's got nothing to do with "me" rate limiting or delaying e-mails and everything to do with their sending service bogging down.

My advice for them is if they want to push "last minute" type events then they need to do it via the App or SMS (i suspect they won't like the costs involved). E-mail, as a protocol, is a terrible way of communicating "instantly" with people.

Anyway - They've sent me some unsolicited "octopoints". I'm not sure if this was done on an average of previous periods or a random number they're assigning to everyone?

Its a bit worrying they trialling it, I still think anyone registered for saving sessions should be automatically added to each session.

Why is it worrying? That's the whole point of a trial to see what issues there are and then to try and iron them out.

TheElectricCow

Chrysalis said:

Its a bit worrying they trialling it, I still think anyone registered for saving sessions should be automatically added to each session.

How would people who have been automatically added to the session know to take part if they had missed/not received the notification that a session was going to start?

Removing the need to opt-in might make sense if the scheme is deployed again as a live version at a larger open-to-all scale in the future, but I'm not sure the current trial sessions would really benefit from an auto-opt in. If anything it may end up just skewing the data by adding in many people to the equation who are likely just going about their usual day without any consideration for the event.

Mstty

Chrysalis said:

alleycat` said:

Mstty said:

This may mean they realise not all is well 

Unless Octopus are blaming "sendgrid", their mass mailer service of choice (which is a bit unclear), then this is the usual nonsense of when marketing people are put in charge of e-mail campaigns and then shifting the blame anywhere else.

Firstly they should be well aware that e-mail is not a guaranteed time / delivery medium. There's nothing in e-mail specification for a guarantee on when e-mail will be delivered at all. There are some basic premises about it telling you when mails are delayed, delivery retries, etc but nothing is said about a guarantee on delivery. It's quite frightening that very large companies believe services like e-mail have some sort of guaranteed time basis on them (and they make business decisions based on it).

This was always going to end badly if they were expecting a reasonable "click through" rate and had any basic knowledge about e-mail as a service.

They've then doubled down by using a "mass mailer" service that is, most likely, rate limited by many ISP / Service providers.

Sendgrid, silverpop, mailgun and the like are known as "spamvertisers" in the industry for a reason. These "mailer" companies ignore many of the basic principles of mail behavior to try ram as much e-mail out as possible. It's a "fire hose" approach to sending e-mails. They're typically heavily restricted as they allow all their clients to run "campaigns" at any time of day or night they feel like. Usually the people involved have all done the same marketing/psychological courses and all want to send their mails at the same time. Thursdays, certainly were, the big day they all liked to target (typically around 11am).

I suspect this means that loads of mails got backed up on their side with delivery retries and many of us at the bottom of the list were left receiving mails after the event had started.

I run my own mail server and the only connection i received from them was at 18:29 and the mail was delivered to my "inbox" 2 seconds later. That's got nothing to do with "me" rate limiting or delaying e-mails and everything to do with their sending service bogging down.

My advice for them is if they want to push "last minute" type events then they need to do it via the App or SMS (i suspect they won't like the costs involved). E-mail, as a protocol, is a terrible way of communicating "instantly" with people.

Anyway - They've sent me some unsolicited "octopoints". I'm not sure if this was done on an average of previous periods or a random number they're assigning to everyone?

Its a bit worrying they trialling it, I still think anyone registered for saving sessions should be automatically added to each session.

I wouldn't say worrying as there was an instance in March with the cold weather that the National Grid ESO fired up coal stations but didn't offer an emergence sharing event due to the short notice.

With Octopus trialling short notice they can now present the results to the National Grid ESO DFS team with the participation they might get from short notice.

I say well done Octopus and this hasn't affected anyone accruing in the events.

Spoonie_Turtle

Chrysalis said:

alleycat` said:

Mstty said:

This may mean they realise not all is well 

Unless Octopus are blaming "sendgrid", their mass mailer service of choice (which is a bit unclear), then this is the usual nonsense of when marketing people are put in charge of e-mail campaigns and then shifting the blame anywhere else.

Firstly they should be well aware that e-mail is not a guaranteed time / delivery medium. There's nothing in e-mail specification for a guarantee on when e-mail will be delivered at all. There are some basic premises about it telling you when mails are delayed, delivery retries, etc but nothing is said about a guarantee on delivery. It's quite frightening that very large companies believe services like e-mail have some sort of guaranteed time basis on them (and they make business decisions based on it).

This was always going to end badly if they were expecting a reasonable "click through" rate and had any basic knowledge about e-mail as a service.

