It seems basically impossible to reliably execute a newly-learned many-step task within one second.
Since this also seemed hopeless to me after my test donation took me 20 seconds, I thought I’d reiterate the key part of AviNorowitz’s reply even more plainly: What the EA Giving Tuesday team’s instructions recommend is that you do all of the steps except the last one prior to 8AM. So you only need to do one step (a single mouse click) in one second.
Hi Mike. Do you think we should be more clear in our language? We’re recommending donating within the first second because (a) we want to emphasize the importance of speed and (b) it is plausible the match will actually end in 1 second, even though a few seconds is probably more likely. But we also don’t want people to misunderstand the difficulty of this and feel hopeless.
After doing a 5$ practice donation, I re-examined the instructions at https://www.eagivingtuesday.org/instructions/us-500-or-more and understood you are suggesting get to the “confirm donation page” before the 8am start time. But I think if the recommendation to start the donation prior to 8am was in the “In a nutshell” section I would have figured it out sooner. You might consider editing the third sentence in the first bullet of the “In a nutshell” section to something like ”We recommended starting the donation process prior to the official match start so that you are able to click the final “Donate” button within the first second after the match start time of December 3rd, 2019, at 08:00:00am EST (05:00:00am PST).”
I think part of my (slight) confusion might be captured in your language “We’re recommending donating within the first second”; by “donating” you mean click the final Donate button whereas I naturally interpret this as meaning do the entire donation process.
Thanks for the helpful feedback, Mike! I just updated the website to improve the language based on your recommendation. Here’s what I put:
EDIT/UPDATE 12/2/2019:
Facebook eliminated the “Confirm Your Donation” prompt this morning, so we made the following change:
New version:
Last year the matching funds ran out in 15 seconds. We expect it to run out much faster this year. We recommend clicking clicking the green “Donate” button within the first second after the match start time of December 3rd, 2019, at 08:00:00am EST (05:00:00am PST).
Old version:
Last year the matching funds ran out in 15 seconds. We expect it to run out much faster this year. We recommend starting the donation process early and clicking the green “Donate” button on your $500+ donation prior to the official match start, that way you can finalize your donation with one click by clicking the final gray “Donate” buttonwithin the first second after the match start time of December 3rd, 2019, at 08:00:00am EST (05:00:00am PST).
Speed. Per our instructions, fill out your donation early so you can calmly finalize your donation with one click by clicking the green “Donate” button within the first second of the start of the match.
In 2017, the match lasted 86 seconds; in 2018, it lasted 15 seconds; this year we expect it to run out much faster, plausibly in one second (personal median estimate: ~4 seconds).
A $9,999 donation can be finalized in 1 click, so with some preparation and practice, it can be done in 1 second. It’s also possible to finalize 2 x $9,999 donations in 1 second, though it requires skill and more practice.
A 1 second match end time is plausible, but it’s not the most likely outcome. So probably 2 x $9,999 successful donations in 2 seconds would get matched. The max match amount per donor is $20,000 and this is just $2 short of that.
It seems basically impossible to reliably execute a newly-learned many-step task within one second.
Since this also seemed hopeless to me after my test donation took me 20 seconds, I thought I’d reiterate the key part of AviNorowitz’s reply even more plainly: What the EA Giving Tuesday team’s instructions recommend is that you do all of the steps except the last one prior to 8AM. So you only need to do one step (a single mouse click) in one second.
Hi Mike. Do you think we should be more clear in our language? We’re recommending donating within the first second because (a) we want to emphasize the importance of speed and (b) it is plausible the match will actually end in 1 second, even though a few seconds is probably more likely. But we also don’t want people to misunderstand the difficulty of this and feel hopeless.
After doing a 5$ practice donation, I re-examined the instructions at https://www.eagivingtuesday.org/instructions/us-500-or-more and understood you are suggesting get to the “confirm donation page” before the 8am start time. But I think if the recommendation to start the donation prior to 8am was in the “In a nutshell” section I would have figured it out sooner. You might consider editing the third sentence in the first bullet of the “In a nutshell” section to something like ”We recommended starting the donation process prior to the official match start so that you are able to click the final “Donate” button within the first second after the match start time of December 3rd, 2019, at 08:00:00am EST (05:00:00am PST).”
I think part of my (slight) confusion might be captured in your language “We’re recommending donating within the first second”; by “donating” you mean click the final Donate button whereas I naturally interpret this as meaning do the entire donation process.
Thanks for the helpful feedback, Mike! I just updated the website to improve the language based on your recommendation. Here’s what I put:
EDIT/UPDATE 12/2/2019:
Facebook eliminated the “Confirm Your Donation” prompt this morning, so we made the following change:
New version:
Old version:
Perhaps also edit this EA Forum post to make it clear that it’s easier than people might think?
Thanks, done. Updated it to:
Speed. Per our instructions, fill out your donation early so you can calmly finalize your donation with one click by clicking the green “Donate” button within the first second of the start of the match.
In 2017, the match lasted 86 seconds; in 2018, it lasted 15 seconds; this year we expect it to run out much faster, plausibly in one second (personal median estimate: ~4 seconds).
A $9,999 donation can be finalized in 1 click, so with some preparation and practice, it can be done in 1 second. It’s also possible to finalize 2 x $9,999 donations in 1 second, though it requires skill and more practice.
A 1 second match end time is plausible, but it’s not the most likely outcome. So probably 2 x $9,999 successful donations in 2 seconds would get matched. The max match amount per donor is $20,000 and this is just $2 short of that.