Slashdot Mirror
Your Ex-CoWorkers Will Kill Facebook
Random BedHead Ed writes "Cory Doctorow writes about the downside of social networking on the Information Week site, with a focus on Facebook. While he starts with some minor but insightful quibbles, he quickly moves to a critique of the core of social networking: 'Imagine how creepy it would be to wander into a co-worker's cubicle and discover the wall covered with tiny photos of everyone in the office, ranked by 'friend' and 'foe,' with the top eight friends elevated to a small shrine decorated with Post-It roses and hearts.' Do you really want to add your boss and coworkers to your friends list? (And more to the point, do you really have a choice?)"
Guys I DON'T want following me - temp's from startups, etc!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
The people who run Facebook aren't stupid - there's so much money involved here that I am sure they will find a solution to this. As for me, I'd just block my old co-workers when I leave, unless I strongly trust them on a personal level.
How many people thought about this 12 years ago and have maintained separate online identities for Work and Recreation?
I did.
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
Hide all your data. Add only the friends you want to be able to see your facebook page.
Or just not use Facebook in the first place.
Maybe just don't use it. What is your company going to do, fire you for not wasting work time creating a virtual soap opera?
stuff |
Facebook will kill your ex-coworkers
Facebook has already got this figured out... they're testing a new feature that lets you create alternate personalities to keep your various personalities away from each other...
Schizophrenia is a perfectly reasonable response to modern society, if you've accepted that you can't change it and you want to live at any cost, I suppose...
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
It's beyond me why people are so quick to spill their most personal secrets on a social networking site; it just seems to me that people have no idea that anything that they say, type or post is often available for the world to see. Sorry but I don't like that kind of invasion of privacy and I never have...I can remember being 13 years, being on AOL and being wary to give any personal information out that I would want to be in public domain, but I seem to be very alone in this idea in my peer group (26 now).
Heck, I've even had people I used to work attempt to add me to their friends list and I rejected them. Then again I'm one of those people who only accepts invitations from people I know in the flesh, don't allow myself to be searched for and never post anything on the profile anyways.
I can't imagine why, but I don't seem to care what my coworkers think, what my boss thinks, or what my ex-coworkers think. Perhaps that's why I was willing to add them.
I do recognize that some people have the kind of boss that demand to be added to my profile. I'd simply have ignored him. If I was really pushed, I'd either let him fire me (fun times ahead!) or give him access to the limited profile.
Again, though, my boss isn't an ankle-dragging technical cretin.
That would be LinkedIn.
I wrote parts of this stuff
Your Ex-CoWorkers Will Kill Facebook
At least those idiots will do something right before they die.
Speedy thing goes in; speedy thing comes out.
I thought Face Book was largely a college-age thing. Why would you and your coworkers be using it?
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
Because the printable version contains no ads. I am appalled. As long as Slashdot condones stealing money out of the pockets of InformationWeek and the like, no one is going to care enough about Web 3.0 to create it.
LinkedIn has interesting phrases such as "only people you trust". In theory this is to prevent such abuse, but in reality it is socially unacceptable in many situations (like the workplace) to not add people to your network if you know them in person. What are you supposed to do when you see these people everyday? Even a polite turning away might turn them into an enemy. But most people know this problem with LinkedIn, so if you have a large network, the network does not serve to reflect those you trust, but how many people want to be in your network. They want to be in your network for a reason, so it becomes a positive reflection on your worth. Just treat recommendations as the real measure of trust.
Seriously, the whole thing is creepy.
Please sign petition to restore sanity to our banking system!!!
http://financialpetition.org/
Wait 'till they find out about Fuckbook...
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
You might say, well if I'm friendly outside of work with one coworker and add that one person to a friends list, but then that person adds every one in the office, including the big boss, to his/her list, can't those people then link back to my page?
Well, yeah, welcome to society. This is not news. This is not technology related. Folks interact. Something you share with one person may in turn be shared by that person with others. It's called discretion, get some.
Just hit ignore. I do that all the time to friends, family, coworkers etc. They really don't need to see the photos I have posted, nothing horrible that would get me into trouble mind you. just simply a none of their business scenario.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
George: You have no idea of the magnitude of this thing. If she is allowed to infiltrate this world then George Costanza as you know him ceases to exist. You see, right now I have Relationship George. But there is also Independent George. That's the George you know, the George you grew up with... Movie George, Coffee Shop George, Liar George, Bawdy George.
