the tragedy of facebook

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beev
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the tragedy of facebook

Post by beev » Sun Dec 02, 2007 8:02 pm

Does anyone else think there are too many messages coming from the forest through facebook?

I recently stopped taking the messages from the forest speaks because it is this constant dribble of notices that are just repeats from the bb and I spent far too much time deleting them from my email.

Now the same thing is happening with facebook. Because I don't go on that shit very often, I have it set to email me when one of my friends sends me a message. Now all the time my email inbox fills up with messages from facebook telling me that my facebook inbox is filling up with clutter from the forest!

Do we really need to rely on this thing to put out all our messages? Can't we keep it just for special announcements? As we discovered with the speaks, the value of the message is diluted when you bombard people with stuff, which only makes them switch off to it.

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Post by ravanwin » Sun Dec 02, 2007 8:28 pm

good point - any guidelines?
r

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martinmckenna
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Post by martinmckenna » Sun Dec 02, 2007 8:32 pm

i guess facebook is to reach people who dont use the bb much .

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Shannon
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Post by Shannon » Sun Dec 02, 2007 10:38 pm

I'm not sure we ever need to message people on facebook. We can invite them to events, and that is probably enough. Or, maybe the events can be sent out once/week and that's all.

I do not think there should ever be 'please volunteer' messages on facebook, unless it's a general thing - like once every six months - reminding people of how Forest stays open and does all the cool things it does...

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Post by swithun » Mon Dec 03, 2007 12:01 am

Yes - I never read Facebook stuff. I just use it to play scrabble with the beev. At the website meeting last week, Milk said that Joomla could interface with Facebook iCal events listings. I don't know anything about this, but it sounds clever. If people are going to use Facebook more than our own site for publicity, then it would be good to put the information in once and have it shared between sites.

Anyway, the kool kids use Bebo these days - I get all my McFly news there.

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dan
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Post by dan » Mon Dec 03, 2007 9:37 am

yep fully agree - only for events/weekly and occasionally if there's one of big parties eg blender happening etc. Or if the building falls down and you want to contact the relatives of those trapped inside...
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James
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Post by James » Mon Dec 03, 2007 11:00 am

Personally, I strongly feel we shouldn't be using facebook for anything we don't put somewhere else on the internet. I can't be the only one on this planet who doesn't use it and doesn't want to?

ForestSpeaks mailing list - lets move this away from Yahoo to, (mostly for reasons of not having our emails full of adverts for chinese dissident jailing companies)

TK has an email list on our own server - let set up another one using the same software. We could start doing weekly event emails and have one person who collates the information from those - that should cut back on the traffic a bit.

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Gandhi
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Post by Gandhi » Mon Dec 03, 2007 11:35 am

Just got to be carefull that we're going to end up with emails and postings going to different places....some for facebook, some for the bb, some for yahoo etc. It will get a bit messy and confusing, and people might miss events or meetings if they don't check the correct place.
Facebook is massive and reaches a lot of people which is usefull when you want to get people to come to events or meetings. However we also really really need to push the BB as its the best place for people to find stuff out and get more involved with the Forest shenanigans as they can see how decisions are made and become a part of that.

James you are most certainly not the only person who doesn't use Facebook, but there is a hell of a lot of people who do! Remember that just because a lot of the Forest crew don't use it doesn't mean a lot of other potential Forestites don't, and in fact it doesn't really matter that you guys don't use it, coz you already know about the Forest and the BB, and whats going on! It's not you who needs to read it, its for the people who don't know what its all about.
I personally think what we are doing with Facebook is usefull as I've been to a couple of meetings where people have also come along as they've found out it was happening through Facebook. And it's surely a great way of spreading the word about the Forest and whats going on. Maybe we should use it more? maybe not!?

We don't have enough people on the BB for it to be the only output for announcements which is unfortunate, but instead of stopping one thing and moving over to another would it not be better to try and transition more and more people over from Facebook and onto the BB, so that maybe in the future it can be the only notice board, as well as having a good presence on Facebook too?. Can we advertise the BB more on Facebook?

