Critical Amber Alert

[8 Ball]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Looks like it is until they improve it, which I'm confident they will do soon.

Which improvements?

[Coys1882]

Originally Posted by Sliver

lol, well maybe throw some context in your post next time.

Or don't feel guilty!

[Coys1882]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Looks like it is until they improve it, which I'm confident they will do soon.

Well I personally hope you're wrong mate. I'd rather you just charge your kid's phone downstairs than the government spend time and money on an opt out program or reducing the effectiveness of reaching the population.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by 8 Ball

Which improvements?

Oh sorry, thought you had read the thread.

Not giving alerts to people under 18.

Respecting 'do not disturb' or 'no sound' settings.

[Buff]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Waking up people in the middle of the night is useless and unnecessarily disruptive. Why not just be useless at that point? I'm not going to throw on my coat and start driving around. Should my kids hop on their bikes and start searching, too?

I think people should be allowed to disable these alerts during certain hours. Maybe everyone is allowed to pick 8 or 10 hours within a 24-hour period where they're allowed to be undisturbed.

In sorry you missed some sleep because somebody's child was missing.

[CASe333]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Oh sorry, thought you had read the thread.

Not giving alerts to people under 18.

Respecting 'do not disturb' or 'no sound' settings.

What you don't want to give alerts to people under 18? Why?

You really don't seem to understand the purpose of an alert.

[8 Ball]

No need to be snide, I was genuinely interested in your take.

[Jiggy_12]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Oh sorry, thought you had read the thread.

Not giving alerts to people under 18.

Respecting 'do not disturb' or 'no sound' settings.

Is a 17 year old with perfectly fine working eyeballs and a brain not capable of recognizing someone and providing valuable help?

A 16 year old?

15?

What's the cut-off?

[Ducay]

I think the point being made by Sliver is that there are ways to keep it just as effective while reducing the unnecessary impacts (woken children, startled from sleep, elderly in long term care facilities, etc). What happens when someone at risk (lets go with an old person with a heart defect) has a medical emergency or dies from the startled caused by the notification (unlikely, but plausible for arguments sake) Effective dialogue and valid criticism helps improve both the efficacy and buy-in to systems like this.

If people find it overly intrusive or annoying, they will simply disable the functionality which will have the opposite effect. Better off to find a happy middle ground.

I disagree with the comments that "a child is at stake so anything goes"; if that were the case, why not use air raid sirens and have a law that everyone must arise and go out to search under penalty of law until they are found? Extreme, but I think that just illustrates we all agree the system currently devised is useful and like anything, can use some tweaking to find the perfect middle ground.

[KootenayFlamesFan]

As a father I'm stunned to see some of these comments.

There was potentially a young child's life at stake. Everybody's phones SHOULD go off. Younger people, older people, middle of the day, middle of the night. If you have a phone, it should go off. At least I hope they all do. The point is when something like this happens you simply have no idea who might have any info at all to help in this situation. If someone is sleeping and their phone goes off and they can help at all then it's worth it. If your phone goes off and you wake up and you have no info to help it's still worth it.

The only 'improvement' I'd want to see is that there's no way to stop people from getting these notifications on their phones, regardless of what time of day it is.

[stang]

I’m glad the child is safe

[midniteowl]

Originally Posted by 8sPOT

These situations are potentially life and death, and for a child no less.

You get that alert out to as many people as possible. Sorry if a critical situation interrupts your beauty sleep. If that's my kid missing I don't give a flying #### about the minor inconvenience to people. I think this system is great.

Sigh, I was mentioning the alert to my friend on FB and proudly said that Albertan are better than Ontarian, we understand the value of emergency alert and will not whine about it interrupting our beauty sleep, we post info on FB and hope others who don't get the alert will also put on a look out. After reading this thread, WOW, was I ever wrong.

