Everything Facebook - Pros, Cons, Changes, Advice, Help Needed...It's All Here, Folks

RD

Well-Known Member
Messages
4,365
I notice they do require you to put a birthdate down, though. (I choose not to show mine)
 

Alexa5

Member
Messages
46
I wouldn't say I think it is evil...I just think it is set up in a way that makes it more difficult than it needs to be. I haven't used google+ yet, but I already like what I have heard about that one in that it seems to be a more straightforward concept.

I guess for me it has never been worth the hassle to do facebook....if I want to talk to a family or friend we email each other, and that works. Plus I am fortunate that none of my family seems to be on facebook or rely on it. I do have friends on it, but those that I keep in touch with also will do email/phone, etc.

I don't have any problems with others that like FB, it just isn't for me, and I especially wouldn't like having to frequently update my settings to make sure my account stayed private, etc.
 

Jenny

From the Bloc
Messages
21,824
I notice they do require you to put a birthdate down, though. (I choose not to show mine)

As you said, you don't have to have it show, and they even give you the option of showing it without a year if you prefer, so your friends can still send you birthday messages. And of course, there's nothing to stop you from putting in a fake birthdate.

I don't buy this "you'll get robbed" business either. If your status updates can only be seen by your friends list, and you're getting robbed when you post that you'll be out or away, then I think you have a bigger problem than FB privacy for heaven's sake.

Naturally all the people who have issues and fears about FB are the ones who don't actually use it.
 

Prancer

Chitarrista
Staff member
Messages
56,079
I would also be interested in whether FB posts have led to someone being robbed.

I wouldn't be surprised if they had, but maybe not for the reasons people think.

I live in a burg where nearly everyone has kids; we are awash in people under 18. A police officer here told me that with a handful of exceptions, robberies here are committed by teens against the families of other teens. IOW, if we go out of town and come home to find that the house has been broken into, it is overwhelmingly likely that the perpetrators were my kids' peers.

In that respect, I can see Facebook being a place where opportunistic teens can find houses to rob. It's not unusual for kids to have nearly everyone at their schools on their Facebook lists and most kids post about their doings.

But the above was true before Facebook, too; Facebook has just made it easier for that particular demographic.

Otherwise, though, I don't see a lot of thieves going to the time and trouble of using Facebook to troll for empty houses. I know of a way it could be done, but talk about tedious and time consuming. I think it would be faster and easier to do things the old-fashioned way--go around prospective neighborhoods looking for signs that people are away, which are usually pretty obvious. Facebook is kind of beside the point there; you can have all the privacy settings in the world on your Facebook page, but if you forget to cancel your newspaper, you haven't yourself much good.
 

PDilemma

Well-Known Member
Messages
5,670
I wouldn't say I think it is evil...I just think it is set up in a way that makes it more difficult than it needs to be. I haven't used google+ yet, but I already like what I have heard about that one in that it seems to be a more straightforward concept.

I guess for me it has never been worth the hassle to do facebook....if I want to talk to a family or friend we email each other, and that works. Plus I am fortunate that none of my family seems to be on facebook or rely on it. I do have friends on it, but those that I keep in touch with also will do email/phone, etc.

I don't have any problems with others that like FB, it just isn't for me, and I especially wouldn't like having to frequently update my settings to make sure my account stayed private, etc.

Actually, it is not difficult to set privacy settings. I don't know how the meme became that it is.

As for google+, I am on it, have tried it out. I hate it. There are no privacy settings to view regarding posts, so you don't actually know what is public and what is not. You are left to assume that it is private because google told you it was. On FB now, I can look at the setting on someone's post before I comment and know who will see it...their friends or friends of friends or a custom list.

I cannot figure out how to use most of it. I put someone in the wrong circle and cannot remove her without deleting her; I could add her to the right circle as well, but could not get her out of the wrong one. I was going to leave a wall post or message for someone not on Facebook to tell him something a few weeks ago--no idea how to do that without commenting on an existing post. Not sure there is a way.

And I consider myself fortunate that a lot of my extended family is on FB; there is nothing unfortunate about how we have been able to use it as a platform to keep in touch. Thirteen cousins is a lot of email. But one family list means I can quickly communicate with all of them briefly without having to have them all in my address book--which I didn't. Passing around email addresses is a project with a big family. I can live chat with them there easily and for free.
 

FigureSpins

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,062
Don't interpret this as sarcasm, because, really, it's not. This "Facebook will get you robbed" thing is mentioned all the time. But what isn't is a real example of someone doing that and getting robbed. So I am really asking...has this ever actually been documented as happening? Or is it just one more paranoia in paranoid modern America?

(And FTR, my FB is set to maximum privacy settings and my address and phone numbers are not posted there)

To answer your first question, yes. A friend of mine (in law enforcement -- should've known better), indicated that they'd be away on vacation on his Facebook page. Some schoolmates (not friends) of their son helped themselves to the bicycles in the storage shed. The thieves made the mistake of bragging and it got back to my friend's son and my friend confronted them to retrieve the bikes. They admitted that they knew the family would be away because the son's Facebook page wasn't secured. The son had been whining about going away for Thanksgiving.