Jerry: I love that George.
George: Me too, and he's dying. If Relationship George walks through this door, he will kill Independent George. A George divided against itself cannot stand!
Developers: We can use your help.
The problem with social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace; et all, is not in regards to their intended use. Rather, it is in the fact that often times in our "new" professional working environment, we have the view that being professional, is the same as being social. So, as a manager, my employees actually feel hurt when I deny them access to my private, closed access Myspace page. When asked I reply with "company policy, sorry" but the reality is, the old rules of there being a division between work and home is dead. If I try to separate my personal life from my professional life, my employees feel an emotional detachment from me, which hinders professional development. However, if I were to include them into my social networking, they would quickly confuse my personal choices with their professional behavior. For example my peers have received feedback during coaching conversations to employees "how can you try to coach me on appropriate topics of conversation while at work when last night your status was 'i need a blunt and some cock tonight'". Details aside, yes it is the case that the difference is at work vs not at work, but people confuse that happens in our personal lives with what happens in our professional lives. My father worked at IBM for nearly 40 years, and the rules he lived by in the office were the complete and total opposite to what I experience at another Fortune 500 company. It is unfortunate that my 17-25 year old employees simply do not see the difference between work and play. More worrisome is my 25-40 year old peers who cave to the pressures to involve the employees in their social networking sites, and have serious professional consequences when something goes awry, or someone decides to create drama. A possible solution posed by some companies is to create internal professional networking sites. Managed by company employees and governed by existing policy, these sites work to enable managers to have professional relationships with employees, while maintaining work-life balance. However, Myspace is compelling, as is sex, and lurid details about interesting people's lives (or uninteresting lives as the case may be). Simply stated, bad bosses use Myspace as a way to monitor or snoop on employees personal lives. As such, everyone, Managers and Employees alike should view it with a healthy dose of skepticism and distrust.
Seriously? I thought real people grew out of social networking when they got out of college...
Here were are at the obvious end conclusion. Social networking sites are not bad just for children, they are bad, period. Diary books normally come with a lock and key, social network sites come with an invitation for you to share your personal diary with the rest of the world, whether the rest of the world has any desire to read it or not. Social networking is to the Internet what reality tv is to video based entertainment. If we could get the pages judged by American Idol judges, perhaps it would be a bit better, but as long as bright neon spandex clothing continues to be sold in XXXL sizes, social networking sites will continue to plague society.
I personally think it is a bonus feature for my next job interview that I don't have a social networking account.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
While it can be hurtful to be removed from a friend list, usually there's a reason behind it. Two popular reasons are interaction has slowed to a halt for quite a time between you and someone else, or something has been done to offend one party. In the first case, I hope many will accept the fact that people sometimes move on. There are plenty of people I know from high school or college that I talked to routinely while in attendance, but we never shared a truly meaningful relationship. In the case that you have done something to offend another person, many times this is spawned from a misunderstanding the person who removes you as a friend without thinking it through is generally a more non-confrontational person. Sometimes you being removed as a friend may be the only way you have to know you've pissed them off so in that way it can be a tool.
Additionally and as for the top friends application seen on facebook, it is just that... an application. You can choose to add this if you want to which I have opted out of. In many ways it seems the target use for such an ap is either to add almost everyone to it, or to selectively use it to spawn jealousy. Because I choose to take part in neither of those activities, that component can be entirely avoided. On most social networking sites such a feature is also optional, and while some people opt-in, if jealousy is to be avoided - so should the application.
The original generic sig.
Anybody stupid enough to actually have those myspace-esque applications deserves all the s*** they get!
Seriously - how many of us slashdottians actually have installed apps like TopFriends? Or am I the only one who hates them?
Do you really want to add your boss and coworkers to your friends list? (And more to the point, do you really have a choice?)
No, I don't, and I haven't. I've had people at work friend me on Facebook, I've ignored every one. My boss recently said she got a Facebook account, and I told her not to bother friending me because I would just ignore her request anyway. Thankfully most people I work with are adult enough to understand why (separating professional from personal).
