This morning, Google pulled a video from YouTube belonging to my nonprofit Three Rings. This was a bit of a surprise.
Harassment and bullying? Whut?
Apparently the video – which is a demo of some Three Rings features – apparently fell foul of Google’s anti-doxxing rules. I’m glad that they have
anti-doxxing rules, of course.
Let’s see who I doxxed:
Yup… apparently doxxed an imaginary person with two structurally-invalid phone numbers and who’s recently moved house from Some Street to Other Street in the town of Somewhereville. 😂
(Maybe I’m wrong. Do you live on Some Street, Somewhereville?)
Let’s see what YouTube’s appeals process is like, shall we? 🤦
Fellow geek, Nightline veteran, and general volunteering hero James Buller wrote a wonderful retrospective on his experience with Surrey Nightline, National Nightline, and the Nightline
Association over most of the last three decades:
…
In 1997 I left a note in the Surrey Nightline pigeon-hole to volunteer and eventually become the Coordinator
In 1998 I emailed the leaders of National Nightline with a plea for support.
In 2000 I launched the first National Nightline website and email list
In 2003 I added the bulletin board online forum
In 2006 I led governance reform and the registration project that led to the Nightline Association charity
In 2007 I set up Google Apps for the recently established nightline.ac.uk domain
In 2008 We sent news via an email broadcast system for the first time
In 2025 All the user accounts and the charity were shut down.
So here’s my last post on volunteering with the confidential mental health helplines run ‘by students for students’ at universities, then the overarching association body.
…
I began volunteering with Aberystwyth Nightline in 1999, and I remember the 2000 launch of the National Nightline mailing list and website. It felt like a moment of coalescence and
unity. We Nightline volunteers at the turn of the millennium were young, and tech-savvy, and in that window between the gradual decline of Usenet and the 2004-onwards explosion in
centralised social networking, mailing lists and forums were The Hotness.
Nightlines (and Nightliners) disagreed with one another on almost everything, but the Internet-based connectivity that James put into place for National Nightline was enormously
impactful. It made Nightline feel bigger than it had been before: it was an accessible and persistent reminder that you were part of a wider movement. It facilitated year-round
discussions that might previously have been seen only at annual conferences. It brought communities together.
(Individuals too: when my friends Kit and Fiona met and got
together back in 2003 (and, later, married), it probably wouldn’t have happened without
the National Nightline forum.)
Gosh, I spent an inordinate amount of time on this site, back in the day.
But while I praise James’ work in community-building and technology provision, his experience with Nightlines doesn’t stop there: he was an important force in the establishment of the
Nightline Association, the registered charity that took over National Nightline’s work and promised to advance it even further with moves towards accreditation and representation.
As his story continues, James talks about one of his final roles for the Association: spreading the word about the party to “see it off”. Sadly, the Nightline Association folded last
month, leaving a gap that today’s Nightlines, I fear, will struggle to fill, but this was at least the excuse for one last get-together (actually, three, but owing to schedule conflicts
I was only able to travel up to the one in Manchester):
…
I had done a lot of the leg work to track down and invite former volunteers to the farewell celebrations. I’d gotten a real buzz from it, which despite a lot of other volunteering
I’ve not felt since I was immersed in the Nightline world in the 2000’s. I felt all warm and fuzzy with nostalgia for the culture, comradeship and perhaps dolefully sense of youth
too!
I was delighted that so many people answered the call (should have expected nothing less of great Nightliners!). Their reminiscing felt like a wave of love for the movement we’d
all been a part of and had consumed such a huge part of our lives for so long. It clearly left an indelible mark on us all and has positively affected so many others through us.
…
Many people played their part in the story of the Nightline Association.
I got to hang out with some current and former Nightline volunteers in Manchester, the smallest of the ‘Goodbye NLA’ parties.