They've then doubled down by using a "mass mailer" service that is, most likely, rate limited by many ISP / Service providers.

Sendgrid, silverpop, mailgun and the like are known as "spamvertisers" in the industry for a reason. These "mailer" companies ignore many of the basic principles of mail behavior to try ram as much e-mail out as possible. It's a "fire hose" approach to sending e-mails. They're typically heavily restricted as they allow all their clients to run "campaigns" at any time of day or night they feel like. Usually the people involved have all done the same marketing/psychological courses and all want to send their mails at the same time. Thursdays, certainly were, the big day they all liked to target (typically around 11am).

I suspect this means that loads of mails got backed up on their side with delivery retries and many of us at the bottom of the list were left receiving mails after the event had started.

I run my own mail server and the only connection i received from them was at 18:29 and the mail was delivered to my "inbox" 2 seconds later. That's got nothing to do with "me" rate limiting or delaying e-mails and everything to do with their sending service bogging down.

My advice for them is if they want to push "last minute" type events then they need to do it via the App or SMS (i suspect they won't like the costs involved). E-mail, as a protocol, is a terrible way of communicating "instantly" with people.

Anyway - They've sent me some unsolicited "octopoints". I'm not sure if this was done on an average of previous periods or a random number they're assigning to everyone?

Its a bit worrying they trialling it, I still think anyone registered for saving sessions should be automatically added to each session.

If there continue to be rewards for streaks then if people were automatically opted in and either weren't aware of a session or for whatever reason couldn't lower their usage that time, they'd lose their streak.

Or if it became an opt-out scheme, they'd have to make sure people got enough notice and all notifications including e-mails all arrived in time (looks like the main issue with this latest one).

masonic

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Chrysalis said:

alleycat` said:

Mstty said:

This may mean they realise not all is well 

Unless Octopus are blaming "sendgrid", their mass mailer service of choice (which is a bit unclear), then this is the usual nonsense of when marketing people are put in charge of e-mail campaigns and then shifting the blame anywhere else.

Firstly they should be well aware that e-mail is not a guaranteed time / delivery medium. There's nothing in e-mail specification for a guarantee on when e-mail will be delivered at all. There are some basic premises about it telling you when mails are delayed, delivery retries, etc but nothing is said about a guarantee on delivery. It's quite frightening that very large companies believe services like e-mail have some sort of guaranteed time basis on them (and they make business decisions based on it).

This was always going to end badly if they were expecting a reasonable "click through" rate and had any basic knowledge about e-mail as a service.

They've then doubled down by using a "mass mailer" service that is, most likely, rate limited by many ISP / Service providers.

Sendgrid, silverpop, mailgun and the like are known as "spamvertisers" in the industry for a reason. These "mailer" companies ignore many of the basic principles of mail behavior to try ram as much e-mail out as possible. It's a "fire hose" approach to sending e-mails. They're typically heavily restricted as they allow all their clients to run "campaigns" at any time of day or night they feel like. Usually the people involved have all done the same marketing/psychological courses and all want to send their mails at the same time. Thursdays, certainly were, the big day they all liked to target (typically around 11am).

I suspect this means that loads of mails got backed up on their side with delivery retries and many of us at the bottom of the list were left receiving mails after the event had started.

I run my own mail server and the only connection i received from them was at 18:29 and the mail was delivered to my "inbox" 2 seconds later. That's got nothing to do with "me" rate limiting or delaying e-mails and everything to do with their sending service bogging down.

My advice for them is if they want to push "last minute" type events then they need to do it via the App or SMS (i suspect they won't like the costs involved). E-mail, as a protocol, is a terrible way of communicating "instantly" with people.

Anyway - They've sent me some unsolicited "octopoints". I'm not sure if this was done on an average of previous periods or a random number they're assigning to everyone?

Its a bit worrying they trialling it, I still think anyone registered for saving sessions should be automatically added to each session.

If there continue to be rewards for streaks then if people were automatically opted in and either weren't aware of a session or for whatever reason couldn't lower their usage that time, they'd lose their streak.

Or if it became an opt-out scheme, they'd have to make sure people got enough notice and all notifications including e-mails all arrived in time (looks like the main issue with this latest one).

Streaks are normally associated with the opt-in rather than whether or not you were able to lower usage. The opt-in allows the signal from customers who are making an effort to turn down to be identified against the noise of normal usage fluctuations. It is part of the design of this trial scheme to aid data analysis. The fact that many people failed to get word of the previous session, and that there were fewer opt-ins than usual, is itself useful data that can be used to refine the scheme in future. Clearly the combination of in-app notifications, Twitter notifications and email, didn't have enough reach, or awareness.