I can't be the only person whose sick of these pttbt.ca plugs. I get it, and your site is even funny from time to time, but I don't need to reminded about it on every /. post.
They don't have a clue what Facebook is, and even if they did, they wouldn't use it because the UI is too confusing for them.
That's what happens when you code PL/SQL for ten-plus years in a 4-GL IDE - your brain turns to mashed turnips.
What?
clod. Atleast you get a cubicle.
Regarding Facebook: Why not just give them your limited profile? Most people wouldn't even know.
Right...
That would be so unprofessional, not to mention risky. Feelings would be hurt. It's one thing to selectively lunch or dine or smoke with or chat with a core group of co-workers. It's obvious, and natural.
However, ranking the entire company or division or building/site would risk incurring strange or dangerous reactions. Imagine the spurned one-time fling or would-be lover spurned by company policy or by a new, hot competing love interest in our outside the company.
I think LISTING friends for all to see is risky in and of itself. That's why it's good that Facebook allows/permits/enables disclosure by levels. But, unless an electronic tool or bored person or group daily or hourly looks people up, they may not know ALL friends, nor be able to strike up a "friendship add" to deepen the queries. But, ranking employees on paper and hanging the hierarchy for all passers to peruses could alienate or distract co-workers.
It could worsen if B2B rankings happen. Imagine a competitor's partner who might by necessity be your company's partner getting hold of the company or B2B listing just by taking it and not being caught.
Companies need to institute policies on this.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
is a networking site for anti-social people.
Oh, right. Where did I post this? Duh.
In former-Soviet Russia, your ex-coworkers kill you!
As an example, I (anon cow..) do not participate on the social networking sites, or post myself on the web, period.
Yes, I have logged into Facebook once, just to create the account. However I have not logged into it since. That was over a year ago. As far as MySpace is concerned, only reason I exist there is because of my band Myspace page. Outside of that, I'm listed on my work website, which is google indexed. I'm also listed under archive.org, since the band puts the live shows up for download for free. And I'll show up for a one time bug I posted to bugs.gentoo.org.
In all, thats my public existence on the web. That is it. As I work in IT, I spend around 8+ hours a day on the computer and internet. Every other presence I have on the net exists under obscure usernames. Sometimes consistent across domains and forums, sometimes not.
Why so limited exposure on the net? Why not. I see no need to broadcast my life onto the web. Granted I'm socially inept and probably undiagnosed manic depressive, schizophrenic, or bipolar, but I still don't see the need to have my 'life' outside of work, revolve around my internet connection.
Your Ex-CoWorkers Will Kill Facebook
No, no, no. That's not right at all.
Bill's Ex-CoWorkers Will Fucking Kill Facebook
Or buy it.
UTF-8: There and Back Again
The columnist is freaking out because he/she has to go to Facebook to get their Facebook messages ... huh? This article is some kind of weird rant.
Corey makes some good points. Facebook is better than MySpace. Maybe we can take his suggestions and make something better than Facebook. Different types of relationships (ie not just bidirectional friends) would be a start.
It's socially awkward to refuse to add someone to your friends list
No, it's not. Nor does clicking the easily found "deny" button automatically make somebody "a foe." Actually, come to think of it, this here Slashdot place is one of the only ones I've come across that allows both friend and foe designations.
-- but removing someone from your friend-list is practically a declaration of war.
No, it's not. Well, maybe if you're so unable to deny the initial friend request then this is a problem, but neither of these seem to me to be problems with the sites themselves. They sound like user problems to me.
Slightly disreputable, albeit gregarious
In many corporations politics are critical to your success. This permeates through the corporation.
Now what do you do if your boss says they want to be your 'friend'?
This could be politically damaging no matter how you answer it.
What if he isn't in political favor and you want a promotion to another department?
Yes, politics is stupid shit, It's wasteful, harmful, and hurts organization. It is real, and in some career tracks, inescapable. Fortunately IT workers are buffered away from it more then other workers.
The technology part is that what is on your facebook/blog/whatever last a lot longer and come and bite you in the ass.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Will they hurry the f*ck up already?!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
You have no idea how much I laughed after reading that. The voices and everything were perfect in my head!