Volunteering in charity technical work is a force multiplier: instead of working on the front lines, you get to facilitate many times your individual impact for the people who
do! Volunteering with Three Rings for the last 23 years has helped me experience that, and James’ experience of this kind of
volunteering goes even further than mine. And yet he feels his impact most-strongly in a close and interpersonal story that’s humbling and beautiful:
…
I was recently asked by a researcher, ‘What is the best thing you have done as a volunteer in terms of impact?’. I was proud to reply that I’d been told someone had not killed
themselves because of a call with me at Surrey Nightline.
…
I’d recommend going and reading the full post by James, right up to the final inspiring words.
(Incidentally: if you’re looking for a volunteering opportunity that continues to help Nightlines, in the absence of the Nightline Association, Three Rings can make use of you…)
Earlier this month, I received a phone call from a user of Three Rings, the volunteer/rota management
software system I founded1.
We don’t strictly offer telephone-based tech support – our distributed team of volunteers doesn’t keep any particular “core hours” so we can’t say who’s available at any given
time – but instead we answer email/Web based queries pretty promptly at any time of the day or week.
But because I’ve called-back enough users over the years, it’s pretty much inevitable that a few probably have my personal mobile number saved. And because I’ve been applying for a couple of
interesting-looking new roles, I’m in the habit of answering my phone even if it’s a number I don’t recognise.
Many of the charities that benefit from Three Rings seem to form the impression that we’re all just sat around in an office, like this. But in fact many of my fellow
volunteers only ever see me once or twice a year!
After the first three such calls this month, I was really starting to wonder what had changed. Had we accidentally published my phone number, somewhere? So when the fourth tech support
call came through, today (which began with a confusing exchange when I didn’t recognise the name of the caller’s charity, and he didn’t get my name right, and I initially figured it
must be a wrong number), I had to ask: where did you find this number?
“When I Google ‘Three Rings login’, it’s right there!” he said.
I almost never use Google Search2,
so there’s no way I’d have noticed this change if I hadn’t been told about it.
He was right. A Google search that surfaced Three Rings CIC’s “Google Business Profile” now featured… my personal mobile number. And a convenient “Call” button that connects you
directly to it.
Some years ago, I provided my phone number to Google as part of an identity verification process, but didn’t consent to it being shared publicly. And, indeed, they
didn’t share it publicly, until – seemingly at random – they started doing so, presumably within the last few weeks.
Concerned by this change, I logged into Google Business Profile to see if I could edit it back.
Apparently Google inserted my personal mobile number into search results for me, randomly, without me asking them to. Delightful.
I deleted my phone number from the business listing again, and within a few minutes it seemed to have stopped being served to random strangers on the Internet. Unfortunately deleting
the phone number also made the “Your phone number was updated by Google” message disappear, so I never got to click the “Learn more” link to maybe get a clue as to how and why this
change happened.
Don’t you hate it when you click the wrong button. Who reads these things, anyway, right?
Such feelings of rage.
Footnotes
1 Way back in 2002! We’re very nearly at the point where the Three Rings
system is older than the youngest member of the Three Rings team. Speaking of which, we’re seeking volunteers to help expand our support team: if you’ve got experience of
using Three Rings and an hour or two a week to spare helping to make volunteering easier for hundreds of thousands of people around the world, you should look us up!
2 Seriously: if you’re still using Google Search as your primary search engine, it’s past
time you shopped around. There are great alternatives that do a better job on your choice of one or more of the metrics that might matter to you: better privacy, fewer ads (or
more-relevant ads, if you want), less AI slop, etc.
Highlights of yesterday’s Goodbye Nightline Association party in Manchester:
👨💻 Responded to Three Rings user query in real time by implementing new Directory property while at the event (pictured)
🤝 Met a handful of Nightliners past and present; swapped war stories of fights with students unions, battles for funding, etc. (also got some insights into how they’re using various
tech tools!)
✍️ Did hilariously awful job of drawing ‘Condom Man’, Aberystwyth Nightline’s mascot circa 2000
🤞 Possibly recruited a couple of new Three Rings volunteers
Low points:
😢 It’s a shame NLA’s dying, but I’m optimistic that Nightlines will survive
Oxford Station. Catching a train to Manchester for a get-together in memory of the Nightline Association, which will sadly be closing this year (although individual Nightlines will
doubtless soldier on just as they did before the Association).
