Conversation, Community, and Facebook
 

As Facebook continues to kill off message boards like his one, I'm finding myself missing actual give and take conversation. I love the connections I've made and reestablished thanks to facebook, but I find them wanting. The truncated status messages can kind of work like posts, but the endless stream means that any comments happen right away and then quickly get buried. Add to that the responses tend to be more bumper sticker slogans than anything thoughtful.

So I come here asking, does anyone else feel this same malaise? Are there other places you are finding a more satisfying sense of community? Or has the time come to start hosting in person salons?

Maybe we should start our own Facebook.

I agree with you. I miss the old pages long discussions of things. I learned things and got to see different perspectives. Facebook people get so riled up there are no interesting discussions.

Facebook is very much a different experience for everyone who uses it. I'm fortunate to have a good mix of friends there and sometimes, for months at a time, they will foster really interesting conversations akin to what we might have had on a message board. But then that will stop, and go, and stop again. And change and morph to something else. But yes, it's not like THIS was, and I miss that.

In fact, I've grown so tired of bumper sticker posts and truncated on-line conversations that I've quit Twitter entirely and have gone exclusively Facebook. It's very different from The LoT, and often not as fulfilling as the LoT once was. But let's face it - whether video killed the radio star or not, the LoT is a mere shadow of what it once was.

Things change, and some of those changes are not perceptively for the better.


So, yes, let's have some in-person salons ... because I don't think the message board age is ever coming back. And one day, if I live to see it, we'll say the same about Facebook.



But that day is a long way off. And while we live in the Facebook world, I think augmenting the on-line universe with in-person in-teraction would be wise and rewarding.


:iSm:

I find that the move to Facebook has pushed me back to old message boards that are still active (like Straight Dope) where an actual conversation can happen and continue over days instead of a few hours.

I don't feel that I really get much out of Facebook beyond the fact that it is the only place I can spew generally generic and generally tame (though I do go more political sometimes and get ignored) and know that many of the people I know will see it.

While I miss the good side of the extended back and forth we used to have here, I do not miss the down side. I never was very good at walking away from the fray when things would get stupid on the board (here or elsewhere), and as an admin I am semi-self-obligated to be involved. Fun at times, but looking back I just remember all the time I wasted fuming over completely irrelevant things.

Also, I don't have the brain space right now for involved discussion in any format. I've got a job that's got me on crazy hours with erratic travel, and I'm still trying to finish up school (already having to push my final project out over summer). All my power to form coherent thought goes into those.

*psst* mention the kid in that list of distractions.

Here I have friends. I don't get tracked, data-mined, bartered, indexed, advertisements or spied on. I just get insulted. I like it here.'

Oh and anytime you all want to have an east coast salon meet up just let me know.

* Unless a 'salon' is some strange drug filled orgy type of thing.

Disctraction, yes. Outlet for coherent thought, not so much.

Funny you bring this up Chris as I have been thinking the same thing. I recently posted a topic on FB that I actually was hoping more would chime in on but didn't (I brought up how the Red Cross doesn't want any male who has had sex with another male since something like 1977).

I'm not sure an in-person salon would be the answer as 1) not everyone would be able to make it, and B) it would logically preclude anyone not in the area. The advantage of an environment like LoT is that people can respond when they can, anyone in our global micro-community can contribute, and one can actually have time to think about what they want to say.

I know LoT is not what it used to be, but I hope it is not going away soon.

Stoaty says that Facebook is not conducive to full expression (EG: Susie-Ann Krellingshaw has never posted there). He prefers the LoT for his 0.20 posts per day.

I still check in here and miss the discussions. FB is fun but it's not LoT

Hear hear!!

So anyone besides Alex finding an outlet for this sort of thing?

Kevy - I've had the exact same experience recently and found even when I wanted to participate and be engaged it was hard to get back to the original post (despite Facebooks relentless keeping of everything everybody says). I find if I don't keep commenting on a topic it vanishes from my feed.