These pundits get paid to talk about technology in terms of way it would've been done in the past and how ridiculous it looks now to do that, relating to the past.
Its new technology, its here, just use it or loose it.
As with telephone, way in back times, you didn't have to see the person you're talking to. That must've been pretty weird experience, when to talk to someone you really had to go over and see them.
Revolutionary technology is always weird, you don't have to walk then miles and think ten days to figure it out. It even more pathetic, trying to bend yourself out of shape, trying to imagine weirdness of said technology. Its been said too, that people never really accept new ideas, rather they die and newborn get to understand that the world way it is, is just normal.
and in a cool way as well (I thought about coding something like this in my spare time, otoh at the moment I have very little of that).
------------
First of all every account is allowed as many profiles as they want, every profile can be completely different, and tagged with a descriptive name so you know what it's about ('work profile', 'ex's profile', etc.)
Every profile also has a 'trust value', the higher the trust value, the more you need to trust people to show this profile.
Every user has a trust value as well, if the user is in multiple groups they will be presented with the profile they have the most trust for (say, if you have a coworker whom you also play poker with every now and then, but that you don't really trust as much as others, you could have them in both groups BUT they'd still see your 'work' profile)
Your admin interface is a big field divided in sections/shapes based on how many profiles you have. Every 'friend' in your network is a little square with their picture, you can drag your friends to different 'groups' on your 'profile desk'. If your friend is in multiple groups, you can right-click-move them where you get a windows-like 'move here or create shortcut here'
-------------
this would let you solve all privacy issues in a very user friendly way, and I also bet people would get really into rearranging their friends, creating groups and shuffling people around, and so on. If a user had thousands of friends, the interface also would create 'stacks' (which would be easier to move) etc. etc.
-- the cake is a lie
I take your point, but in our defence, they're not plugs in the traditional sense, I think... we take a few good stories out of the "mysterious future" and try to write parodies of them before they go live. It's a fun exercise, not meant to annoy anyone. We'll look at changing our approach over the next few days, and if it still bugs you, let us know.
A fellow without much credibility in my book since the dustup with Ursala LeGuin over his posting her entire one paragraph story and then not allowing comments on his fake apology to her. Putting up a comment board to comment on his stories and articles from around the web and then not allowing comments, what a concept. Also if you mention that fact on his site you get the dreaded 'removal of your vowels' censorship. Funny how the most avowed 'liberal' folks turn into little Nazis when given a tiny bit of power.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
They want to be in your network for a reason, so it becomes a positive reflection on your worth.
And that's why I've stayed away from social networks. Why oh why would a person want to tell the whole world who they went to school with, who they went to college with, who they work with and who they hang out with other than to make some kind of a claim about their worth? I've got enough things to worry about in my life; I don't need people to start prejudging me because of who they see associated with my name.
There isn't a top eight on Facebook... so I guess problem solved.
It's socially awkward to refuse to add someone to your friends list -- but removing someone from your friend-list is practically a declaration of war.
So, these services should just automatically de-list people after a year or two, unless you consciously refresh them.
Done.
Jesus Christ, dude. Would you knock it off with the faux-Onion link whoring? The first couple were alright, but it's just getting lame now. We get it - you've got an Onion-style satire site with a tech slant. Please quit spamming every article with disguised links to your site - it confuses trigger-happy moderators into thinking your posting something, you know, relevant or informative.
Mods - the parent post is just a link to his own satire site. His post is sitting at +5 Interesting right now and doesn't address the issue raised in the original article in any way whatsoever. Please don't reward affiliate linkwhoring with Interesting or Insightful mods.
"You and your third dimension."
It's because they're hoping to score with Hot Internet Chicks. Seriously, I met this girl at a bar a few weeks back, and when I asked her for her email she said she'd find me on facebook instead.
You can't take the sky from me...
"This is not news. This is not technology related."
It is a shift in "acceptable" social norms spurred by technology. There have always been situations, things analogous in non-technical matters to social networking sites. The technology is the change; the dumbing down of relationships and relaxing of natural real-world boundaries that were previously there. Guess where "technology" lets this flow? It sinks to the lowest common denominator.
