I got an email, but hadn't previously commented and I didn't get any votes back.. so I'm not sure if I voted in the first place and maybe took the votes back?? The email says "An idea you voted for has been closed!"

So I guess I must have voted for this before.

Uservoice status update emails confirmed working for me. Thanks!

I got an email regarding this. But it could just be because I commented.

I'd support a vacation mode too--or maybe call it "offline" mode. It's not the same as setting the goal rate to 0; I may still plan to work on my goal during vacation. But if I'm on a camping trip, I will probably not have a scale with me to track my weigh loss goal. I'd like to be able to tell Beeminder that I'll be away for X days and unable to update, with an option of either suspending the goal during my absence OR maintaining it and suffering the consequences if all those s'mores I ate around the campfire sent me off the rails. The decision would be made before going offline.

@Wraithan, for injuries we have the SOS clause -- http://blog.beeminder.com/sos -- though in practice we've gotten much friendlier about that since no one seems inclined to abuse it.

Another reason for this feature is injury. If I have a cycling goal and I wreck my bike and have to take 2 weeks off. I am pretty much screwed if I was already close to the line. This has happened to me with my own home built systems and I am sure it could happen in this one as well.

Not having this feature prevents me from using Beeminder for many goals, including weight loss. I travel from time to time on business, and for many goals I simply can't work on them, or even track them, while traveling. And it's not uncommon that I don't find out that I'm going on a trip until a day or two (or in some cases a few hours) prior to departure.

I understand the weasel potential of being able to simply "suspend" measurement for a while, but it's a reality for me. I could set my general goals to be sufficiently laid back that not logging for a week or two is okay, or I could make a habit of "fibbing" while traveling, but both seem worse than being able to suspend.

My own preference is for the other idea over this. (Matthew: good point about splitting votes -- we'll try to mentally aggregate these two!)

It seems this suggestion is just different enough from the "allow scheduling of days off in advance" that they maybe should stay separate. This is talking about staying at the same rate, but not entering the data until returning. The other is talking about changing the goal rate to 0 (flat road) for the duration of the vacation. For this one, a pause button of some sort might be good. That could keep it from refreshing the graph until the pause button is deselected upon returning. This way, there's no need to specify an end date. You'd then enter your data, deselect pause (or the entering of data again could automatically un-pause it). You would need to know you're doing enough to stay on track. You'd be driving blind but if you know what's needed, this could work.

As Glenn has already pointed out this is very similar to https://beeminder.uservoice.com/forums/3011-general/suggestions/2489098-allow-scheduling-of-days-off-in-advance - if the 23 votes currently pointing at this item moved to that suggestion the Beeminders would see how much love that item has - we're currently splitting our votes.

This is related but not identical to http://beeminder.uservoice.com/forums/3011-general/suggestions/2489098-allow-scheduling-of-days-off-in-advance .

Bethany's solution can be made more streamlined by having a vacation mode that you have to declare in advance (optionally.. this is the spirit problem) which takes care of setting all goals to 0 during that period _and_ putting them back up to what they were before after that period. Saves the hassle of doing so manually.

You could technically also add post-dated data (ie, add data that hasn't happened yet). It lets you do that currently though it's not at all clear that it should. It certainly seems to kind of violate the spirit of Beeminder! Bethany's solution is probably better.

The way to do this now -- go off the grid without losing -- is to either build up a sufficient safety buffer ("safebuf" tells you the number of days before you're off the road), or plan ahead and dial your rate down to 0 for the period when you're going off-grid. It would probably be nice to have a richer interface for adding a vacation flat spot, though -- because right now you have to plan ahead and remember to hit the dial a week before you leave.