Category: General News

The day has come.

Reminder emails will start going out at least 1 week in advance of each automatic recurring annual donation. So if you signed up on September 1st 2016, the first day we opened the site to the public, then you can expect a reminder email this coming Friday at the latest. Others will follow throughout the year depending on when you signed up.

Emails will tell you how to cancel your recurring annual donation, but will also encourage you to increase your donation instead. Taking no action simply means the same amount will be donated on your Charitocracy anniversary. And there's no need to wait for that email to perform either task. You can cancel or increase your annual donation any time, right from My Account in the Charitocracy menu. You can also update your credit card information if anything's changed, like a lost or expired card, so the automatic donation will go through without a hitch.

I'm hoping our renewal rate is high, and that donation increases will offset any donors we lose along the way. But I'll also be focusing on growth during our 2nd operating year. I have lots of ideas for this, and welcome any additional ideas you may have. Let's get that monthly pot over $1500!

The biggest pain point for donors at Charitocracy is having to log in. I get it. I'm a donor, too, and I have to log in all the time. If you can even remember your password, it's still an annoying stop along the way every time you want to vote or read about a new nominee. Annoying enough that you may have stopped bothering to even try. I don't blame you one bit.

Starting today, if you check the Remember Me button while logging in, Charitocracy will remember you forever. That is unless you explicitly log out, switch to a new web browser, a new computer or device, delete your cookies, etc. Everywhere you log in, though, it will remember you forever if you simply check the Remember Me button. I highly recommend it! (But I don't recommend it on public computers, such as those at schools, hotels, and libraries. You should log out of Charitocracy when you're done on those shared systems.)

Go ahead, try it now!

"That would be fantastic," you say, "except I forgot my password months ago, so I can't even log in the first time for it to remember me forever."

Fear not! Resetting your password is super easy. A failed login will provide you this reset link. Then check your email inbox (and if that fails, check your spam folder). And failing that, do not hesitate for a moment to email me and I'll personally help get you back online!

A related tip for those of you using Macs, iPhones, and iPads: iCloud Keychain is an easy way to share passwords across all your devices. Turn it on in your iCloud settings, and then after you log into a site like Charitocracy on one of your Apple products using the Safari browser, in future it will offer to fill in your password on that product as well as others using the same iCloud account. I bet Google has something like that for Chrome browsers, too, not to mention 3rd-party apps and services that serve a similar purpose.

That cross-device password storage combined with the Remember Me checkbox should mean never having to remember your Charitocracy password, and almost never having to log into Charitocracy ever again. No one will benefit from that more than I will!

Jessica, her brother, and I rewatched the first episode of Flight of the Conchords earlier this week. The first song is a serenade to a party guest, the "most beautiful girl in the... room (the whole wide room)." It includes these lyrics:

You're so beautiful
You could be a part-time model
But you'd probably still have to keep your normal job

Exactly. I consider myself good enough to be a part-time Charitocrat, but I'd be crazy to quit my day job.

However, after a winter and spring of overdoing it, working crazy (even for me) hours, burning out, and then collecting my thoughts for a few weeks, I made the decision to officially become a part-time model volunteer coder for Charitocracy. My day job now has time boundaries, and I think those boundaries will help me do great work at both places, and just be a more balanced and dare I say fun person for everyone else in my life.

What this means for Charitocracy is that I'll have at least one day each week to devote myself 100% to it. Also, my nights and weekends now have a better chance of seeing some Charitocracy progress, too.

Transitioning from the "Year of Benj" (full-time Charitocracy) back to real life was like hitting a brick wall at 100 MPH. Now I've pulled some bits from the wreckage and am capable of at least puttering along at a steady 20 MPH. Slow and steady wins?