Previously, if you walked up to someone you knew slightly and stated "make me your friend, tell me who your other friends are, let me read your journal.", you'd be looked at as a creepy idiot.
Now, it's "normal" to do this because of things like Facebook, etc. It's "expected". You are supposed to "tell all about you" because everyone else does.
"It's called discretion, get some."
Discretion is great until it precludes you from something because you won't "play along" with what someone else is doing. If you don't care about your career, then go right ahead. Problem solved for me, I never use the things and never will; over-hyped bullshit it is.
JERRY: Hello?
VALERIE: Who's this?
JERRY: It's Jerry. Who's this?
VALERIE: Uh, it's Valerie.
JERRY: Oh, hi Valerie. What's up?
VALERIE: I'll tell you what's up. My stepmother is violently ill, so I hit the
button for poison control and I get you!
JERRY: Wow, poison control? That's even higher than number one!
Valerie hangs up the phone.
JERRY: Hello?
[END]
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Roger that. My apologies. No ill will intended.
This is why I keep around 4 or 5 independent personalities online, each for a distinct forum/social network site.
This is only one of them.
...claim you've never heard of and put on a plausible expression of puzzlement about the subject. This has been great fun for me in many public situations when someone mentions Myspace as if it's some uber playground to meet people.
Random Person: "Hey, you should check out my MySpace page."
Me: "WTF is MySpace?"
Random Person: "You've never heard of MySpace?"
Me: "Nope. I spend too much time face to face with people in the real world, hang out with people I know, meet new clients at random, work in the field - you know, I have a LIFE."
Inevitably the reaction of the "Random Person" is all too funny. Especially when I manage to keep a straight face and convince them I've never heard of MySpace, even when I hear too damn much about it. Social networking sites are largely in the realm of an adolescent dick waving contest - a whole bunch of dicking around for nothing.
As for me, I'll stick to the real world, especially when it comes to meeting anyone new.
For the former, it is not an issue either. Everyone is their friend, and everyone is included. It is all about earning opportunities.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
seriously? i don't get it...
signed,
Oscar Foxtrot
The fact that you asked for her email and not her phone number shows shows a shift in culture itself.
How about the OP just doesn't add the people he doesn't want to be associated with on a private level?
Saying no is easy enough, if you're over 11 years old.
I have spoken'eth.
But what exactly does that have to do with adding friends on Facebook?
/* No Comment */
Nope, it just shows that he a) wasn't serious about asking her out, b) too dumb to realize he wasn't appearing serious about asking her out. Emails (and facebook) are "safe" - emails get lost, you can not respond to them, you can take your time, etc. A phone call is immediate and puts you on the spot right then and there. The GP probably won't respond, but I'd bet she didn't look him up. And thats your fault!
Yes! One of the best George moments ever.
Wake up call - Friend or Foe is not Facebook. It is an add on application used to rank your friends list, one of several. Personally I find the whole idea of ranking people from important to not important pretentious - so I do not install those applications.
Prior art:
Danny's "list of people to kill"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SADRcGrIo7g
Now THAT would be creepy.
HAHAha, I've seen you post some insightful stuff man, that's why I tagged you as a friend. But otherwise, I'd never seen this post since you're modded DOWN, baby DOWN!!
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
The site is hilarious. Give the man a break, it's worth a +5 Funny and a bit of traffic. Besides, if he didn't, I would post them, and I have no connection to the site at all.
Meh, people are getting too fussy. Oh well, I'll do what I can to fix it in metamod.
'Imagine how creepy it would be to wander into a co-worker's cubicle and discover the wall covered with tiny photos of everyone in the office'
ZOMG! Run for the hills!!!!
maybe my imagination is weak because that would hardly even register...
why would i care?
Whinging about moderation always gets modded down. Most people figure that out. The length of time it takes to figure it out is in roughly inverse proportion to their intelligence. There are some interesting aphorisms about repeating the same actions and expecting different outcomes that you might want to look up.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Creepy ex-coworker. Spy nut. Gun owner. Yuck. I solved the problem by "re-booting" my LinkedIn after a few months, and slowly adding back most of the people I really cared about. Mid 100k /. userid, posting AC for obvious reasons.
"Schizophrenia is a perfectly reasonable response to modern society, if you've accepted that you can't change it and you want to live at any cost, I suppose..."