Greg - don't miss the combative exchanges, but I miss the thoughtful musings people would share - beyond the status statement.

Maybe it's time to dust off the Live Journal and learn some Russian.

For the record, I was never combative dammit.

Alex you ignorant slut.

Things get missed, a lot, whether it's because you posted it at some certain time of day where it got buried in a pile of other posts, or because not enough people saw it at the right moment to click like and get it seen by others who have said "only show me Kevy's important posts", or whatever. I recently realized I've been missing posts to certain fb groups and now had to set them to give me notifications because I have no idea why they're not showing up in my feed. And on, and on, and on.

I agree with Chris that conversations seem impossible to dig up sometimes. I found a really useful tool for that. If you go to your wall you can click Activity Log to see absolutely everything you've been up to in a dealable format. You can narrow down what you're seeing using filters on the left side.

In any case, nope, it's not the LoT. But the problem is that along with long form conversation and debate, the LoT was also about stupid memes, and the news, and funny images. With all that stuff moved on over to fb, it's hard to maintain just the long form over here. I miss it here, and I'm sad it's not what it was.

I'd love in-person salons. If I was childless. Or if every salon were at my house after said child goes to bed. Where the fvck is the Commune already?? You all want to live with a 3 year old, right? :D

All the salons should be held in Australia. Mary Poppins said so.

Facebook is good for seeing how the people you went to grade school with have gone to sh*t over the years. It's also good for keeping up with the ongoing battle over who has the best hubby because of various mundane kindnesses and for feeling brave by not reposting sentimental piffle about various family members. It's also actually good for keeping up in a coffee klatch way on people's day to day. But focused discussions: not so good. Not nearly as good as the LoT.

I think the time I liked best was when the LoT was in its heyday, lots of people interacted in person, lots of people used Live Journal, and Facebook was used by some college kids on the east coast.

Nothing can replace real life interaction, though Facebook has sadly done that for so many. But that being said and observed, real life interaction would rarely produce the kind of "conversation" typical of the LoT. Too much fun was going on. And even the level of thoughtful conversation on the LoT would not impart the depth of personal sharing found on El Jay. So the three in combination had a very powerful effect, for me, in grokking my friends to a wonderful degree.


It's a pale, pale shadow world now. Even though my facebook feed is very active - I can't say I've gotten to know anyone better through the years there like I was able to say of years here. If someone tweets a lot, I daresay I could get to know them better through their tweets than through Facebook. But I grew weary of Twitter and have not been to my Twitter feed in weeks. I'm pretty sure I've quit.


Barely anyone el jays anymore. Even if people continue to blog, doing it at separate sites defeats the point of mutual sharing, imo.


And whether true for anyone else here or not, I myself barely see anyone from the LoT days in the real world anymore.


I would not describe my life as bored or unhappy at all, and it's hardly less busy socially than it's always been. Yet, I confess I miss the plethora of different fun and friend stuff that used to fill my calendar. I miss the days when the LoT was more robust. But change is change. What can ya do?



Monthly salon is a neet idea. I liked when we tried it a few years back. But we managed, what? three of them?

I like watching car crashes out the window.

Wisconsin. We have copious amounts of cheese. Also beer.

As for FB, I kind of loathe it.

You I like.

Facebook was dynamic and interesting while I was adding people and catching up with long lost pals. But now that my list has pretty much stabilized, the experience is kind of stagnant. I see variations on the same cynical eCards, simplistic political memes and pretty nature scenes with slogans every day. (I don't get tired of the cute animals, though. Not ever.) I tolerate the same handful of prolific religious zealots and tea party ranters who inhabit my feed (and with whom I don't engage, because they're built-in commenters tend to dogpile, and there's nothing to be gained from that.) A few times a day, though, I come across something redemptive - usually because it is personal, something from someone's actual life instead of reposted junk from some other page insisting that I LIKE it or be shown up for the heartless bastard I must be.

Facebook is mostly a superficial experience.