I do agree that as Facebook reaches a global audience, maybe the content should be more fitting for that audience, but at the same time I don't see the harm in asking for vollie help in the kitchen as well.

I really think we should trying to work out how to get more people on the BB and not worry too much about Facebook. People do read the announcements on Facebook, just because they don't reply to them doesn't mean they aren't interested in whats going on. Its easy and its free advertisement of the Forest to a larger audience.

That's what me finks anyways. :D
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beev
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Post by beev » Mon Dec 03, 2007 11:43 am

I dig what James is saying about the forest speaks. And yes, facebook's main redeeming factor is that you can play scrabble with people.

I don't think we should use facebook to promote events, except for the very occasional one-off mega event. Weekly events listings get promoted on the website, bb, and speaks, no? Surely that is enough.

I was thinking if anything we should promote wg meetings via the 'book, maybe in one monthly message that gives the times of all of them. It could also link to our events page and say to check that out regularly. Or maybe even that is too much?

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Post by chris » Mon Dec 03, 2007 11:56 am

i agree.

facebook only for events that are gonna be special (whether by us or not dont matter)

should def not be used for volunteer requests.
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Post by chombee » Mon Dec 03, 2007 12:04 pm

Maybe we can flood wastebook with so much forest junk that people just stop using it entirely.
Personally, I strongly feel we shouldn't be using facebook for anything we don't put somewhere else on the internet. I can't be the only one on this planet who doesn't use it and doesn't want to?
I agree with James, and I think the same argument goes for yahoo, myspace, or any of these other mega-corporate attempts to monopolise the social web. Using faceplant means agreeing to what faceplant represents for privacy, big business, etc. etc. It seems pretty antithetical to the forest to me. In any case, for some of us it means compromising our principles. People are gonna use facesplat and make a forest facesplat group and all the rest of it, but we should try not to coerce people into using it by making it so that to keep up with forest stuff, you need to be on facebook. For example, all our coolest photos should to on our 23hq account, and not just on facebook! (that's kinda my fault, for not promoting 23 enough, although thanks to the people who have posted photos to 23)
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Post by martinmckenna » Mon Dec 03, 2007 12:47 pm

there is already a event mailing list if you wish to use that . its here

http://mail.theforest.org.uk/mailman/listinfo

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ravanwin
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Post by ravanwin » Mon Dec 03, 2007 2:47 pm

i think it is fine to message with weekly events - it reminds people we are alive and doing things. this is good.

i think we can create events for special things. I will decide what is special based on what posters are emailed to me etc.

vollie call outs - no. (but we can use the wall etc)

random messages - no.

i think facebook is fine. it's easy to reach a lot of people who want to be reached.

r

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Shannon
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Post by Shannon » Mon Dec 03, 2007 4:37 pm

I think it is more important to message out working group meeting times than events. But maybe Dai´s listings should also include working group meeting times?

Single events should not get a message unless they´re blender scale.

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Post by ravanwin » Mon Dec 03, 2007 4:58 pm

not needed. i create listings for that. people are messaged for these via the event invite feature. it's neat. no need to cloud the events listings - it's a difficult and thankless task already.

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Shannon
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Post by Shannon » Mon Dec 03, 2007 5:02 pm

If we can just invite via events, then there never needs to be messages.

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Post by Jimmy Bastard » Mon Dec 03, 2007 5:23 pm

The weekly events listings will still go out on Facebook,
if you have a problem with t - don't use it
if you use it - that's your problem
the listings will also be sent out to the Speaks to boot.
they consist of little more than a link that redirects folk to the original posting on the People's Forum BB.
If there's consensus to also list the WG meetings along with events then I will stick them in.
Personally I prefer them separate but it is not a great issue to me.
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Shannon
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Post by Shannon » Mon Dec 03, 2007 5:27 pm

if you use it - that's your problem
It isn´t as simple as this. As we´ve seen with the speaks, if you bombard people with too many messages, they just get off the list. Or, in the case of facebook, remove themselves from the group (much easier for people than getting off mailing lists it seems). So, it´s important that messages are kept to a minimum or the mythical masses will read nothing.