Schizophrenia is not Multiple Personality Disorder...
Deleted
I've already run into this issue with my Xbox360 profile. Several coworkers and I were all on each others friends list to play Gears of War against each other. Then my boss joined us which was fine. Then a month after that I get a friend request from the CEO of the company. At first I thought nothing of it, until the CEO commented on how later I was up on the 360 a few nights ago and how I was 10 minutes late the next day. Now I have two accounts, but what sucks is all my achievements, unlocked content, etc are on the original account. Also I've given up my myspace account(didn't use it much to begin with) because some stalker chick at work kept sending me friend requests and making comments about my profile and pictures. I really don't think this social networking stuff is for the better.
- 100,000 books were finished
- Somebody organized their sock drawer
- Painters painted
- 17 people got a promotion
- Progress was made towards curing cancer
- A group of climbers summited Everest
Put down the keyboard and go do something.I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Someone stupid enough to be a member of facebook are most likely stupid enough to add co-workers and their boss to their friends.
You could just use social networking sites for their intended purpose--to network your friends.
Why people chose to use networking sites as online diaries is beyond me.
Okay, I can accept that some people live and die by FaceBook, MySpace, what have you. Personally, I think that they have about as much "real world" relevance as Second Life (the media darling of just a few months ago.) If it is easily possible for a person to accumulate thousands of "Friends", then the concept of "Friend" on these services has absolutely no meaning.
If folks want to dedicate a lot of time/effort to these social networking site, I have no problem with that. But the likelihood of an "average" boss giving a flying fig as to who is or is not in an employee's online profile is approximately near zero.
Maybe, at the ripe old age of 30, I just don't "get it", but the real-world utility of this crap completely escapes me... Can somebody here enlighten me as to why an average employee should care?
SirWired
Am I the only person who thinks it's a completely unnecessary waste of time in the first place? I used to have a friendster account (for all I know I still do but I haven't logged in for well over 2 years) and used that to keep track of two people. As it turned out, I talked to them more in person or on the phone than by reading their accounts.
I have a journal account on the other one...LiveJournal I think it's called. It's completely unrelated to my other online nicknames and none of them are associated with real information about me. I use that about once a month to bitch about something or just write my impressions of movies etc.
Does anyone honestly care whether or not their facebook account stays "useful"?
And what ever happened to having a spine and telling coworkers that you're not really friends, you're colleagues, and you like to keep the two separate?
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
Eh, friends are overrated anyway, so I will continue to avoid Facebook, MySpace, and similar services. I prefer my internet kinda wild, nasty, and largely anonymous. Social networking sites add way more structure to online relationships than I would care to have, which leads to the situation in the article. Such structure seems to be of more benefit to marketers than to the members.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Simple answer: "I like to keep my work life work-related and my private life private." People need to get some backbone and learn how to think for themselves and stand up for themselves.
If you fear "an enemy" in the workplace you've been watching too many soap operas.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
Mario generally goes in feet-first, for some reason I don't fully understand. Unless the pipe is above him, in which case he floats into it. He keeps his hands by his sides, which may not be advisable - he could take up less space, width-wise, if he put them above his head.
Consciousness is a myth. Trust me.
First off, while I got my rear kicked a few times in school, I am the better for it. Looking back, I would not have it any other way. Now people move out of my way. (unless they are little old ladies for some reason they can't see a 6' stacked 260lb man)
Secondly, how bad did you leave your job? why was it on such bad terms that your worried about what they might comment? if you don't like a comment (at least on myspace) you can just delete it. If your ex coworkers are going to call you out, they are no longer your friends are they... DELETE THEM.
As far as the "true story", related to Burning Man, you have to be pretty dumb to publicize your "sketchy" or slightly off color habits / relationships that you don't want other people to know about without using an alias of some sort.
Rules for publishing to the net:
1. If you have something you don't think EVERYONE should have access to it, god forbid it gets close to the net.
2. Surely don't put it there yourself!
3. Lastly don't associate your "real" ID w/it if you do feel the need to show your dark side to anyone who might someday at least have a neighbor who owns a telephone and decides to get hooked to the tubes!
