feature: private notes

[anishathalye]

Similar to the "Notes" field for trip sign-ups, where anyone signed in can see all responses (including on past trips, etc.), it would be nice to have a "Private Notes" field where trip leaders can ask participants questions, and where only the trip leaders can see participants' answers.

There's a discussion on this topic in the MITOC Leader Slack, and people seem on board with adding such a feature. I'm not going to copy the whole discussion here (from a private forum to this public forum), but here's my initial post describing the motivation for adding such a field:

I'm personally not a fan of the "What's the hardest hike you've done" or "What exercise do you do regularly? Please be detailed." style of question commonly asked in the trip sign-up for MITOC trips. Because the answers are public, I think this can be intimidating to people who aren't as intense and see answers like "I run Pemi Loops for breakfast", and it goes counter to the whole "introduce people to the outdoors" philosophy. (I've been thinking about this and related questions for a while, happy to go into details on the motivation if people are interested.)

I've been working around this in my trips by being clear about prereqs, adding that people don't have to satisfy the prereqs to join (but in that case, they need to talk to me first), and then in the trip posting, just asking "do you satisfy the prereqs or have you talked to me?".

Though I can see the value of asking the more open-ended questions for certain WS trips. Would we be open to changing the website, which currently just has "notes" where answers are publicly viewable, to having a separate "private notes" where responses are only visible to the trip leaders? And then we can follow the convention that certain questions will be asked in the private response section. As far as effort required to modify the website, this would be a simple change.

[DavidCain]

Hello, Anish! Thanks for writing. If you have a formal proposal to change how signups work, I'd definitely recommend taking it up with the WSC (I'll likely close this issue so we can move discussion to an email thread). (I'll refrain from posting the WSC email address here, but email me directly if you're not familiar with it).

While I of course write the actual software that governs how trips work, it's ultimately up to the WSC (and/or MITOC's other activity chairs) to decide club policies on trips.

That said, I have some thoughts that I may as well just reference here. (You can include me on a thread with the WSC if you like, or just link them this and you all can hash it out!)

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As far as effort required to modify the website, this would be a simple change.

I'd humbly request folks to refrain from making difficulty estimates! 😄 While this seems reasonably small on the surface, the details add up quickly!

• will this feature be (mis)used to communicate sensitive information?
  • leaders may see "private" notes and treat is as a secure portal (with the notable exception of self-reported medical information, we try really hard to keep the db free of sensitive information). I'm really nervous about the potential problems here. In-person conversations just don't have this issue.
• what happens to "private" notes on trips where leaders can add themselves?
  • Circus trips have the ability for MITOC leaders to add themselves to the leader roster. This can change the dynamic of what a "leader" is -- maybe the original notes were meant to be just to the Circus creators, but now can be seen by a dozen+ leaders? Maybe the participants thought their notes would be visible to just a few leaders, but ultimately could be seen by many!
• what about lost utility of public notes?
  • there are many cases where public notes are valuable. Notes can help participants coordinate with one another, it can help dietary preferences be made plain (where those providing food may not be leaders at all)
  • if the proposal is to have public and private notes, that's a whole other can of worms (how do we make it clear which is which, ensure participants understand the audience, etc.)
• what is the "lifetime" of private notes?
  • medical info, for example, is automatically purged from our database after 6 months of activity. Feedback becomes invisible after 13 months. Where do these notes fit in?
• who/when can see the notes?
  • are the notes visible by the original trip leaders even after they cease to be MITOC leaders?
  • can other trip leaders see the notes? (Important since leaders often view each others' trips to coordinate)
  • can activity chairs (the WSC) see the notes?
• I can think of other concerns/considerations/questions, but I'll stop.

I make a really conscious effort to keep the trips system as simple as possible, and this represents some added complexity. Public notes have really simple access control -- there's no need to worry about data retention, improper access, or user privacy. Complexity in a system has a habit of growing exponentially, with small additions having outsized effect on the ability to understand and maintain the system.

I understand and empathize with the viewpoint that some questions are not well-suited to a public forum. I agree! Currently, if leaders have questions that they'd like participants to answer more privately, they just request an email or a private discussion. This system is not perfect, but it avoids many of the concerns above (email is well-understood; people can reasonably expect what will happen to information they share over email or in an in-person conversation). When considering the prospect of a new private notes system, I think it's wise to compare it against our current system!

[DavidCain]

Going to close this as I previously mentioned. Thanks again for the suggestions, and please do let me know if you ended up sending a proposal to the WSC!

[anishathalye]

There's some discussion in the Slack thread (linking it here in case anyone in MITOC wants to look at the details, but not copy-pasting message contents from a private forum onto a public one). There may eventually be a BOD thread; not sure what is the current status since I'm not on BOD; I bumped the thread.

Seems fine to close this issue for now. Thank you for talking through the complexity of this feature request!