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

[Kasey]

My question is about people who tag photos of mine in which no one appears (it's a scenic shot, or a picture at an event, etc.). Why do people tag themselves in pictures like this? And sometimes people tag an item in a photo in which I appear. I don't get this, it seems strange to me. Any explanations?

I think sometimes people do that when they want to make sure you see the photo for some reason. My mom does that to me, tagging me in pictures of my cousin's kids and stuff. Yeah, I have no kids. Whatever.

 

[PrincessLeppard]

If I want to make sure someone sees a particular photo (like when I got a picture of my friend's cat totally stoned on 'nip), I tag them so they get notified.

 

[PrincessLeppard]

Me again. So my news feed is a mess, and I can't figure out how to see the most recent stuff. It's just giving me the "top" stories. Help!

 

[ChelleC]

^^^

In the same situation as PL, I think it's the new facebook changes though. Extremely annoying.

 

[PrincessLeppard]

I know. I've managed to get rid of some crap it considered a "top" story, but I liked the feature where I could just see the most recent status updates. I have no idea why they would get rid of that.....

 

[skatemommy]

WTF happened to Facebook today? And how to I get the status updates back?

 

[Rex]

My issue with facebook is that so many people I don't want to communicate with-family members, neighbors, ex-boyfriends, stalkers, perverts, and FSU members all seem to want to to be "friends" and know whenever I'm on the site.

This is EXACTLY why I closed my account - these exact same reasons. And before I did, I made a point of letting everyone know this.

And some sites these days won't allow you to register unless you use your Facebook account. I don't think that is a good idea at all - folks tend to like the anonymity of the Internet, and Facebook all but ruins that.

 

[Holley Calmes]

This new Facebook is a mess! Who are they to "decide" what my "top stories" are? And the feed keeps jumping up to the top of the page....maybe that's just a temporary glitch, but I sure don't like it. I use Facebook a lot for my work with the ballet, and all our little dancers are on it, and I have to keep tabs on them to make sure they aren't using the f word and etc on it. Seriously! It is a good marketing tool for selling tickets and keeping up interest.

I do not like this new format.

 

[Sparks]

Waking up to these annoying changes is awful!

 

[Ajax]

I've always been a facebook defender and I think it's a great tool for keeping touch with people, but these new changes are getting to be a bit much. The window where you actually see your profile is now even narrower due to that newsfeed sidebar. There's also some bug going on with the photos. I tried to add photos to the page of an event I attended and the only way was to add them one by one - annoying! I tagged myself in them but those photos don't show up among the tagged photos on my profile or in the photo strip above the profile. No idea why. Why do they need to make changes every two months????

 

[skatemommy]

FB is really heating up with everyone hating the changes. I can't be bothered to learn them. Agree with Holley it is a good way to keep up with people, not now.

 

[dbell1]

So, my 'top story' is one of those cut and paste things about which of your friends is a stripper/zombie/drunk in a bar. The remainder of my top items are equally riveting. Somewhere below it, I found a friend's post about a family member passing away. I hate it. And I don't care who's playing 'Sims Social' either.

 

[PrincessLeppard]

Previous changes haven't really bothered me, but this one is just....horrible. I just want to read status updates and look at pictures.

Oh, my top story was a friend being tagged in a photo by a person I don't know. Yeah. That's what's important to me....

 

[El Rey]

I think this explains it pretty well.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?...82212246.58184.100000444073891&type=1&theater

My issue is that it seems to get more complicated to use with each update. I actually had to ask a friend how to post a link without the url showing up. I was told after you post it in the box you have to delete the link. And I tried posting an album for the first time in a while and it's way more complicated now. It's not rocket science, but it's still not as user friendly as it was before. I always liked facebook because of its simplicity. But I guess all these changes keeps their employees busy.

 

[El Rey]

You can't remove photo tags? only remove from your profile?

 

[Icetalavista]

I just went to facebook because i'd gotten one too many of those nagging emails telling me I have updates.

I tried sending messages - ie private comments that wouldn't show up on walls - to two people and was unable to. A box popped up that I could type in but there was no way to send it to the recipient.

Do people have the ability to block some from sending private messages?

In one case I was trying to message an aquaintance, so I could understand it, but in another it's a friend who as far as I know I have not offended.

Can anyone shed light on this? I don't want private comments, even if they're innocuous, being read by potentially hundreds of people I don't know.

I only go to facebook because that's the only way some people update others. But every time I go I have to prepare myself in advance to check "no" or the equivalent on the, oh, half-dozen pop-up boxes open asking me to a. go thru a tutorial, or b. accept new functionality which will probably mean I give more info to more people.

Every time I use facebook I come away annoyed. Wish that weren't the case.

In addition, these facebook-only users don't seem to know or care that many of us out in the work world CANNOT access facebook thru work computers, and don't want to spend megabucks buying a smart phone to bring to work to work around this. Grr x infinity.

Thanks for starting this problem solving/vent thread.