4. That last rule extends to your laptop, because wouldn't it suck if you took your laptop to the christmas party to show your coworkers digital pics when up pops your secret fetish about ********* or something even after you "tested" it @ home.
These rules are so obvious as to be bordering on obnoxios to even have to state it, but the necessity seems real.
For me, on my personal pages, I got nothing to hide. Some of the sketchy relationships I have I am not proud of, but they are relationships none the less, and I horde them because someday they might be useful (or at least add some fun to my funeral).Everyone who knows me well, knows my "/." alias so that they know the "real" me thoroughly. Besides it's derived from my BBS handle which grew suddenly out of politically correctness in the early '90s. Damn it when words take on two meanings, but I digress...
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
Schizophrenia is not Multiple Personality Disorder...
The voices in my head say it is...
Mrs Palmer and her 5 daughters? :-P
See my art -> http://herbevore.deviantart.com
There's no "ranking" feature in Facebook*. You can either decline people as friends or control how much of your profile they can see. That's it. And none of that is visible to anyone else (save whether or not you've added someone as a friend).
* I'm sure by now there's apps that do this, but that's by choice and your friends would have to add the same app to see the results.
You know, as a guy who does not work in a cubicle or even in an office, I have to wonder, how creepy would it be to wander into a co-worker's cubicle, period?
Totally cubical, dude.
It's not that big of a deal if people want to find you. In this modern day and age anyone can find anyone, regardless of if you have an open facebook account. Personally, if I were looking to hire someone, I'd look to see if they had a facebook account and I'd research their personality. If you aren't on facebook, what are you hiding? Why are you paranoid? Do you think people are out to get you? Since the future is all about information, I say I might as well set my visibility up in a way that I want it presented. The future is here, learn to deal with it or watch it pass you by.
Meh.
Ex-CoWorker: All your face are belong to us. Ex-CoWorker: You are on the way to destruction. Employee: What you say!!
...if your coworkers PUT the pictures there. I smell troll...
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
You can all join my facebook groups, they are called: "I Have No Friends In 'RL'", "Kirk is better than Picard" and "Tips On Making Your Basement Cozy".
Hello,
This is yet another reason for me to not jump on the whole social website bandwagon. I've yet to understand the appeal and this doesn't help it's case. I do just fine with staying in touch with and involving people in my life. I do this all in the real world through face-to-face interaction and phone calls. I do it online using old technology like email.
Do people really need to be so connected and so in pseudo real-time? I don't. My family doesn't. My friends don't seem to. So, who does? Could the social thing be yet another thing where many are trying to be cool by adopting what a few think is cool? I suspect so.
Later,
-Slashdot Junky
.
Landfill Mining Co.
Managing the (Un)natural Resources of Tomorrow
Don't bother apologizing to the nerds around here. You'll piss someone off with every thing you do. Let them get their rant on, and ignore them. It's the only sane course.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
I'm assuming you are trying to act like one of those creepy co-workers they mentioned in the article? Comments like yours are best suited for facebook. Notice how I can still be a troll, make my point, and still be on topic? You might want to take a page from that playbook. If you are Troll, keep up the good work. If you are a guy trying to make a real point, you are failing.
Yes you have a choice. Just don't approve their friend request. But don't disapprove it either. Just let it sit there. Their page won't show anything different, and if they happen to find you again and try to add you again, it'll simply tell them there's already a pending friend request. That makes it look as if you never log in.
If someone can't keep their primary and secondary groups separate, then they probably don't have many friends to worry about embarrassing themselves to.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
Knell 1:
Firstly, I was invited to join Facebook by someone I knew a while ago. I thought, gee how sweet, ok. Once signed up, I discovered it's an automated email based on your Yahoo address book.
Knell 1(b):
When I contacted her to say "hi, thanks for inviting me, how have you been?" she apologised, not having realised she'd invited me. (insert canned laughter here)
Knell 2:
A close friend spotted me online and invited me. Again I thought, how nice. When I saw his page - 40+ friends and most interactions being via these game/toy-proxies without any real communication going on, I didn't really see the point.
Knell 3:
Soon ended up having 8 friends, people I actually knew. I refused adding all these toys (vampire bites, likeness polls, etc.) that people sent me, but instead wrote a few blog entries about what I've been up to. No-one else had any, and no-one read mine.
