• TheCPUWizard (unregistered)

    I don't see a problem with the "opt-in"/"field required".... You have to check [aka opt-in] if you want the information. If you don't the default action is you don't leave the page (unless you navigate away.. NO Information (or Soup) for you..

  • (nodebb)

    I always enjoy the mandatory input checkboxes. Once in awhile you can get the right result by checking and then clearing the checkbox. It seems that "unselected" and "never having been selected" are just different enough (false vs null?) that some validation libraries fall for it. Worth a try anyhow; it's just 2 clicks.

  • Rob (unregistered)

    I think the word Tim was looking for is "precise."

  • (nodebb)

    I once had a bug where a customer set their iPad to a Japanese Buddhist calendar, and our iPad app didn't handle it (I inherited it from some contractors) and reported they couldn't book a hotel. Apparently, it was some single-digit year, and our backend didn't support booking hotel rooms in ancient Rome.

  • (nodebb) in reply to WTFGuy

    Mandatory checkboxes are common for "I have read the Terms and Conditions" confirmations. But it's obviously inappropriate for opt-in features -- "opt" is short for "optional".

  • (nodebb)

    "opt" is short for "optional".

    See https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/opt to discover that it isn't short for "optional". It's its own word, meaning "to choose" or "to select", although it is ultimately derived from the same Latin verb as "optional".

  • the cow (not the robot) (unregistered) in reply to Steve_The_Cynic

    Actually "optional" comes from "[to] opt".

  • M (unregistered) in reply to mynameishidden

    @mynameishidden You're on to something - Tim R.'s 500 year shift is basically the opposite of what you saw.

    My guess is Google showed him the years according to Thailand's calendar, which is the western one with 543 added to the year number. So his graph was showing the figures from 2021 to 2023, not 2564 to 2566. Maybe Google got confused or Tim forgot that his computer or browser localization or location settings were for Thailand.

  • (nodebb)

    Hi, as an European I can perhaps clarify what's up with those mysterious "checkboxes". They all are part of how you have to implement GDPR and the best practice is going into more specifics in DMA (both EU law, which practically everyone has to follow or they loose to the most profitable market in the world, so yeah, that's the reason why US companies always loose their stupid "nah, we Umercia, not following customer protection laws bro - blah blah blah").

    So that's how it works:

    The legal term opt-in mean that has to be an specific user interaction for the user to agree to be legally valid.

    Hence a simple navigation button is not enough. Now if you follow GDPR it's also not allowed to mix privacy agreements (which must follow specific legal rules to be valid) with other agreements like say license terms for the service. This is also true for the contracts themselves, the privacy part must be separate from the rest of the terms. And finally a link to the privacy statement and the contract may not even be enough in a lot of (European) countries - so you have to put the text in a specific format with a easy to real font not in a small textbox but easy to read on top of the check boxes.

    So with a fully GDPR compliant layout you have one checkbox for privacy options and one for agreeing to other license stuff (two check boxes plus a confirmation button). Now keep in mind, under very specific circumstances with very specific format choices you can technically get away with one, but legally that would still be something that could be contested and it would end up in a very long court process for sure, so most companies follow the two checkbox rules.

    To Americans this may seem to be all weird, but keep in mind most other countries have real customer protection laws, so tricks like small print are not legally binding in those states, similar to misleading statements etc. So it's way easier to get out of contracts in other countries and hence the extra steps and very strict rules.

  • (nodebb)

    I cannot use the edit feature that is not an edit feature because the previous post was apparently already the optimal length. Ehm. Yeah.

    "The legal term opt-in mean that has to be an specific user interaction for the user to agree to be legally valid."

    Obviously nonsense I overlooked after an edit in the tiny box without preview and should read:

    "The legal term opt-in means that an specific user interaction is required for the agreement to be legally valid."

    Not sure what the real WTF here is, maybe it's the very strange edit feature here or maybe it's how the brain at 2AM local time can mangle a sentence in a way like that. Have to investigate further, but first I get some rest ;-)

  • Officer Johnny Holzkopf (unregistered) in reply to MaxiTB

    By opening the box you agree to the terms and conditions contained within.

  • t (unregistered) in reply to MaxiTB

    Don't see how that makes sense when it's just about them wanting you to send a newsletter. Like yes, you have to agree for them to send you one. But they don't have to make that agreement required

  • markm (unregistered) in reply to MaxiTB

    I think you missed the point. How does one close the dialog box without selecting the option?

  • (nodebb)

    While mandatory checkboxes make sense on agreements this appears to be marketing.

    I've seen this before, you can't have an account without agreeing to their marketing e-mails even when the purpose of the account has nothing to do with marketing.

    I've seen a related version in Meetup--for some stupid reason it wants you to have a certain minimum number of interests. It won't let me nuke an old one.

  • ismo (unregistered) in reply to LorenPechtel

    When a site requires mandatory optin for commercials ( spam) I use 10minute email for those sites. No need to clutter my own inbox.

  • holy shit now I'm actually commenting here... (unregistered)

    The issue is that the browser doesn't send a field at all for an unchecked checkbox, which doesn't match the validation library's expectations.

    The checked state is encoded in the presence of the field (binary choice), the value is whatever the dev put in the value attribute and could be missing entirely. Validation probably wants to take the checked state from the value and makes absence into a third null/undefined value that's supposed to inform the "mandatory" thing.

    There's probably a WTF in the browser here, and definitely one in the validation that lets you make a checkbox mandatory.

  • ijw (unregistered)

    That last one is probably not an error. It's 2567 in Thai solar calendar.

  • Daniel (unregistered)

    Just out of curiosity: what's wrong with the flower one? (I mean: It's a bit strange and the word game is only half as funny as they thought it would be. But am I missing something obvious?)

  • Tim (unregistered) in reply to ijw

    Yes you're right. After submitting this I saw dates similar to this appearing on other google services. TRWTF seems to be that it's impossible (or very difficult) to stop it doing this when you're in Thailand

  • (nodebb) in reply to Daniel

    Yes, it's the word game. They're making a pun on "lavender" by changing "lav" to "laugh", but they didn't take into account the fact that the rest of the word, "-ender", can be read as a word in its own right. The humour is in the fact that the word "ender" implies the cessation of loving and laughing.

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