[8 Ball]

It’s not like they send amber alerts lightly. A certain criteria must be met. Someone’s life is in immediate danger. If it’s my kid, I don’t give a #### obout your sleep, all hands on deck.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Ducay

I disagree with the comments that "a child is at stake so anything goes"; if that were the case, why not use air raid sirens and have a law that everyone must arise and go out to search under penalty of law until they are found? Extreme, but I think that just illustrates we all agree the system currently devised is useful and like anything, can use some tweaking to find the perfect middle ground.

This slippery slope is complete nonsense, but as far as the “perfect middle ground”... there isn’t one, there will never be. Not everything can be perfect, and in fact, most things absolutely can’t be.

Does the system work? Yes. Are there extremely minor inconveniences caused? Yes. Is there a solution that eliminates those inconveniences without adding others? No.

Pretty plain and simple. You cant make everyone happy, and if sleep is that important to you, shut the phone off. If you don’t want to be alerted to emergencies, shut the phone off. If you want to be alerted to only the emergencies that might effect you at only convenient times of the day, then sorry, you’re living in a dream world.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Yes it will. I'll bet you $20 as well. That's $40 I've got at stake now. Kids are getting phones younger and younger. Mine had them at nine. Nine-year-olds don't need to be jarred awake at midnight for Amber Alerts.

It was an 8-year old that was taken. A 9-year old could have witnessed something at school and heard where the mother was going to take him.

It doesn’t take much critical thought to realize that every age group can offer some information that would be useful in locating the abducted child.

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

This slippery slope is complete nonsense, but as far as the “perfect middle ground”... there isn’t one, there will never be. Not everything can be perfect, and in fact, most things absolutely can’t be.

Does the system work? Yes. Are there extremely minor inconveniences caused? Yes. Is there a solution that eliminates those inconveniences without adding others? No.

Pretty plain and simple. You cant make everyone happy, and if sleep is that important to you, shut the phone off. If you don’t want to be alerted to emergencies, shut the phone off. If you want to be alerted to only the emergencies that might effect you at only convenient times of the day, then sorry, you’re living in a dream world.

How can you suggest that people should just shut their phones off (defeats the purpose and causes all kinds of other issues) rather than consider potential tweaks to the system? I think the new system is good but if you think they perfected it in the first release, you're dreaming.

Why is this an "all or nothing" thing? Like Sliver said, they're always looking at improvements (and likely will be) and painting anyone who has suggestions as evil isn't a constructive way to debate improvements.

As a father, I am fine with improvements to the system since it will drive higher adoption and usage.

[CaptainCrunch]

I have no problems at all with the amber alert signals going off no matter what time.


I mean sure there was a child at stake here. But what happens if there is an emergency in your neighborhood, a missing child, a disaster of some kind. Having a loud alarm that inconveniences you or wakes you up is a pretty minor thing.


I know that for example if there was something happening in my area, or even my city, I would want something loud enough to make me open my eyes.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Ducay

How can you suggest that people should just shut their phones off (defeats the purpose and causes all kinds of other issues) rather than consider potential tweaks to the system? I think the new system is good but if you think they perfected it in the first release, you're dreaming.

Why is this an "all or nothing" thing? Like Sliver said, they're always looking at improvements (and likely will be) and painting anyone who has suggestions as evil isn't a constructive way to debate improvements.

As a father, I am fine with improvements to the system since it will drive higher adoption and usage.

What higher rate of adoption can you achieve? It’s going out to everybody, isn’t it?

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by Wormius

What higher rate of adoption can you achieve? It’s going out to everybody, isn’t it?

Look online, there are plenty of people uninstalling and deactivating the app or functionality. (That ignores all the people suggesting people who dont like it should turn off their phones at night). They now get no notifications. Improving the system to have it just as functional while not driving people off is the goal.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Ducay

Look online, there are plenty of people uninstalling and deactivating the app or functionality. (That ignores all the people suggesting people who dont like it should turn off their phones at night). They now get no notifications. Improving the system to have it just as functional while not driving people off is the goal.

Okay. Odd. It’s not even a separate app on the iPhone. I assumed everybody simply got it.