Policies

Purpose, mission, values

Purpose

Why do we exist?

In the 1980s, it was possible to live your life without using a computer. You might have made furniture by hand and driven it to a store that sold it for you. You paid the road toll with coins and received a paper receipt, your invoice was hand-typed and recorded in a ledger, and your tax return was filled in with a pen. This generated a small handful of physical documentation which was easily managed using a concertina folder: a basic skill you had been taught at school.

The volume of information was manageable. You could find anything, quickly and easily.

Today, that same carpenter ā€“ whose job has not changed ā€“ needs online accounts for her eToll account and the invoicing software that interfaces with the furniture store and her accountant. Both of these send important documents to her Gmail, which is full of transactional email from the 142 other organisations that she routinely deals with, and the social media accounts that she needs to maintain. Parking her 1982 Land Cruiser outside the furniture store now requires an app.

To help her manage this, her computer provides tools no more sophisticated than Create New Folder. It allows her to save anything anywhere she wants. It positively encourages the duplication of information. At no point was she given any training in these systems, which change constantly and without warning. The people who understand them charge hundreds of dollars an hour.

The volume of information is unmanageable. Nobody can find anything any more. This is stressful and inefficient. Computers were meant to make our lives easier. In this regard, they have done the opposite.

Mission

What are we going to do about it?

We help people manage their information. This information is mostly, but not exclusively, on a computer.

We do this using the Johnny.Decimal system. It's a simple way to organise any information. It provides:

  1. A simple structure that uses numbers instead of the alphabet.
  2. An index of your content that you manage.
  3. Training, software, and support.

We will be the training you never got: we'll show you how to store things so that you can find them again.

We can't make it so that our carpenter doesn't have to use a computer. And that's not our goal: computers are more efficient. Filing your taxes online is better than doing them with a pen.1

Our mission is to make it so that when she sits down in front of her computer, it is with a sense of calm, not dread. We want her to be able to find her stuff with more confidence, and less stress.

Values

How will we behave while we do it?

Johnny.Decimal is two humans: Johnny and his partner Lucy. We have no desire to grow. Becoming a big corporation wouldn't make us happy. We quit our jobs to do this because we love it; if we stop loving it, then what was the point?

This makes us a deeply 'Personal Business'.2 You're dealing with us, and we with you.

We love the satisfaction that comes from helping an individual to be more organised. We love our community. We love the sense of worth that comes from creating something good using our own brains.

We don't seek to be incredibly good 'at business'. We don't follow the same old (dark) patterns, the same old (sleazy) techniques. Surely this means we earn less than we could, that we remain smaller than we might otherwise have grown. We're okay with that.

Because we, personally, seek something simple: we'd like to be able to buy a house and have chickens in the back yard. We think we can achieve that by making good things that people like, and selling them for an honest price. Let us know how we're doing.

Your values

How would we like you to behave towards us?

Company values statements typically don't turn it around to face the customer. But this is our company so we'll do whatever we like. ;-)

I spoke above about how we're proud to be a 'Personal Business'. But please remember that we are still a business. This is how we earn our living.

There is a curious behaviour that I have observed over the years.

  1. Everyone seeks to escape 'the rat race'. This is idolised as the highest form of being: to quit one's job, to 'go indie'.
  2. So one quits one's job and 'goes indie', forfeiting the steady wage.
  3. Now 'a creator', one needs to sell something in order to pay the rent and eat. (Capitalism! Who knew?)
  4. People react to this 'sell-out'. How dare you sell the product of your mind? Information should be free!

My ask of you is this: notice this reaction in your own mind. Be charitable in your assumptions.3 If in doubt, ask the individual before posting about it on social media. We all need to earn money. You might do it by going to work. We do it by selling stuff online.

Privacy policy

I care about your privacy

I go to great lengths to protect my own privacy. I use:

I pay money for all of these services.

I tell you this so that you believe me when I say I care about your privacy as much as you do. These aren't just words to placate you. I mean it.

The simplest way for me to care about your privacy is to collect as little of your personal data as possible. Here's how.

Analytics and trackers

I self-host Umami analytics. No personal data is collected.

Many services will block this by default, as it's well known and I've made no attempt to obfuscate it: they grep umami. But feel free to explicitly block network access to umami.johnnydecimal.com.

Cookies

If you have a Johnny.Decimal account, my authentication service, Clerk, uses cookies to track your user sessions (i.e. if you're logged in or not). They have no other purpose and are required.

No other cookies are used.

User account and settings

As the administrator of this website, I can see various user data. For example if you have a Johnny.Decimal account I can see your name (if you've entered it ā€“ it's optional) and email address.

You can store some account settings, e.g. the name of your Obsidian vault. I can view these settings. I won't, unless you ask for support that requires I do so.

If you join the WhatsApp group, I can see your phone number. And so on.