LoT brought me friends from a group of strangers. Facebook hasn't done that much at all. (I've tried.)

Once Facebook fades from relevance, maybe the next big thing will somehow have the potential for longer, more meaningful discussion that forum threads make possible.

I don't want to moderate, though.

FB is fine for the sort of short attention span moments I can peek at it between Sesame Street clips (yes, the Princess has claimed the majority of screen time on Mommy's laptop) or spare between distractions, but I much prefer the long-form discussions on LoT, and more importantly, the fact that things stick around and history is searchable, so discussions CAN continue for extended lengths of time, enabling us to be more thoughtful, dig up supporting links, etc. things disappear way too quickly on FB.

Unfortunately on my part, it's difficult to contribute meanigfully, because I so rarely have a moment long enough (like now) to participate, and even then am usually stuck typing with one hand way off to the side (can you tell someone is asleep in my lap?), or on my phone, also not conducive to rapid typing.

But I'm reading your posts, folks!

Megadittoes for most of what Flippy said. I would add that I tend not to jump into some of the right wing Facebook threads or, relatedly, Facebook comment threads on our local newspaper because I read through some of the posts, and I sometimes get the impression that some of the folks might have little better to do than find out where I live and come and shoot me.

I seldom get that feeling here.

If we all don't get enough love out of Facebook, why aren't we here that much?

Key word: "seldom"

Still lurking (remotely from USVI)

I think flippy had a good observation in that you really don't meet people on FB, rather you meet people in other situations and then add them to FB.The only place to "meet" is through comments of mutual friends, but unlike a message board or live journal, you really get no insight about those other people.

Why we aren't here? I think FB still is the fastfood of online interactions, it's easy to skim and make non-committal responses and feel like you're actually connecting with the people you know. It's too easy.

But I definitely feel a gap - perhaps those folks a google can figure that one out and make us google + again?

Funny you say that. I'd say because our lives have taken us in other busy directions. I have much less attention to give, which is nice about FB, it doesn't require attention.

For me, I read LoT all the time, but hardly post because I either don't have the time or the emotional energy to put together the type of thoughtful post I feel the LoT deserves. That or someone has already posted my sentiments.

Maybe if I just change my attitude about what LoT deserves or doesn't deserve, I'd be a lot more active. I care a great deal more about the people on here than the people I have on Facebook.

Hmmm...

So, ravelry.com's board has voting buttons at the bottom of each post: Interesting, Educational, Funny, Agree, Disagree, Love. It's a shorthand way of interacting.

Is this or something like it for LoT? Can you handle clicking Love buttons?

Well, sure, but I think we'd want to slowly circle in on it with our cursor and actually delay, delay delay clicking it, and it sounds like none of us has time for that.

^What she said.

In my case, life took some unexpected turns, many of which severely limited my opportunities for real-world interactions. I've never stopped caring about anyone here, nor stopped reading all of the comments. More than anything, I just didn't want to be the person always posting something negative, and for quite some time, there wasn't a lot of positive in my life to post about. Rather than be a downer all the time, I felt it best to just lurk.

Thankfully, although my situation hasn't improved as much as I would have liked, my attitude and perspective have, and sometimes that's the best you can do. I do appreciate Facebook for keeping me up to date on the lives of friends that I care deeply about, many of whom post on LoT, but I really miss our old interactions as well, and I miss all of you. I'm simply grateful that LoT still exists, because it still feels far more like a genuine community than anywhere else I've found online.

Today's musing on this topic, I wonder how anonymity played a role in building a sense of community. Before Facebook we were all screen names and pseudonyms. Sure that allowed for trolls and dicks of all flavor, but it so enable people to share a bit more intimately about themselves and build connections that otherwise wouldn't be possible. I know post Facebook I'm more cautious about what I post there and elsewhere since our online lives have become more public and searchable.