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beev
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Post by beev » Mon Dec 03, 2007 6:59 pm

I think whatever we put out, it should all get rolled into one. Events, wg meetings, major shifts that need filling, buildings days etc - it could all be in one message sent out no more than once a week.

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Post by ravanwin » Tue Dec 04, 2007 1:01 pm

currently, aside for alex's plea and my c.o.l. post I don't think FB's use is a problem and that this discussion is a hypothetical waste of time. FB is not being used like speaks. Only a handfull of people can post. Mostly it's via the create an event link. however, creating an event for a week of events seems like lunacy and they are not all that worthwhile. And so --- dai sending out that once a week is good. many orgs. bundle all their info into one email per week or per fortnight. I do not think we are that good.

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Post by swithun » Mon Jan 14, 2008 3:37 pm

Sorry for necrotising (or whatever the phrase was), but I was just reading this article in the Guardian on how evil Facebook is. I thought we all knew how bad it was and yet we all carry on playing Scrabble and sending messages with it.

But it turns out we didn't know how bad Facebook was - it is about half a degree removed from the CIA and libertarian billionaire nutjobs. Motherfuckers. I'm not going to start any more games of Scrabble. I quite like the idea of these Jonestown stylee pacts. Who's with me? Once I've thrashed beev, Pomme and my aunt and sister at Scrabble.

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Post by James » Mon Jan 14, 2008 3:51 pm

swithun wrote: Once I've thrashed beev, Pomme and my aunt and sister at Scrabble.
Hmm. Knowing how competitive Pomme is, I have to ask - how long will that take? :-p

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Post by Newington Bandit » Mon Jan 14, 2008 6:17 pm

Don't use my scrabble skills as an excuse to stay on facebook Swith, you're not going to trash me. Ever.

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Shannon
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Post by Shannon » Mon Jan 14, 2008 6:46 pm

Alright, I'll do it with you swith. I said I was going to, and I even signed up to the group about permanently deleting your account, but I need some support. Want to pick a date?

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Post by Jimmy Bastard » Mon Jan 14, 2008 7:57 pm

I'm a big fan of Tom Hodgkinson, and as ever, that's a heavily informed article, but as with most internet ethics arguments there seems to be a lot of selective arguments or arguments that could easily be aimed at harder targets.
For instance, it seems that the main beef is about big business being sold ad space for top dollar, fairly nefarious, but the fact of the matter as it now stands, the Guardian page, that the article was linked on, carries four times more advertisments than my FB page including a competition to win a pair of tickets for a long haul flight.
As a bloke of average intelligence I'm easily attuned to ignore it as such that I wouldn't call it an irritant.
Fuck it, if buses don't carry whacking great ads all across their exterior, whereas cars are for the large part ad-free but it doesn't strike me as a complex moral call to still think taking the bus is the better choice.
Regarding data collection, I would also hope I was smart enough to not allude to any illegitimate aspects of my lifestyle, for the rest, the C.I.A. are welcome to the trivial minutae of my life, I feel you have to possess a pretty hefty ego if you feel The Man is going to come knocking at your door for putting the word 'comrade' on a triple-word score.
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Shannon
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Post by Shannon » Mon Jan 14, 2008 8:11 pm

I'm not going to try to convince everyone to come along with me, but the bigger issue for me is the detail on the people behind facebook. I do not want to give Thiel any money, even indirectly. Whilst I may be able to resist the tempting ads, someone is clicking on them and someone is buying stuff. Otherwise, Facebook would not be worth billions. And the more of us who are on the system, the more other people feel the pressure to join. It becomes more and more difficult to arrange your social life without the 'social networking utility.' I now thinking I'd rather have a mobile phone(!) In terms of the man hunting you down, I think the issue is more that if you are active in things that the man don't like, your entire social network can be mapped and tracked in an instance. In an instant they can procure your social timeline over the last however long... You are probably clever enough not to say anything incriminating on such a forum, but what if someone you know isn't? All of this can be called paranoia, but when one has first hand experience of groups being infiltrated or people being locked up for less than appropriate reasons, I think it's healthy. Anyway, this is more relevant for some people than others. Just make sure you tell us about the next hip thing via email or in person too, eh?