Spoonie_Turtle

masonic said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Chrysalis said:

alleycat` said:

Mstty said:

This may mean they realise not all is well 

Unless Octopus are blaming "sendgrid", their mass mailer service of choice (which is a bit unclear), then this is the usual nonsense of when marketing people are put in charge of e-mail campaigns and then shifting the blame anywhere else.

Firstly they should be well aware that e-mail is not a guaranteed time / delivery medium. There's nothing in e-mail specification for a guarantee on when e-mail will be delivered at all. There are some basic premises about it telling you when mails are delayed, delivery retries, etc but nothing is said about a guarantee on delivery. It's quite frightening that very large companies believe services like e-mail have some sort of guaranteed time basis on them (and they make business decisions based on it).

This was always going to end badly if they were expecting a reasonable "click through" rate and had any basic knowledge about e-mail as a service.

They've then doubled down by using a "mass mailer" service that is, most likely, rate limited by many ISP / Service providers.

Sendgrid, silverpop, mailgun and the like are known as "spamvertisers" in the industry for a reason. These "mailer" companies ignore many of the basic principles of mail behavior to try ram as much e-mail out as possible. It's a "fire hose" approach to sending e-mails. They're typically heavily restricted as they allow all their clients to run "campaigns" at any time of day or night they feel like. Usually the people involved have all done the same marketing/psychological courses and all want to send their mails at the same time. Thursdays, certainly were, the big day they all liked to target (typically around 11am).

I suspect this means that loads of mails got backed up on their side with delivery retries and many of us at the bottom of the list were left receiving mails after the event had started.

I run my own mail server and the only connection i received from them was at 18:29 and the mail was delivered to my "inbox" 2 seconds later. That's got nothing to do with "me" rate limiting or delaying e-mails and everything to do with their sending service bogging down.

My advice for them is if they want to push "last minute" type events then they need to do it via the App or SMS (i suspect they won't like the costs involved). E-mail, as a protocol, is a terrible way of communicating "instantly" with people.

Anyway - They've sent me some unsolicited "octopoints". I'm not sure if this was done on an average of previous periods or a random number they're assigning to everyone?

Its a bit worrying they trialling it, I still think anyone registered for saving sessions should be automatically added to each session.

If there continue to be rewards for streaks then if people were automatically opted in and either weren't aware of a session or for whatever reason couldn't lower their usage that time, they'd lose their streak.

Or if it became an opt-out scheme, they'd have to make sure people got enough notice and all notifications including e-mails all arrived in time (looks like the main issue with this latest one).

Streaks are normally associated with the opt-in rather than whether or not you were able to lower usage. The opt-in allows the signal from customers who are making an effort to turn down to be identified against the noise of normal usage fluctuations.

Oh I see, that's good but also possibly an argument against automatic enrollment if they wanted to continue to monitor that data.

markin

Do we have numbers on how low the opt-in was vs normal?

Chrysalis

powerful_Rogue said:

Chrysalis said:

alleycat` said:

Mstty said:

This may mean they realise not all is well 

Unless Octopus are blaming "sendgrid", their mass mailer service of choice (which is a bit unclear), then this is the usual nonsense of when marketing people are put in charge of e-mail campaigns and then shifting the blame anywhere else.

Firstly they should be well aware that e-mail is not a guaranteed time / delivery medium. There's nothing in e-mail specification for a guarantee on when e-mail will be delivered at all. There are some basic premises about it telling you when mails are delayed, delivery retries, etc but nothing is said about a guarantee on delivery. It's quite frightening that very large companies believe services like e-mail have some sort of guaranteed time basis on them (and they make business decisions based on it).

This was always going to end badly if they were expecting a reasonable "click through" rate and had any basic knowledge about e-mail as a service.

They've then doubled down by using a "mass mailer" service that is, most likely, rate limited by many ISP / Service providers.

Sendgrid, silverpop, mailgun and the like are known as "spamvertisers" in the industry for a reason. These "mailer" companies ignore many of the basic principles of mail behavior to try ram as much e-mail out as possible. It's a "fire hose" approach to sending e-mails. They're typically heavily restricted as they allow all their clients to run "campaigns" at any time of day or night they feel like. Usually the people involved have all done the same marketing/psychological courses and all want to send their mails at the same time. Thursdays, certainly were, the big day they all liked to target (typically around 11am).