I will never access, use, or store this data unnecessarily. I minimise my contact with your personal data: if I don't have it, I can't lose it.

User data

The site will soon allow you to store your own data. All data will be encrypted. For more details, see 0189 Documenting my security practices.

Sentry

I use Sentry to track errors that occur on this website. All user-specific telemetry has been explicitly disabled.

Your Clerk user ID is the only identifiable information sent with the error report. This is a long string of random characters. I can use it to look up your user account, which I might need to help me fix the error.

Many blockers will block Sentry by default. This is fine ā€“ but if you see an error that tells you that I've been alerted, this may not be the case.

Stripe

Payments made through my payment processor, Stripe, are subject to Stripe's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

Money-back guarantee

The short version

  • All our products have a 14-day money-back guarantee.
  • Send a copy of your purchase receipt to hello@johnnydecimal.com.
  • I'll refund your purchase within 48 hours.
  • You will lose access to the product that was refunded.

The longer version

I guarantee that our systems will save you time and help you organise your life and/or business. Me and Lucy take extraordinary pride in our work. This is our life. And as a small business, we depend entirely on satisfied customers and word-of-mouth.

So if you're not happy, I'm not happy. If you don't think that the price was worth it, let me know within 14 days and you can have your money back. No questions, no risk.

For the quickest response, forward your purchase receipt to hello@johnnydecimal.com. If you want to tell us what we could have done better, please do: but no pressure. You can just say 'I'd like a refund'.

If you can't find your receipt, tell me what you purchased and when and I'll look it up.

I process these requests manually, on the same day that I receive them. So they'll usually be processed within 24 hours, but on rare occasions it may take a bit longer.

I can't control how long the money takes to be refunded by Stripe back to your payment method. Experience tells me it's usually a couple of days.

Code of conduct

There is one rule - be nice to people.

People of all shapes, flavours, and varieties are welcome. Don't make anyone feel unwelcome because of who they are. If you do, you'll be asked to leave.

This part from omg.lol's Code of Conduct is perfect, so with permission it is reproduced and applies here.

"We believe that everyone has a right to the freedoms of speech and personal expression. We also believe that everyone has a right to live free of abuse, harassment, and harm. In specific situations where these two beliefs are at odds with one another, we prioritise the second over the first."

Use of AI

Created by the humans

  • Every word we produce was written by me or Lucy.
  • Our systems, courses, videos, and images are handmade.
  • I answer all messages personally and will never use AI to reply to a message.

AI is interesting. It definitely has its uses. But we enjoy writing and thinking. It's what we've chosen to do for a living.

Why would we want to outsource that to a machine whose only skill is guessing the next most likely word and whose output is, therefore, by very definition, average?

If we ever produce content that has been written or altered by an AI, this will be explicitly stated alongside the content. The only situation we can foresee is if we translate some of the system content into another language.

Claude Code

Claude Code is better at writing code than me, and I use it heavily to develop this site.

I've never been a professional web developer; I'm self-taught. And being a web developer isn't my job; it's not why you're here. You're here for advice and tools that help you to be more organised.

So we focus our human minds on that aspect of the business, and I use Claude to help me with the technical stuff. I never run it unsupervised: I'm always watching, guiding, checking. It still takes a lot of my time.

Terms of service

Concise and human-readable.

1. Introduction

Welcome to Coruscade Pty Ltd, trading as Johnny.Decimal ("we," "our," or "us"). By using our website, tools, or services ("Services"), you agree to these Terms of Service ("Terms"). If you do not agree, please do not use our Services.

2. No professional advice

Our Services provide general guidance on business, finance, and related topics. However, we are not lawyers, accountants, financial advisors, or any other type of licensed professional. The information we provide is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, financial, tax, or any other form of professional advice. You should consult a qualified professional before making any decisions.

3. No client relationship

Using our Services does not create any attorney-client, accountant-client, or other professional-client relationship. We do not represent you, and our guidance does not substitute for professional advice.

4. Use of services

You agree to use our Services at your own risk. We make no guarantees about the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of the information provided. We are not responsible for any actions you take (or fail to take) based on our guidance.

5. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, or special damages arising from your use of our Services, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.

6. Changes to these terms

We may update these Terms at any time. If we do, we will release a blog post. Continued use of our Services after changes means you accept the updated Terms.

7. Governing law

These Terms of Service and any separate agreements whereby we provide you Services shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of New South Wales, Australia.

8. Refund policy

If you don't agree to these terms, please contact us within 14 days of signing up and we'll refund you in full.

9. Contact us

If you have any questions, please contact us at hello@johnnydecimal.com.

Footnotes

  1. We're yet to be sold on the utility of an app over coins when paying for parking. ā†©

  2. Are.na / Personal Business by Charles Broskoski. It's a great article, please read it. ā†©

  3. Hanlon's razor providing a useful heuristic: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." ā†©