Carrying a big ol’ bag of Three Rings swag to give to basically anybody who expresses even the slightest interest. 😅
Three Rings has been supporting Nightlines since before the Nightline Association and nowadays underpins voluntary work by hundreds of other charities including helplines like
Samaritans and Childline. Feeling sad that the Nightline Association is going away and looking for a new and rewarding way to volunteer? Come chat to me!
Never underestimate the power of people who are motivated by the good they can do in the world.
Today I was in awe of this team of unpaid volunteers who, having already given up their bank holiday weekend, worked through dinner and into the night to ensure the continued uptime of
a piece software that enables the listening service of emotional support and suicide helplines.
I’m spending the weekend volunteering for a nonprofit I founded (it’s almost as old as geocaching, at 23). We’re staying in a hotel at N 52°
36.184′ W 001° 53.869′. I’ve also gotten out to find a couple of localgeocaches.
But guess which room number the hotel have given me…
Found following a short hunt and a brief rummage after walking up the nearby footpath, with the help of a previous log which talked about crossing a fence (which I didn’t need to do, having come up
the correct way in the first place).
Some fellow volunteers and I are meeting at a hotel to the West of here for a weekend of making
software to help charities. When we meet up, I have a tradition of getting up early and finding a geocache or two before breakfast. Having exhausted the very-local supply of caches
on previous visits, and not wishing to miss out on the tradition on this, geocaching’s 25th birthday, I decided it was time to come further afield (and to finally solve this puzzle!…
I’m still stumped by its sibling, though!).
Nice container. Log slightly damp, but still usable. TFTC, and FP awarded for the enjoyable (once I spotted a pattern!) puzzle.
Woke early, as usual, for the first day of a weekend of volunteering, while staying at nearby Fairlawns. I’ve already tapped out the most-local caches to that hotel on previous stays, so for this morning’s walk I came further afield to find
this (and one of the two puzzle caches not too far away; that’s next, hopefully!)
This nice (topical!) container was an easy find once I poked my head into the right place. TFTC!
While adding an entry to OpenBenches (openbenches.org/bench/36677), I was struck by how much of an impact this woman – Jane Gregg –
must have made on her local community.
In this community garden in Bampton, in the Lake District, a bench dedicated to her includes not only a plaque summarising her achievements but it’s also been hand-carved with the words
“Jane an amazing human.”
Never one to let a hard day’s voluntary work keep me from a geocaching expedition, this afternoon I took a hot brisk walk up the scar to find this (and hopefully next another nearby!)
cache. Caught my breath sitting on a rock near the GZ, before pressing on. SL, TNLN, TFTC. FP awarded for such a delightful spot.
This bathroom at the holiday home where some fellow volunteers and I are doing some Three Rings work, this week, has a few unusual quirks,
including this surprisingly-shit bathroom:
The door has a lock… but there’s a second door which doesn’t.
Oh, and the first door’s lock doesn’t actually do anything. The door can still be opened from the outside.
The phone signal is so shit at this year’s 3Camp venue that I’ve had to climb a hill to take a call from a lawyer (whom I’m speaking to about my recent
redundancy). Nice to be outdoors, though!
A swift uphill scramble for my friend and fellow volunteer John and I, before dinner. We’re staying in a nearby farmhouse for a week of volunteer work, writing software to help charities. Beautiful view from the summit this evening! SL, TNLN, TFTC!
I’m off for a week of full-time volunteering with Three Rings at 3Camp, our annual volunteer hack week: bringing together our distributed
team for some intensive in-person time, working to make life better for charities around the world.
And if there’s one good thing to come out of me being suddenly and unexpectedly laid-off two days ago, it’s that I’ve got a shiny new laptop to do
my voluntary work on (Automattic have said that I can keep it).
RSS
Spotify
Pocket Casts
Apple Podcasts
YouTube
