Conversation, Community, and Facebook

[€uroMeinke]

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?

[Ghoulish Delight]

Maybe we should start our own Facebook.

[katiesue]

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.

[innerSpaceman]

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.

[Alex]

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.

[Ghoulish Delight]

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.

[Alex]

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

[Moonliner]

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.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Alex

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

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

[Kevy Baby]

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.