On 14/11/2011 7:45 AM, Judith Latham wrote:
In . net, MaryL
wrote:


"jmcquown" wrote in message ...


wrote in message
...
wrote:
"Robert Catt" wrote in message ...

For the reasons I've given here in a previous post, and after a brief
interchange with a certain member of this newsgroup, I've decided to
restrict my involvement with r.p.c.a. to its group at Facebook. Other
people have written to me me about this individual, and their
comments about him are part of the reason I will no longer be reading
or posting to this newsgroup. As of today I've removed it from my
list.

- - - - - - - - - -

I have taken the opposite approach (but certainly not because of any
of our posters). I refuse to use Facebook, for this group or any
other group. My objection is to Facebook itself, not to individual
posters.

MaryL

I really don't understand peoples hostility to Facebook when they're
happy to use usenet which is accessible by anybody. With Facebook, you
can decide who can or can't see your posts. -- Adrian


That's *exactly* the problem I have with Facebook. I don't have to want
to be invited to join. It reminds me a lot of moderated newsgroups and
web forums where people can decide what you can and cannot post. With
rpca on usenet, I can easily killfile someone (and vice versa) if I
don't like the things they're posting.

Jill

- - - - - - - - -

Agreed. In addition, Facebook is notorious for sharing information.
The r.p.c.a. group seems to be an "invite only" group, but even that
would require members to use personal information to sign up. Facebook
has a history of changing their "rules" in ways that may not be
acceptable to users.

MaryL

I agree. There are far too many people trying to control me, some I have
to tolerate but I refuse to have it in my personal life. Also many
employers check out facebook if you apply for a job. It's worrying as
things can be posted on facebook that you don't know about and again, have
no control over.

Facebook? No thanks.

Whilst folks have every right to choose not to use Facebook for whatever
reason, I feel I need to address a few misconceptions:

The RPCAgroup on Facebook is indeed 'secret' so as to stop all comers
joining and to stop what is said in RPCA appearing on your "wall" so its
a safe place to talk. It is not a 'secret' in that just a select few
know about it - otherwise it wouldn't be mentioned here.

Its not so much "invite only" as that the right to read & post has to be
granted, rather that any old person being able to access the group.
However, the only way to stop trolls, spammers and the like from
accessing the group means there has to be some sort of 'gate' at the
front - which is the "one of the admins has to approve your membership"
process. IMHO, this is not much different that NIN (for example)
cleaning up the news feed to remove spam, gross cross-posts and the
worst of the trolls.

Facebook has no way of knowing the information you provide it is
accurate. Mooch-the-cat posts to Facebook, for example. The only
information they can gather on you is what you provide, and thats
entirely up to you. An admin simply has to know that "Mr Snookums" is or
has been an RPCA poster, or another member can vouch for their
relationship with The Mothership, and they'll be granted access. Us
hoomins will know who "Mr Snookums" really is, but Facebook need not know

And whilst RPCA-FB *could* be moderated, it isn't.

You can control who writes on your wall if you wish, and if you want to
be really conservative you can choose to have no Facebook friends at all
and yet still post to a group like RPCA (although you'll have to be
friends with an admin for about 5 minutes so you can be let into the
group - then you can unfriend them). You can lock your profile so no-one
can access it.

IMHO, Usenet is a far less private place than Facebook as there is no
control over who sees your posts nor any entirely effective way to
delete them afterward.

But if you don't feel comfortable using Facebook - or even just plain
don't want to - thats fine. Its certainly a more complicated place than
Usenet is, for good and for ill.

Yowie