The anonymity of the internet has always allowed for people to say and do things they would NEVER in real life, and hide behind that. But I don't think that was the reason behind the old-school internet "handle" that everyone used for their email addresses and on message boards. I think that was all just for fun, to have a nickname in the internet world. It was affectionate, and I sort of miss it ... but I welcome the more grown up internet universe where I'm simply my real name on Facebook and my email address is myrealname@gmail.com.


The internet offers a sense of anonymity whether we use our real names or not. Everyone here knows who I am - yet I often hit the enter button before realizing it's something I would and should never say to anyone I.R.L.

So I don't think we hid behind the handles. I think we hide behind the keyboard no matter what.

Facebook doesn't have the community feel. And maybe it was being anonymous here at first then easing into knowing people better that makes it more of a community feel. I know I lurked for a very long time before testing the waters.

The other Facebook things that don't work for discussions for me are the feeds moving so fast. So if say someone posts something actually interesting that I want to comment on but I don't have time then. It's very hard to go back later and remember what it was. Also a lot of the time here the initial post or subject may be something I think I'm not interested in. But the later posts and comments either change my mind or have morphed into something good. With Facebook I'd never know that because if I didn't comment on the initial post I can't really follow it.

Also their constant changing of things and the inability to ever just get all the posts people make to show up in your feed is frustrating. No matter how many settings I change I still miss things.

Just thought of this one too. LoT is sorted by category. I can choose what things I want to look at. I'm pretty sure I've never opened the cute animal thread. Not my thing, not really interested so it's ignored by me. I don't have to weed through a billion meme's and other crap to look for actual posts. I'm on a bunch of diabetic parent groups on Facebook. But even there it's so difficult to go back and find information. Or look just for threads with information that's pertinent to me without reading all the posts.

Also people here can write complete sentences and words. Heck most of us can even hit the return for paragraphs and use grammar most of the time. Some of the posts on Facebook can be almost unreadable.

Absolutely agree with this.

I'm careful about who I say things to more than what I say. I need a place to vent about my work, wife, life without it getting back to them. The anonymity of the LoT is good for that.

And on that note, Goddammit woman, it's just a few damn bushes. Yes the homeowners association cleared things out without getting a vote, yes it was more natural and beautiful before but it's over. It was over last friciking year. I don't need to hear about it every damn day.

Ahh, I feel better already.

I think the other factor is not just the kind of audience, but knowing who your audience is. Even on the larger more "public" message boards we used to inhabit, there was a certain level of confinement. Your posts were unlikely to be seen out of that precise context, and the people coming to see that post explicitly chose to enter that context. Facebook, everything bleeds all over the place, all context bleeds together, there is no separation, you can never feel certain about the eventual audience. It makes it a) difficult to be as open and b) difficult to focus your message.

You threw out this nugget just for me, didn't you? You're such a sweetie!

;)

Just last night I didn't comment on someone's post because it was going to make a comment about my grandmother I'd really rather her not see.

Now, I know there is no way my grandmother, or anybody else in my family would ever directly read that person's post but it being Facebook and me not knowing how this other person has their privacy set, I can't be sure that Facebook won't post on a family members' news feed directly to show them what I said.

That more than anything prevents me from being particularly open unless I am writing it directly on my own wall.

As if it isn't obvious, I'm rarely posting here any longer. I don't have a facebook account, I've never tweeted nor read a tweet, have heard of instagram but am not really sure what it is.....as others have posted in this thread I just don't have time for social media. I do come here and read but find I don't have much time to put together any coherent or relevant thoughts to the conversation. Except here, I suppose. And coherent and relevant are in the eye of the beholder anyway.

I like Twitter but I use it for following people I don't know who have interesting things to say. And so I can find out that the pope has resigned from Death Star PR.

Facebook basically sucks but it's where I can have some semblance of connection to a circle of acquaintances in the dance world. And see photos of my grandkids when their parents find time to post. But it's so hard to filter and see what you want to rather than every random bit of dreck to inhabit the internet.

I would like to use LoT to post things that I'm not comfortable posting on Facebook, for example whiny complaints about dancing that I'd prefer my dance friends not see. But I usually forget or decide no one wants to see all that anyway.

