foliage

[JohnW2]

Complain that you're profoundly deaf and cannot use the telephone, and not providing an email address is unlawful discrimination.

A good few of them seem to have thought of that one ....

 

[JohnW2]

I'm finding it's usually the other way round where emails or other on-line means are readily available but phone numbers take ages to locate and are frequently changed.

Fair enough, but that's (dramatically) the opposite of my personal experience!

 

[SparkyTris]

Like so many companies these days, they semm to hide their e-mail addresses quite well. The nearest to contact information I can find on their website for a situation like the OP's is:
View attachment 379431

However, a bit more digging around finds these:

[email protected]
[email protected]

Thanks for this, I have emailed those 2 addresses the details.

 

[morqthana]

A good few of them seem to have thought of that one ....

View attachment 379466

Well that's not much use to someone who isn't deaf, doesn't know BSL, and is using underhand tactics to shame companies into providing email addresses, is it.

But for some related light relief:

 

[JohnW2]

Well that's not much use to someone who isn't deaf, doesn't know BSL, and is using underhand tactics to shame companies into providing email addresses, is it.

I gave that as one example. As I'm sure you know, there are many systems around (e.g. 'text relay' systems such as "Relay UK") designed to make communication by telephone accessible to those with hearing or speech problems (and not requiring them to know BSL!)

 

[Why Not Indeed]

a one-character/digit error can render any of the locator systems useless.

With W3W it is a feature that a subtly different code will give a drastically different location. The point of this is to make subtle transcription errors obvious.

 

[JohnW2]

With W3W it is a feature that a subtly different code will give a drastically different location. The point of this is to make subtle transcription errors obvious.

Interesting.

I suspect that the 'opposite' might also have been achievable, wouldn't it - i.e. by having built in 'redundancy' such that a single character error or omission would not change the location at all (even if it meant moving to "W4W!). Indeed, that could presumably have been combined with what you such suggest, with anything more than a one-character error/omission producing a drastically different location (hence an 'obvious error')?

 

[morqthana]

With W3W it is a feature that a subtly different code will give a drastically different location. The point of this is to make subtle transcription errors obvious.

75 miles apart and in the same state is not my idea of "drastically different".

 

[bernardgreen]

With W3W it is a feature that a subtly different code will give a drastically different location.

Unfortunately some of the drastically different locations can be only a few hundred metres apart and in a few cases that short distance involves a river or other obstruction.

 

[plugwash]

With W3W it is a feature that a subtly different code will give a drastically different location.

My understanding is that said claim has been exposed as a lie.

 

[JohnW2]

Unfortunately some of the drastically different locations can be only a few hundred metres apart and in a few cases that short distance involves a river or other obstruction.

That may, of course, be the case with a one digit error in a grid reference, lat/long or other similar locator system, if one of the least significant digits is involved.

 

[JohnW2]

My understanding is that said claim has been exposed as a lie.

It certainly doesn't seem to always 'work'. However, as I've said, I don't think it would have been beyond the wit of man (or computers) to devise a system which was less (or not at all) undermined by single errors.

 

[plugwash]

It wouldn't, though as you said it would probablly require going to four words rather than three.

The problem is w3w have already used the common words, so any new word-based location system would either have to avoid all the common words, or risk confusion with w3w.

On the other hand if you were to say just take the w3w algorithm but add a fourth "check word" then you have the problem that w3w are known for shutting down reverse engineered versions of their algorithm with legal threats. You might also still have the problem of people reading the last three words rather than the first three.

 

[bernardgreen]

Well worth a read

https://cybergibbons.com/security-2/why-what3words-is-not-suitable-for-safety-critical-applications/

which includes the Clyde river

 

[JohnW2]

It wouldn't, though as you said it would probablly require going to four words rather than three. ... The problem is w3w have already used the common words, so any new word-based location system would either have to avoid all the common words, or risk confusion with w3w.

Indeed. Given that W3W exists in its present form, I wasn't really suggesting that there was much realistic scope to change it, hence the tense I used " ... would have been possible...") ... I was merely observing "how it could have been".

On the other hand if you were to say just take the w3w algorithm but add a fourth "check word" then you have the problem that w3w are known for shutting down reverse engineered versions of their algorithm with legal threats.

Again true, but I presume that would not preclude the W3W folk from 'revising' their own product.

How do they make money?