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ch:correspondent_lifecycle

RegenCHOICE index

Correspondent lifecycle

This is an explanation of how it is envisaged to manage correspondences with correspondents and contacting them.

This is what happens in outline.

  1. Other users start off as unknown.
  2. When there is correspondence between a pair of enquiries, that is shown to either party that is online, and the others whose enquiries correspond are called “correspondents”, listed on the enquiry response page. No textual information or personal or contact details are shown at this stage, only the questions and answers, shown on the examine correspondent page, where contact may be requested.
  3. When contact is requested, by either corresponding party, the other party is informed, and if they agree, contact is established. The parties are then known as established contacts. Contact information is shared, along with a range of other textual information, such as a description of what they were looking for, and reasons for any changes in answers.
  4. If anything does not feel right about a contact, either party may ask to break contact. This disables any further contact or correspondence with the other party, except for the possibility of a final note.

Slightly longer version

In line with the principle that no user-entered text or user details are visible until both parties have agreed to proceed, when the first indication is given that there is correspondence between the user's enquiry and another's, the other user's name is not given, but instead just an opaque identifier — possibly just a serial number. When a correspondence is found, both parties are notified, and can look at the essential information about the correspondence.

Each party can see what the other party was asking, and how they have answered the required questions of the other. Either party can invite contact, which the other party can accept or refuse. At the moment when they both have accepted, a range of details are made visible, so that both sides can follow up.

In RegenCHOICE, another party is called a correspondent if there is correspondence between the two enquiries but contact has not yet been mutually agreed, and a contact if contact has been mutually agreed.

If all goes well, contact details are exchanged, and the RegenCHOICE system has finished its work. However, it is important to allow for feedback to monitor how truthful people have been, and also perhaps how fruitful the contact is, whether they fulfill the expressed need. The details may be quite complex, but in essence, the system needs to allow people to report abuse of any kind, either misrepresentation on RegenCHOICE itself, as shown in behaviour, or behaviour that is generally unacceptable, or should be reported, or which means that the other user should be banned from the whole system, or even reported to authorities if there has been illegal activity.

This may also mean that a user wishes to break off contact, so that the other user cannot use the system to find out anything else about them, and cannot make any more correspondences with this user. On the other hand, it is vital not to let people abuse someone else and then simply disappear without trace, so that they cannot be called to account.

Commentary

ch/correspondent_lifecycle.txt · Last modified: 2024-09-21 05:14 by simongrant