I really don't see Facebook (and especially not Twitter) as places for conversations. Do people have conversations? Look up from their smart phones and everything?:evil:

I'm glad to see this thread! I joined FB reluctantly back in September, so, only 7 months ago. Really good for quick hits on things, but I've missed the depth and breadth of the LoT social experience. FB is great for party invitations, and clever things George Takei is re-posting. In fact, in the spirit of the youtubery thread, I think I'll start a Takei Takeaway thread...

If I'm reading the main page correctly, this is the first post here in almost two days.

Somebody check Facebook to see if it is holding a bloody knife.

Google+ has communities now.

Facebook has more kittens than Google+. Neener.

Still experimenting with that one...

Wired UK has an article readers of this thread may find interesting.
Online disinhibition and the psychology of trolling

Here's just a small portion:

This makes me a little sad.

Attachment 1805

Well, everyone knows SzczerbiakManiac's a thread killer.

Naw, I thought it was me that was the threadkiller.

No, just the chronicler of the thread's passing.

I have a feeling it's far more than 30 days.

That forum was my baby for a long while. I remember the moment we came up with it, talking about the Beatnik-y theme for the site and wanting to post creative works. I believe I came up with calling it Open Mic. (I wouldn't swear to it though. :) )

Sigh.

Testing my powers of death

Oh. Blagh. I didn't read the screenshot carefully, I thought SM killed THIS thread. D'oh.

Now I will compose a poem in the Open Mic thread.

I hoping that 2014 will be the year everyone come to their senses, ditches facebook and comes back here.

Hear hear Moonliner!

That would be nice, but a return to the LoT for actual conversation, and FB for things I don't mind the entire world reading would work for me.

Also, I found out that Open Mic is a Forum, not a Thread. I went and wrote a poem in the Open Mic Forum.

Well, for a year I've been tantalized by the prospect of all the LoT conversation I was missing out on over at Facebook since a technical glitch prevented me from being added to the group.

That's been resolved and I find nobody is talking over there either.

Visible moonie mojo. I'll pledge to do my part since I miss the camaraderie here. FB is fun to post photos, but, impossible to keep a discussion going.

Long live LoT!

I'm in.

I've grown to find that this seems the only place on the web where everyone's head is screwed on right. Almost everyone, at least.

Hi, Scaeagles!

It's also perhaps the only place online where I've ever truly felt comfortable being myself. I tend to edit myself too much elsewhere.

I will say that the continued existence of LoT is important to me for the reason that hitting the main page the quote displayed is often mine and I amuse me.

You amuse me too, Alex!

Funny, I just posted a poll at our facebook page because I knew I'd get a lot more responses there. It was even about Disney.

Interesting. On the Facebook app it did not show as a poll. It just showed me the introductory text so I had no idea what you were talking about.

Yeah, wasn't until I got home and opened the laptop did I see there was a poll there. A little context goes a long way.

I feel so left out as I do not know where on facebook the Lot page is

I am on facebook as Ron Breach

Don't feel left out, we're moving back here! :cool:

Looks like you have to friend me first before I can add you, though it looks like the Lashpair may be able to add you.

Thank you I just did

The poll showed up fine on my Android phone. Neener neener.

I don't think I'm seeing the results of the poll, unless only a fraction of the respondents who commented also responded to the poll. In any event, it's ironic that I've come HERE to post something Disney (after I check around to see if it's been posted yet.) Otherwise, it's seemed to me that I've defacto YAGED. I really haven't even checked the LoT for over a month (216 unread posts right now! ... it's a tiny bit like going back to MiceChat.)

Didn't even know there was a poll. I thought it was a weird start to a thread.

A pole IS a weird start to a thread. You should use a needle.

Facebook - UR DOIN IT RONG

Well, you said it...
:D
Attachment 1810

Totally quotable

:cool: This makes me happy.

I will visit more often now.