Maximum privacy is good, but Facebook loves to override those settings, right? While you might have listed a fake location, most people screw up in their posts and indicate that they live in New Rochelle, NY (for example.) Anywho.com can usually help anyone look up the address once they know your name.

As someone who gets the daily newspaper, I also have a phone book in addition to online resources to find someone.

I work in College Admissions and I once received an "add me to your mailing list" card that was illegible. I looked up the email on the internet to see if I had it correct and found the young lady's Xanga site (forerunner of MySpace and Facebook) that listed every personal item, including her birthdate and where she went to school, dance class (with date/time) and track team practices. I had to shake my head because she gave a detailed itinerary for her upcoming Sweet 16 blast, which meant being out of the house for an entire day with her family.
 

Tesla

Whippet Good
Messages
3,391
To answer your first question, yes. A friend of mine (in law enforcement -- should've known better), indicated that they'd be away on vacation on his Facebook page. Some schoolmates (not friends) of their son helped themselves to the bicycles in the storage shed. The thieves made the mistake of bragging and it got back to my friend's son and my friend confronted them to retrieve the bikes. They admitted that they knew the family would be away because the son's Facebook page wasn't secured. The son had been whining about going away for Thanksgiving.

Maximum privacy is good, but Facebook loves to override those settings, right? While you might have listed a fake location, most people screw up in their posts and indicate that they live in New Rochelle, NY (for example.) Anywho.com can usually help anyone look up the address once they know your name.

Which goes back to what Prancer said. And why should your friend have known better? Unless he should've made sure his son's FB had secured privacy settings, then, yeah, he should've known better with that. Otherwise, it is a bit on the the son for not securing his FB page.

Re. FB overriding privacy settings, so far as I know, they don't. Through the recent changes, I haven't had to update my privacy settings, except for any new ones they might have implemented.
 

PDilemma

Well-Known Member
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5,670
Which goes back to what Prancer said. And why should your friend have known better? Unless he should've made sure his son's FB had secured privacy settings, then, yeah, he should've known better with that. Otherwise, it is a bit on the the son for not securing his FB page.

Re. FB overriding privacy settings, so far as I know, they don't. Through the recent changes, I haven't had to update my privacy settings, except for any new ones they might have implemented.

And, again going back to what Prancer said, if the kid was whining on FB, he was likely whining in person as well, so FB may not have been the only source of info. Not too mention that many people leave home for holidays. It's a safe bet that you can find empty homes at that time of year.
 

Prancer

Chitarrista
Staff member
Messages
56,079
While you might have listed a fake location, most people screw up in their posts and indicate that they live in New Rochelle, NY (for example.) Anywho.com can usually help anyone look up the address once they know your name.

Maybe they do, but if you have even the lightest level of protection on their Facebook page, no one can read those posts except people on your Friends list anyway, and those people usually already know where you live.

Now you might, say, play games on Facebook that require you to add people, and then not every Friend is actually a friend--but that's easy to take care of, too.

Never once have I had a problem with Facebook suddenly deleting or overriding my privacy settings, and I've been on Facebook since 2004 or so.

And, again going back to what Prancer said, if the kid was whining on FB, he was likely whining in person as well

Yup. The first time I heard the "it's kids your kids know" from a cop here was way back when Facebook was restricted to people with .edu addresses and high school students weren't allowed to join. Word gets around. High school kids gossip, just like everyone else. It might be Facebook one time, but something overheard in the cafeteria another. I don't see one as more threatening than the other.
 

Cheylana

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Messages
5,104
Can I ask a technical question? When Facebook had its recent updates, I was just getting the same 5-7 status updates over and over again in my Newsfeed. My sister suggested I move my friends into my Close Friends folder, and that would effectively recreate the old Newsfeed.

I did that, but ever since then Notifications pop up about anything and everything, even if a friend is commenting on a non-friend's photo. Every time I open Facebook up, I see I have like 98 Notifications, which is ridiculous. I unchecked everything I could find under my Account settings, to no avail. Anyone know how I can fix this??
 

Prancer

Chitarrista
Staff member
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56,079
I did that, but ever since then Notifications pop up about anything and everything, even if a friend is commenting on a non-friend's photo. Every time I open Facebook up, I see I have like 98 Notifications, which is ridiculous. I unchecked everything I could find under my Account settings, to no avail. Anyone know how I can fix this??

Someone else may know a better way, but I had to go to each person's page, click on Subscribed and then select what I wanted to subscribe to for that person.

It wasn't too bad for me, though, because it was just a few people who were really clogging up my newsfeed, and I did it as I went along. I set a lot of people to status updates only and that cut way down on the notifications.
 

PDilemma

Well-Known Member
Messages
5,670
Can I ask a technical question? When Facebook had its recent updates, I was just getting the same 5-7 status updates over and over again in my Newsfeed. My sister suggested I move my friends into my Close Friends folder, and that would effectively recreate the old Newsfeed.

I did that, but ever since then Notifications pop up about anything and everything, even if a friend is commenting on a non-friend's photo. Every time I open Facebook up, I see I have like 98 Notifications, which is ridiculous. I unchecked everything I could find under my Account settings, to no avail. Anyone know how I can fix this??