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Post by bill » Mon Jan 14, 2008 8:16 pm

check this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMWz3G_gPhU

no to forest facebook

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Post by James » Tue Jan 15, 2008 9:23 am

Selective drive by comments while I marshal my thoughts properly ...
Welsh Dai wrote:For instance, it seems that the main beef is about big business being sold ad space for top dollar, fairly nefarious, but the fact of the matter as it now stands, the Guardian page, that the article was linked on, carries four times more advertisments than my FB page including a competition to win a pair of tickets for a long haul flight.
The difference is the profile ... when you visit that Guardian Page, they have very little idea who you are, and so they are aiming their ads based on marketing sterotypes. On fb, they know everything about your likes and dislikes so they can aim adverts very specifically. The only reason I have a problem with this is because it implies that commerical companies start to have access to people personal data which was trusted to fb.

The CIA (or any secret government spying programme) argument is an important one, but your right about the selective part, there are many other culprits online.

For me the main reasons are the ones about spending your nights infront of a computer instead of actually with people, and all the politics surrounding who your "friends" are ...

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Post by Gandhi » Tue Jan 15, 2008 10:12 am

Interesting.
Well I spose it is evil :twisted: .

The CIA can have my details though, advert companies can target me. Im not a terrorist and I'm skint!
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Post by chris » Tue Jan 15, 2008 11:18 am

is it not the case that cia and government have access to all this information anyhow? with or without facebook, nothing on the internet is secure, they can read all our emails if they want too.. just facebook may make it somewhat easier for them.

additionally i am not bothered about ads. i would sooner adds were targetted to me. adds are a fact of life, if you live in a city/use computers/read at all they are inescapable. it would be great if when walking down the street and instead of the ad on the bus that drives by me saying 'buy endsleigh motor insurance' it said 'new 7-colour lazer with built in smoke machine and optional attachable helicoptor now only £355', i would be pretty fucking thrilled and would go and buy one immediately. but alas without targetted ads i am probably never going to hear of this dream machine.

if you have a mobile phone, they can triangulate your position pretty accurately if they want to find you. also they can get the record of all the numbers you dial (thus finding out who you know). they can even find out where you live...(wow! didnt know that)

more better, if you want to be reazlly subversive, everyone join facebook with false names and put in false details, that wauy you mess whith their statistics, which is the thing of value to them, however to make any difference it would take millions of people which isnt gonna happen.

i kinda hate facebook, but i also used to hate mobile phones too.

sometimes ads are funny, sometimes they are good, for example on facebook shannon stevens advertised the fact that she was attending 'Norman Finkelstein lecture in Edinburgh University.' i had not heard of this guy, and probably would not have heard of if it was not for facebook, so now i can go to this talk, otherwise, i would be sitting at home reading back issues of cia nights. !!!!!!!!!!PS. ISSUE 102 OUT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Shannon
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Post by Shannon » Tue Jan 15, 2008 6:15 pm

Silly Chris: I was going to tell you all about Norman Finklestein the next time I see you!! I knew you'd love him.

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Gandhi
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Post by Gandhi » Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:18 am

Looks like they'll be no more Scrabulous for those addicted to it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7191264.stm
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Post by swithun » Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:32 am

Cool. Now my decision is going to be easier. Although now online Scrabble is for baaad aaasses. I'll have to implement my own.

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Post by chris » Wed Jan 16, 2008 12:07 pm

the scrabble manufacturers would have to be pretty short sighted to do this.
Maybe it could work? But it will be a kaleidoscopic blend of mysterious shadows and rainbow hued-dreams seen through compassionate tears.

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Post by chombee » Wed Jan 16, 2008 10:50 pm

I think Dai is a CIA agent.
I've had it with you. If I had an image of a laser gun I would absolutely position it right here in my hand...
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