Forums vs. Social Media

[Orac Zen]

Forums, particularly decent-sized ones like this where cliques are easier to avoid. Discussion and interaction is easy and I can readily ignore anything that doesn't interest me.

The only social media site that's ever kept my interest for any length of time is LiveJournal (remember it?). Stalkbook's quite pathetic attitude to the privacy of its users ensures I won't be logging into my account again. Twitter has its uses but for meaningful interaction and discussion it's pretty useless. I haven't bothered with any of the others and don't have any plans to do so any time soon.

 

[ichab]

Prefer social media by far. There really isn't a topic that I haven't discussed ad nauseum on forums for the past ten plus years.Plus you have to wade through all the idiots who are only there to insult posters they disagree with. With Facebook I can control who pops up in my feed, not a moderator who might show favoritism.If someone gets out of line I can unfriend them and if they send me nasty messages I can block them. It's the main reason I frequent these type of forums a lot less than I use to.

You can choose to "ignore" people on forums, if there are any who annoy you that much.

Unless they are a moderator.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

Forums. Too much nonsense to wade through on social media. Here, if I want to see what someone is eating, or what their kids did on vacation, I pick the thread for that - and I don't have to aimlessly scroll through endlessly down the screen just find any interesting or useful content.

What SM ought to do is implement a system of "tags" and then allow you to configure your feed to be a list (or cluster) of tags allowing to find only the content you're looking for.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Speaking of social media being crappy, one of my friends made a post yesterday on my Facebook wall that had a somewhat graphic image in the preview. One of my friends complained (rightly so), and I asked the one who posted it if they could remove the picture.

Well, Facebook doesn't let you do that. You can only edit the preview when you are initially making the post. You can't later remove it or change the picture or anything. I had no choice but to delete the entire post. Virtually any other content platform would let you change things like that, but not Facebook. Blech. Piece of shit.

 

[hux]

A forum is sitting with a group of people in a room and conversing/debating. Social media is standing in the street naked, covered in chutney and screaming... "please fucking notice me!"

Then when you approach the naked chutney man and ask him why he's doing this, he responds with... "oh i only do it because it's useful for staying in contact with friends and family."

 

[Santaman]

What Richard Stallman has to say about facebook.
https://stallman.org/facebook.html

So no, I avoid Facebook like the plague, the internet would be a far better place without it.

I'm on a few old fora, less than in the past though, some have disappeared.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Ah, I see Stallman can never be right about something without being a huge prick at the same time, as usual.

 

[Santaman]

I do like the guy though, also he reminds me of.. eh.. me.. I can be a totally rude, overbearing megalomaniac...

 

[publiusr]

I just don't do Facebook. Forums, message boards--store a lot of wisdom over the years.

 

[Relayer1]

I wouldn't touch social media with someone elses barge-pole.

I'm on a total of three forums, covering vatious aspects of my interests in music and science fiction. Many of the discussions cover far wider subjects. It's enough for me...

 

[Amaris]

I use Facebook because it's the only way to stay in contact with members of my family, and my friends. They use it, and don't email or call, so FB it is. I mean, who are we kidding anyway? If Facebook doesn't get you, Google will.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I use it because most of my friends are neither paranoid techies nor Luddites and they won't use anything else.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I wouldn't know what to do with Facebook even if it dropped in my lap. I literally don't know what I would ever use it for.

Twitter and TrekBBS are as far as I get.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

I like forums, but have an FB account for games and keeping in touch with some people.

 

[Owain Taggart]

I'm a Forumer Americanus. Yeah, I like forums much more than social media. It's more conducive to actual conversations, and I think we tend to have some pretty deep discussions here at times.

Social media is more like: HEY! HI! What are you up to? Yeah, nice seeing you! Bye!

Speaking of social media being crappy, one of my friends made a post yesterday on my Facebook wall that had a somewhat graphic image in the preview. One of my friends complained (rightly so), and I asked the one who posted it if they could remove the picture.

Oh geez, yeah. The day Bin-Laden was killed? I had an insensitive person post that on her wall featuring a graphic cover picture. She was all gung-ho about it and while it takes much to get me upset, I tore into her. It really should be common sense to not post graphic pictures when it's going out to all their 'friends'.

 

[Amaris]

I get frustrated at people who post graphic stuff on their wall. There was a celebrity who posted a cat cut in half, in her bid to convince the rest of us to stop animal testing. I commented that it wasn't right to post that stuff so it shows up in people's news feeds, and she essentially said I was being sensitive and that I needed to toughen up. I unfollowed her.

I don't tolerate that bullshit from anyone. You want to protest? Fine. Don't post dead babies, or cut up animals in the name of your cause, because it will turn me off of your cause immediately. I know shock tactics when I see them.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Yeah, sometimes I feel some people don't really understand how Facebook actually works and should step away from the computer. It's as if netiquette has been thrown out the window.

All this discussion reminds me of this favourite clip:
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV2Hs2rgto8[/yt]

 

[Miss Chicken]

I like Trekbbs and Facebook.

I keep in contact with family and friends on Facebook. I also belong to various atheist and science groups there. i also have liked numerous cat, animal and other personal interest pages.

I like the Trek community because I have been here for 14 years and it feels like home.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

90% of my FB use is my family taking the piss out of each other. So, I enjoy it.

 

[Avro Arrow]

She doesn't think forums exist. According to her, anything that allows members to post comments is a blog site - whether it's an actual blog, newspaper/newscast comment section (ie. CBC.ca), forum, or Facebook.

Therefore, according to her, TrekBBS is a blog, we're posting on a blog right now in this thread... I guess filling out customer service complaints is really commenting on a blog, emails are blogs, the whole internet is just composed of blogs.

I tried explaining the difference, and giving concrete examples of sites where both she and I participate(d), and it was a classic case of "my mind is made up; don't even think of trying to confuse me with facts; I don't care if you've been a poster, moderator, admin, and owner of "forums" (always in quotes to make it clear that she doesn't think they're real) for the past 11 years, THEY'RE JUST BLOGS." (paraphrase)

So after all that crap, I wondered why, since she doesn't believe forums exist, is she still a member of my apparently nonexistent forum that she joined last year? Oh, right. She thinks it's a blog.

Well... that's just odd.

There was a celebrity who posted a cat cut in half, in her bid to convince the rest of us to stop animal testing. I commented that it wasn't right to post that stuff so it shows up in people's news feeds, and she essentially said I was being sensitive and that I needed to toughen up.

But not quite as odd as that! I don't even know where to begin...