I emptied the "close friends" folder and the endless notifications of other people's activities stopped. I have my own "real friends" list that I had set prior to the change anyway.
 

Cheylana

Well-Known Member
Messages
5,104
Thanks Prancer and PDilemma! I'll try Prancer's suggestion first, and if that doesn't work then I'll just empty the Close Friends list as PDilemma suggested.

I was perfectly happy with Facebook before they made the changes. Seems like every FB "upgrade" just creates a bunch of work for me. Gah!
 

Cheylana

Well-Known Member
Messages
5,104
Ok, follow-up question: If I uncheck all the stuff under Subscribe for each friend, I will still be notified if the person comments on my stuff, right? (I just don't need to know if they commented on some other random person's stuff!)
 

Angelskates

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Messages
13,345
That's not true - on Facebook, you're supposed to use your real name.

Yes, it is true. You don't want the world to know your real name? Don't put it on FB. I have my real name on FB but I am not searchable. I've sat next to people while we've both unsecured our settings to add each other - otherwise it's impossible to see anything - I just don't come up.

Really, it's very easy to choose what to share and what not to. It's asks for information, you choose what to give. Plenty of website forms ask for real names; unless they're banking related (the name on your credit card, for example), they don't require them and don't check.

FB doesn't cause people to get robbed. Someone can choose to share their status as they're going out and going to home alone, or they can choose not to. They can also choose who can see their status (and anything else).

FB, like everything else on the internet, is about wise choices. Don't want to get fired from a job? Don't post bad remarks about your job or boozy photos etc. Of course, this doesn't guarantee you're not going to get fired, (because people who post inappropriate work photos usually will get what is coming anyway), people who post about tiny bits of their day also tell people in other ways etc.

It really is simple IMO.
 

Cheylana

Well-Known Member
Messages
5,104
Yes. I don't subscribe to anyone and have my settings set for "friends only". I reveive notifications of comments and 'likes' on my posts.
Thank you!!!!! :)
FB, like everything else on the internet, is about wise choices. Don't want to get fired from a job? Don't post bad remarks about your job or boozy photos etc. Of course, this doesn't guarantee you're not going to get fired, (because people who post inappropriate work photos usually will get what is coming anyway), people who post about tiny bits of their day also tell people in other ways etc.

It really is simple IMO.
This. I don't treat Facebook as a personal diary to pour out all of my life frustrations and deep dark secrets and other super-personal information. It's just a fun way to connect with people. Just like I'm careful about the people in whom I confide in real life, I'm very careful about what I put on FB because one of my "friends" could blab my personal information to the wrong people, irrespective of FB's privacy settings.
 

numbers123

Well-Known Member
Messages
30,765
Like Angelskates, I am unsearchable. Several FSUers could attest to that :p. I was unsearchable since 2009. Most of my information is set to Only Me or select people only. I also have several individuals set to block any contact.
I have 23 first cousins on my mother's side. We range from age 60 to 31. We live all over the country. We have parents who don't talk to each other. If we the cousins wanted to stay in touch it was best done by facebook. Plus we get to see pictures - grandchildren for some of us and children for others.
I have 7 first cousins on my dad's side from age 58 to 40. I keep hoping that we can connect through facebook. I am friends with 2 of them, 2 I keep in touch through my aunt and the other 3 are "lost" since my aunt quit talking to my dad 12 years ago.
As for someone robbing your house while you are gone, there are easier ways to know if you are gone than go through tedious posts on vacations, etc.
 

Cheylana

Well-Known Member
Messages
5,104
Sorry to be a bother, but I un-subscribed all of my friends and I'm still getting a million ridiculous notifications: "Joe Schmoe commented on some non-friend's status update." WTF? (And why would Facebook think I'd want to see that anyway??) What am I doing wrong? :(
 

Sparks

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Messages
14,987
You will get notifications of other's comments if you commented on someone else's post.
 

Cheylana

Well-Known Member
Messages
5,104
^ Thanks Sparks - that I'm okay with. What I don't want is a notification every time a friend updates his/her status or adds a link to his/her Wall. To me, that's major overkill.
 

RD

Well-Known Member
Messages
4,365
Wow, you might want to check your account settings. The comment notifications only occur after I've commented on a topic- otherwise, it's only friend requests, confirmations, messages, etc.
 

Cheylana

Well-Known Member
Messages
5,104
Thanks--I'm hoping that unsubscribing my friends will work, but if not I'll be back to :wuzrobbed: for sure! :lol:
 

Cupid

Well-Known Member
Messages
3,586
Question: I just tried to copy from a friend's FB a little picture quiz to my account. When I did, it doesn't show the picture but the link. How do I post the picture readily so that people who visit don't have to click on the link I am in no teknic so please advise.
 

Jenny

From the Bloc
Messages
21,824
A friend of mine is complaining that FB is sharing her TripAdvisor reviews - I can't see them on her page and I've never seen that on the news feed - any ideas on what she might be talking about? She's totally outraged about it for some reason.
 

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