Let's give a chance to badly rated websites - localized examples of mails to contact them

[jmfayard]

Hello,

I actually had the idea to build something similar but a bit different from tosdr.org

So I’m really glad that tosdr.org exists - and I have a few ideas on how to improve it.

My first suggestion is that I want to give a chance to webistes that are for now badly rated to understand that, in the future, it maybe be their economic interest to respect more basic rights of the user.

There is a « Contact us » link on many websites, so let’s use this.
We only need to put some standard letters for website owners so tosdr.org users can personalize them and send them to the website owner.

I think I’m already able to write a quite good standard letter aimed at french-speaking website owner, so I would volunteer to to this.

Then if you don’t mind to build on my crappy english, I could translate the main ideas of my letter in english.

Thanks,

internaciulo

[jmfayard]

Hello again,

I felt inspired after opening this issue.

So I already wrote the email that could be used as a basis to contact french-speaking website owners

https://gist.github.com/internaciulo/6208903

Let me know where I can put it.

[michielbdejong]

great idea! i don't think we need to write the letter in such an elaborate way though, we can just say:

Hi!

I'm a reviewer for ToS;DR, and our forum has recently reviewed your site's Terms of Service and related policies.
You can see our review here: http://tosdr.org/ - we would like to improve our review it with your help!

Do you see any points there that are inaccurate? Were we too harsh somewhere or did we get the facts wrong? Would you like to comment? Each point has a 'discussion' link which you can click.

When doing so, it's always a good idea to indicate in your replies that you are connected to the service being reviewed, but it's no problem if you write your reaction as your personal opinion (contributing information to the review), and not an official company position. That will probably allow you to participate in the discussion more freely, and provide us with useful information that will help us improve the accuracy of our reviews!

For example, you could end your post with "NB: Although I am an employee of (X), I am posting this in a personal capacity, and this opinion is my own."

since all reviews are in English, and most people speak English, I don't think it's necessary to localize this much - but you can of course always write in French if you know people at the company will understand French.

if you want, try sending a few mails like this! anybody who is subscribed to the GoogleGroup can call themselves a 'reviewer' - especially if you have submitted data points to the mailing list. I agree it would be really great to obtain reactions from the people who actually write the policies we review.

the same is true for when policies change, we could email legal departments to say 'thank you for your recent terms update, this is how it affected your review: '

[jmfayard]

Hello,

thanks a lot for finding my idea interesting !

i don't think we need to write the letter in such an elaborate way though

Your letter is interesting too

But I do think that it is needed that is useful to write the letter that will be use as a model in a elaborate way.
That's because:

1. most people just don't know how negative but constructive feedback can be useful. I know that from first hand experience ;)
2. tosdr, if it becomes popular one day, could hurt their current way of doing business. And that is something that is hard to hear
3. if you are polite and show them, like I do in my letter, that if they are clever enough to adapt to this new deal, they could have in the future a competitive advantage over their concurrents, well, yes, that could interest them.
4. besides it's not that hard for us to have an elaborate letter. We need only to write once, adapt everywhere.

since all reviews are in English, and most people speak English, I don't think it's necessary to localize this much

Well, sorry on that, but because I'm too a polyglot who travelled a lot, I know from first hand experience that there are way more people that you think that doesn't really master english. I'm fine with the fact the fact that all reviews are in English. But I do think it is useful (and not complicated either) that the first email a website owner will receive is in his mother tongue.

Because, even if "most people" really "spoke english", this famous remark would still be true:

"If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart." - Nelson Mandela

[michielbdejong]

ok, great! go contact some companies! you have the list on http://tosdr.org/
I didn't find any French ones, but maybe you can find them. otherwise just write to their French office if they have one. Just make clear that you're one of the few hundred people who together form this crowd-reading platform, and that you're one of many volunteer contributors, and you decided to contact them to try to help improve the reviews

good luck!

[jmfayard]

Hello,

Don't worry, I created a lot of accounts within my 10 years of use of internet, so I have a few french companies that I want to contact.

For now, I only need a folder in the github tree where I can put my letter in french, your letter in english, a translation of my letter.

Later other people will be able to improve that and we can think how to best integrate the letters in the website and/or the extensions.

Thank you !

[michielbdejong]

oh, but there's no need to integrate the email sending into the website, just start emailing the companies you want to contact yourself, using your own email address. Good luck!