I suspect this means that loads of mails got backed up on their side with delivery retries and many of us at the bottom of the list were left receiving mails after the event had started.

I run my own mail server and the only connection i received from them was at 18:29 and the mail was delivered to my "inbox" 2 seconds later. That's got nothing to do with "me" rate limiting or delaying e-mails and everything to do with their sending service bogging down.

My advice for them is if they want to push "last minute" type events then they need to do it via the App or SMS (i suspect they won't like the costs involved). E-mail, as a protocol, is a terrible way of communicating "instantly" with people.

Anyway - They've sent me some unsolicited "octopoints". I'm not sure if this was done on an average of previous periods or a random number they're assigning to everyone?

Its a bit worrying they trialling it, I still think anyone registered for saving sessions should be automatically added to each session.

Why is it worrying? That's the whole point of a trial to see what issues there are and then to try and iron them out.

Perhaps I should clarify, the idea of a trial is fine, but rather the short notice would be the issue, as it means less people will be aware, and less benefits.

I supposed their thinking is that people will only cut back if they are specifically made aware first by having to click a opt in button.

Chrysalis

TheElectricCow said:

Chrysalis said:

Its a bit worrying they trialling it, I still think anyone registered for saving sessions should be automatically added to each session.

How would people who have been automatically added to the session know to take part if they had missed/not received the notification that a session was going to start?

Removing the need to opt-in might make sense if the scheme is deployed again as a live version at a larger open-to-all scale in the future, but I'm not sure the current trial sessions would really benefit from an auto-opt in. If anything it may end up just skewing the data by adding in many people to the equation who are likely just going about their usual day without any consideration for the event.

Well some of us might be using low peak usage day to day so wouldnt need informing of trying to save energy.

Not needing to opt-in doesnt mean they cant still send notifications.

powerful_Rogue

Chrysalis said:

powerful_Rogue said:

Chrysalis said:

alleycat` said:

Mstty said:

This may mean they realise not all is well 

Unless Octopus are blaming "sendgrid", their mass mailer service of choice (which is a bit unclear), then this is the usual nonsense of when marketing people are put in charge of e-mail campaigns and then shifting the blame anywhere else.

Firstly they should be well aware that e-mail is not a guaranteed time / delivery medium. There's nothing in e-mail specification for a guarantee on when e-mail will be delivered at all. There are some basic premises about it telling you when mails are delayed, delivery retries, etc but nothing is said about a guarantee on delivery. It's quite frightening that very large companies believe services like e-mail have some sort of guaranteed time basis on them (and they make business decisions based on it).

This was always going to end badly if they were expecting a reasonable "click through" rate and had any basic knowledge about e-mail as a service.

They've then doubled down by using a "mass mailer" service that is, most likely, rate limited by many ISP / Service providers.

Sendgrid, silverpop, mailgun and the like are known as "spamvertisers" in the industry for a reason. These "mailer" companies ignore many of the basic principles of mail behavior to try ram as much e-mail out as possible. It's a "fire hose" approach to sending e-mails. They're typically heavily restricted as they allow all their clients to run "campaigns" at any time of day or night they feel like. Usually the people involved have all done the same marketing/psychological courses and all want to send their mails at the same time. Thursdays, certainly were, the big day they all liked to target (typically around 11am).

I suspect this means that loads of mails got backed up on their side with delivery retries and many of us at the bottom of the list were left receiving mails after the event had started.

I run my own mail server and the only connection i received from them was at 18:29 and the mail was delivered to my "inbox" 2 seconds later. That's got nothing to do with "me" rate limiting or delaying e-mails and everything to do with their sending service bogging down.

My advice for them is if they want to push "last minute" type events then they need to do it via the App or SMS (i suspect they won't like the costs involved). E-mail, as a protocol, is a terrible way of communicating "instantly" with people.

Anyway - They've sent me some unsolicited "octopoints". I'm not sure if this was done on an average of previous periods or a random number they're assigning to everyone?

Its a bit worrying they trialling it, I still think anyone registered for saving sessions should be automatically added to each session.

Why is it worrying? That's the whole point of a trial to see what issues there are and then to try and iron them out.

Perhaps I should clarify, the idea of a trial is fine, but rather the short notice would be the issue, as it means less people will be aware, and less benefits.

I supposed their thinking is that people will only cut back if they are specifically made aware first by having to click a opt in button.

The reasons these trials are taking place is so they can be deployed at short notice if needed. Octopus would have gathered feedback from this short notice session and work on ways of making in run smoother in the future incase there is a real need for a live short notice saving session.