Critical Amber Alert

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Acey

The fact that the alert didn't actually provide any content and you had to look up the information on a secondary source unless you have the app installed which is actually useful.

There was literally a link in the alert. All you had to do was touch it with your finger to get details.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

I don't disagree. But you know you don't have to sleep with your phone beside you, right? If you're a light sleeper and these alerts will wake you up, just leave your phone in another room when you go to bed.

Thanks, Tips.

Turning my phone to do not disturb has blocked every unwanted alert for the past decade with the exception of last night. I live in a relatively small house, anyway, so I think an alarm blaring 10 steps away in another room would have woken me up, too.

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by Sliver

That's a very fair point. I think the system needs to be tweaked as well. I know for a fact my fast-asleep 12-year-old daughter wasn't going to hop out of bed and solve this crime, so we didn't need to wake her up. My phone was set to 'do not disturb', which this system was able to circumvent to disturb me, too.

Instantaneoulsy virtually deputising the entire population of Alberta to stop a kidnapper is awesome, but last night illuminated some flaws. Maybe if a phone hasn't been accessed for 60 minutes between 10pm and 7am the system would assume the person is sleeping or something? IDK, but there will be a solution I'm sure.

On the contrary, it worked exactly as it was designed to with the safe return of an 8 year old to his father and the arrest of his kidnapping mother.

Hard to argue.

[V]

Yeah, I’m pretty sure last night reinforced the system. Awesome job.

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Well, let us know if anybody here is complaining about it. I haven't seen any of that. I said it's awesome that we can alert everyone and suggested some tweaks to make it better as I think it's important to constantly improve things instead of just dopely assuming a relatively new system was rolled out already perfect, but it looks like bit everyone shares that opinion.

Oh, there are some tweaks that could be made, nothing is ever perfect. However, in situations like this, I can almost always guarantee that a system like this will err on the side of caution over not.

You can be woken up, look at the alarm, curse it out, note that it's no importance you to whatsoever, and go back to bed.

Which, imo, is better than needing to get an alarm, and not getting it at all.

[Cuz]

I got the first alert after leaving the dome and was home by the time the second alert was issued. What I found interesting was with the second alert, I was watching TV and my Telus box automatically paused my show so I could read the alert. I thought that was pretty neat.

I do agree, the alert could definitely startle someone but that is the point; to alert as many people as possible about a possible dangerous situation.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by WhiteTiger

Oh, there are some tweaks that could be made, nothing is ever perfect. However, in situations like this, I can almost always guarantee that a system like this will err on the side of caution over not.

You can be woken up, look at the alarm, curse it out, note that it's no importance you to whatsoever, and go back to bed.

Which, imo, is better than needing to get an alarm, and not getting it at all.

I disagree that it is better. I'll bet you $20 they will improve the system in the exact way I suggested within the year. That is, finding a way to not unnecessarily disrupt people's sleep. It won't be that difficult.

Monday morning there will be Amber Alert meetings and conference calls with stakeholders across the province with a view to improving this, in spite of the opinions in this thread. Amber Alerts are great; we just need to sort out a few things.

[8 Ball]

Originally Posted by transplant99

Is it not as simple as turning your phone off while you sleep if you dont want to hear it?

I mean......you dont want to be disturbed, there is a way to make that happen in about 3 seconds.

I cannot believe the crap people complain about. Particularly when lives are at stake.

Exactly. I didn’t get the first alert, but the second one after midnight jolted me out of my sleep. I didn’t for a second feel inconvenienced, more like what’s happening?

[RoadGame]

Is anyone having an issue now with the notification not going away?

I don't mind at all getting it in the first place, but now my android phone (Pixel 2XL) isn't letting me dismiss or remove the notification at all even though the situation has clearly been resolved.

[Jiggy_12]

Originally Posted by Sliver

I disagree that it is better. I'll bet you $20 they will improve the system in the exact way I suggested within the year. That is, finding a way to not unnecessarily disrupt people's sleep. It won't be that difficult.

Monday morning there will be Amber Alert meetings and conference calls with stakeholders across the province with a view to improving this, in spite of the opinions in this thread. Amber Alerts are great; we just need to sort out a few things.

I don't understand your continual mention of sleep in this discussion.

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, what if one of the people who was woken up from this alert actually had valuable info? Does that seem far fetched or out of the realm of possibility?

To me it doesn't. And if it's remotely possible that info from someone woken up from their sleep saves a child's life, then this discussion is finished.

[cam_wmh]

Originally Posted by Sliver

I disagree that it is better. I'll bet you $20 they will improve the system in the exact way I suggested within the year. That is, finding a way to not unnecessarily disrupt people's sleep. It won't be that difficult.

Monday morning there will be Amber Alert meetings and conference calls with stakeholders across the province with a view to improving this, in spite of the opinions in this thread. Amber Alerts are great; we just need to sort out a few things.

Your suggestion of recognizing a dormant device CANNOT be implemented. The public is not to be given the option of opting out of the alerts, outside of turning the device off.

Arbitrarily introducing a differing notification level, due to age/ability will not be implemented either.

[Wormius]

The Amber alert should only focus on people who know something and are awake? How would they even implement this? The point is to get the alert out to everybody and it’s not outside the realm of possibility that someone who doesn’t think they know something actually does.

[Coach]

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.

Thats not true There could be people asleep that could help the situation. Maybe they saw them earlier in the day. Maybe they know someone involved. Who knows?

Your version of "improvement" involves alerting less people, less quickly for the sake of people who are sleeping. That doesn't improve the function of the system, it makes it do it's job worse. Sure there could be ways to improve the system. Making it silent is definitely not one of them. How could it possibly be?

[Coys1882]

If you whine about this - you're a ####.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Coys1882

If you whine about this - you're a ####.

Agreed. Who's whining about it?

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by cam_wmh

Your suggestion of recognizing a dormant device CANNOT be implemented. The public is not to be given the option of opting out of the alerts, outside of turning the device off.

Arbitrarily introducing a differing notification level, due to age/ability will not be implemented either.

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.

[Coys1882]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Agreed. Who's whining about it?

Here

and

here

[Coys1882]

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.

That's kind of a risk you assume by agreeing to issue your child a cell phone I'm afraid.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Coys1882

Here

and

here

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

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Coys1882

That's kind of a risk you assume by agreeing to issue your child a cell phone I'm afraid.

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