Facebook is already dead if you ask me.
Patience.
The spirit of Facebook is already dead.
my friends and I did this about 10 years ago, we created an excel chart (called the coolness chart) and had it printed out and was posted on my walls weekly when people came over so that they could do their weekly mods - there were 5 sections of 10 categories each where you gave a 100 point scale to each category, each section was given a raw % and in the end an overall % per rater and overall %(we also had fictitious people and celebrities on the charts for comparison)- it was really funny, all of my friends would walk around with little pads and mod down intelligence when someone did something stupid or mod up personality if the did something cool- in the end it was really funny because you found that some people that you didn't think were so "cool" ended up being the highest scoring since physical attractiveness and style were only 2 of 50 possible categories.
I have wanted to revive this again at some point and put it on line for people to use because it would be amusing to see people modding up and down people like we used to
I added someone as a friend recently. It was a guy from school. After adding him, I realised, that whilst we weren't enemies at school, we weren't what you'd consider friends: more like acquaintances. So i deleted him and wrote a message behind the deletion.
I have no received and communication back.
I'm pretty sure what I've done has instantly been labelled "bitchy" in terms of Social Networking (SN), but I can certainly see within years that there are going to be heaps of people eon my list that whilst I do not hate, just don't classify as friends any more.
Perhaps this would be easily solved by adding certain groups to the friends and allowing individuals to slide through the different groups as time goes.
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
I wish Facebook would add a feature that allowed grouping your friends into categories (coworkers, friends, etc.) for your own organization purposes. I used to have a bunch of former co-workers, and distant former friends on my friends list. But I live far from most of them now, never come in contact with them, and probably won't, except in rare cases. So I don't need to know that Jane painted her living room and is waiting for the hottub to be installed. It got ridiculous all the status updates for people that I really didn't interact with.
:) It's the new equivalent of mass-mailings of cutsie-pie stuff.)
So I pruned my list down to mainly people I am actively friends with, or with whom I keep some lines of communication open.
It'd be nice to be able to put users into categories with different features; I don't want to see status updates for former co-workers, and so forth.
(And on a side note, please kill Funwall.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
....and one person pulled a bunch of statistics out of his ass.
I went and created a facebook account. Of course, I used a fake name, because I'm interested in /minimizing/ my online privacy exposure, not increasing it.
But then once I've logged in, what am I supposed to do with it? "Find Friends"? All of the people that I need to talk to I talk to in person.
I suppose I could go look up people who were in my high school, but I didn't have any friends in high school so there's not much point there. There's no one I went to college with that I want to keep up with that I don't already keep up with. My coworkers I work with every day so I don't need a web page to talk to them. Morever, none of the companies I've ever worked for even show up.
I just really don't understand what I'm supposed to DO with Facebook.
I guess the biggest thing is I just don't have any friends I need to find, and the one or two I am aren't there.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
And you should keep work and personal lives as seperate entities. Sure - if you have a friend at work that understands "This is Work" "This is NOT work" fine, they can intermix. Anyone (matters not if you like/respect them) that cannot - well, don't mix the two.
Save yourself some grief and don't add anyone and everyone to your friends list.
Where does all this social fear come from? I'm not looking for a job as a super-hero, so I don't think I really need a secret identity. Why are you afraid of people knowing you?
;) )
You ask good questions in a respectful tone on Slashdot, so you've got nothing to fear, you're probably a good guy. (and, hey, on my Fans list, so that just confirms it
Others here might have lets their Tourette's syndrome show and flamed the grandparent. That is to say, if you're an asshole you'd do well to have an online personality.
This just tells me that I need to hire people who have an active real online personality. Thanks for making me think that through!
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Replying to people who are Whinging [sic] about moderation always gets modded down. Most people figure that out. The length of time it takes to figure it out is in roughly inverse proportion to their intelligence. There are some interesting aphorisms about repeating the same actions and expecting different outcomes that you might want to look up.
How you like them apples? Yet another dope roped in. Score one for me. I have bad Karma. I had to log out to post this. But you, haha, got splashed with some of my acidic Karma. Serves you right, sucker!
For those of us who are link-impaired and have other RTFA issues, I have included it below.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.