 

[RD]

Not too much to add- the FB changes are really starting to get overwhelming. It was fine before...why switch it up? Or if you MUST make changes, why not offer users the option to continue using the old interface? (Like Twitter did for about a year when they switched to their current interface)

Even so, the other changes weren't THAT bad- but this one is horrid. Like many other people in this thread, stuff I really don't care about is showing up at the top of my feed...but what bothers me the most is that I set up the feed to go from newest to oldest. Now it's all mixed up with posts FB THINKS I want to see (but I really don't, TBH) near the top that were posted hours prior to the most recent posts. And there's no way to change it back. Argh

 

[skatemommy]

Count me in as disliking the new Twitter, too. Too much information.

 

[MacMadame]

I tried sending messages - ie private comments that wouldn't show up on walls - to two people and was unable to. A box popped up that I could type in but there was no way to send it to the recipient.

Did you try hitting 'enter'? FB has this new thing on some pages where the enter/return key sends the message. If there are no buttons to press that say "Send", then that's usually what is going on.

 

[Stormy]

HATE the changes with the fire of a thousand nuns. Or suns. Or both.

If FB wasn't really the best way to keep up with my skating friends all over the country, I'd dump it in a second. What I loved about FB was the simplicty of the site, especially in comparison to MySpace.

What's next FB, sparkly glittery unicorn backgrounds and music blaring when you go to someone's profile?

 

[Jenny]

While I'm all about giving credit to all the folks at FB for their genius in creating this, they really need to remember that most people are not as tech savvy as they are. I can usually figure out the changes as they come up, but it's always through trial and error, because their "helpful" instructions never make any sense to me. The more complicated, the more likely they are to lose participants, and not gain any new ones.

For years I urged my MIL to try FB so she can see pictures of her nieces and nephews and their kids, and ditto my mother so she could be friends with her grandkids and see what they're up to. Now there's no way I can recommend it, because all these groups and friends and subscribers is way too much for people whose entire social media experience to date has been limited to email.

Similarly I have friends who have refused to join because they are very private and don't want the world to know their business, or even their friends and family for that matter. I would always tell them how easy it is to keep yourself private, and even divide up who can see what.

Now I don't even know any more.

 

[Allen]

What's next FB, sparkly glittery unicorn backgrounds and music blaring when you go to someone's profile?

There is nothing wrong with sparkly, glittery unicorns

 

[halffull]

^ 100% agree, Allen

 

[sk8pics]

I hate this new version, too. I did see that one thing you can do is go into your subscriptions (this is underneath your name when you click on it to look at your own wall rather than your newsfeed), click on the Friends subscriptions, and you can go through and check off if you want to receive "all" or "most" updates. The default seems to be "most." That annoyed me, too. I only have around 130 friends so it was a pain and inconvenient but not impossible to reset some. Sheesh.

 

[ChelleC]

Pretty much how I feel about the changes.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...=a.77256364130.75170.629599130&type=1&theater

 

[myhoneyhoney]

it sure takes some getting used to. It's forced to me to use the lists... maybe it's not so bad because now I can really control who can see my post easily (as in my list that's titled "Everyone BUT Inlaws") lol

 

[PrincessLeppard]

For years I urged my MIL to try FB so she can see pictures of her nieces and nephews and their kids, and ditto my mother so she could be friends with her grandkids and see what they're up to. Now there's no way I can recommend it, because all these groups and friends and subscribers is way too much for people whose entire social media experience to date has been limited to email..

This. I'm going to have to fix my mom's for her the next time I'm over there. I actually do like the list feature now that I've figured it out, but some warning would've been nice. And some better directions. Sheesh.

 

[Prancer]

What's next FB, sparkly glittery unicorn backgrounds and music blaring when you go to someone's profile?

We're supposed to be getting some music thingies this week; whether it will be music players or what, I don't know. But according to an article I read, we will wake up to that one day very soon.

I don't know if I like the changes or not. Every time Facebook changes something, everyone screams, then uses the new applications, says "Oh" and settles down, so I want to give it a few days to see if I like it or not. At the moment, it seems really busy and complicated .

 

[Kruss]

Hopefully this might help with part of the changes...found it on my FB. LOL

HOW TO GET YOUR FEED BACK TO NORMAL AGAIN. Go to: account settings. Then, click on notifications on the left of the page. At the top right is a box that says email frequency. Uncheck that box and your feed will show all the posts again. Then go to your home page and anything in the "Top Stories" click on the down arrow in the upper right and "unmark as top story" - now your newsfeed will be setup by timestamp rather than randomly picking "top stories!

ETA: I'm not sure that the first part of this procedure is necessary, it seems to deal with the notification emails. I put the check mark back in there. However, I do think the second procedure helped because I don't have that "top story" crap going on anymore.

Does anyone else know what the impact of the notification emails setting is?

 

[MacMadame]

My news feed is only Recent News and all I did was click the down arrow on Top Stories to collapse it.