Social Media?

Something John said in the flashlight meltdown thread reminded me that this software has some features we aren't using that might be useful for driving traffic. There was a large outcry when we first brought up the idea of social media integration. But one of the loudest criers left anyway, then died. Is it time to look at some of this again? I don't want to shove anything down people's throats, but the comfort level may have changed.

Thoughts?

I'm fine with the notion of social media. Everything is interconnected now anyway, and will only get more connected as time goes on. My concern, though, is what I stated in that thread.

That's kind of the point. It's all connected already, just because Google is that damn good. Maybe if people realized this (by it being more overt), then behavior would adjust.

In that case, I'm all for it. Like I said to Flashlight in the thread, it's all connected. There's no more room on the board for people like Sokar, or who think they can be like him.

A lot of the folks here kinda segregate Wordforge from their, say, Facebook stuff. They can act the fool here with little repercussion. Not sure tying them together would please too many.

Yeah, I'm not keen on tying "shootER" to "shootER's real life" as reflected on my Facebook page. If the proposal doesn't involve that kind of stuff, I'm not opposed to it. If it does, I am.

I don't even list my actual current employer on my Facebook page.

A couple of points. Nobody would have to tie the one to the other. I'm not talking about that, so much as allowing non-members to comment via their Facebook account and a few other things like that. Second, as John points out, the bots already know who we all are.

Speaking for myself, I have no intention of ever linking my FB page here. Part of the appeal of a place of free speech is to be able to say things that one wouldn't necessarily want to say under their own name. I'm not talking about the crap Flashlight pulls on a regular basis, but things like being trans in rural Mississippi or being a black woman who doesn't suscribe to all the Dem's propaganda.

That said, so long as there's no forced linkage as shootER mentioned, we could give this a shot. We really should make an effort to bring in new posters.

On the same vein, maybe it's time to have a thread for suggestions from the board members. Maybe sticky it in the Red Room and post a redirect in the Starscape Lounge so the folks there can see it, too. It's as much their board as ours and I'd like to see more of them around the other forums. Kinda like what Tamar did with the rep issue, except have ONE goddamn vote thread with ALL the possible options. And perhaps make more of an effort to reach out to those that lft over the crazy hijinxs. Aside from the Discouragement issue and the initial resistance of Anc's ownership, the board really isn't what it was even two years ago. For the most part, we like taking a bit of piss, but it's not ALL we want, and that's not a horrible thing.

We do have both Facebook and Twitter integration available, meaning someone could like and share a post or thread on Facebook or Twitter. I could also install an RSS feed add-on (no cost).

I'd prefer two-click or two-stage sharing (or whatever it's called) to make accidental shares more difficult.

If it's similar to what I've tested on practice boards, you click "share" and it pops up something for you to type in the box, then you hit share again. Same for Twitter.

The RSS feed is an interesting idea, could give us something for topic generation.

Our 'personal information' rules were developed piecemeal over the first couple of years of our existence. The internet, and our relationship to it, have change mightily in those 11 years.

Is it time we take a holistic look at a) our rules (written and understood) b) what is their purpose and are they currently satisfying that purpose c) any potential updates/modifications?

Personally I find it crazy that someone can get a ban for just using someone's first name on the board but actually ABUSING it elsewhere is considered fair game. Seems totally backasswards.

I would agree that an approach to a new set of rules needs to be taken, while still keeping the free spirit of Wordforge intact.

This sentence fills me with dread. And I am not joking.

Yeah, me too. I would prefer a single sentence over a whole set:

Use common sense, don't be a dipshit and you'll do just fine; however, we reserve the right to sanction, humiliate, or otherwise punish dipshits as we see fit.

As Anc has said, though, Lanz, the internet has changed drastically in the past 11 years. Wordforge exists as it is, but it can't remain this way. Even if we eschew social media, the widening gap between message boards and social media centers will kill it. The question that has been asked, is whether we can maintain the idea that people's lives can be dragged into the mud for fun and profit on an open message board that is part of an ever shrinking internet.

I'm not talking an entirely new rule set, I just mean we need to go over the ones that exist and see how they work in a newer environment. I have no desires to see Wordforge become the old TBBS version of The Briar Patch.

See, here's the thing: Everything is connected, even when we don't want it to be connected. I could block just about every index bot that accesses the site, and we'd still wind up on Google. That's just the way things are now. Facebook and Google, with their various bots, ads, and embedded code, has an absurd amount of reach and influence over the internet. Names get tied up with user accounts, and email addresses, and other tidbits that are aggregated, collated, collected, and indexed. Employers use Facebook and Google to check potential hires, as do schools, banks, and other agencies. More people leave a trail online than they do in person, but thanks to mobile computing, that trail now follows them everywhere. We're in an exciting new age, where information is a click or tap away, but that means all information, not just the public face one puts forward.

Look at posters such as Dayton. He bleeds information. Quite frankly, I'm surprised he hasn't been fired for the stuff he puts here and elsewhere, because you can type in his username and a few keywords, and you can see every detail of his life, all laid out, from his money habits, to his family life, to his political opinions and how he approaches education. It's all out there for the world to see, and even though Dayton is an example of what not to do, he's not alone in how much information he bleeds. We all do, to some degree, and all of it gets pieced together by search engines like Google, with Google being the major player, and made readily available to anyone who has a few minutes, or a serious grudge.

To put it another way, one more relevant to recent events, imagine if your username, your email address, or other bits of contact info, were paired up with other sites, and then some wonderful words calling you a wife beater were gathered together as a part of your Google profile, and believe me it's more common than you think, and your employer looks it up? Maybe the police look it up? After incidents like GamerGate and other cases where the police investigate online activity, do you think they wouldn't? Even a few years ago, this would have seemed far fetched, but we're becoming a more monitored, more closely held internet. The open range that once existed does not exist anymore, and what you do in a podunk town a thousand miles away from anywhere else, will still make news in the big city, because we're all broadcasting that data to agencies that rebroadcast it to everyone else, whether we like it or not.

I'm not saying turn the Red Room into The Neutral Zone (though they're more similar than you think), but I am stressing that serious caution be exercised going forward.

All good things to consider, but for our practical purposes, we should keep WF shit of FB (aside from the WF page) and FB shit off WF. warn folks to consider registering here and other places with a dummy Yahoo account if they don't want to be tracted as hard.

Fair point. I just wanted to provide as much information as I could, so that if social media does become a part of Wordforge, there aren't going to be any unpleasant surprises.

I wouldn't mind stating that if you take personal information from Wordforge and abuse it somewhere else, you're not welcome here anymore.

Agreed. Personally I feel a 'don't fuck with people outside the board' rule would be good. I still think Face should have gotten a good couple of months for trying to fuck over Vlad a couple years ago for no other reason than to be a dick (Vlad's artwork had a chance to be on an album cover, if it got votes, Vlad asked people here to vote for him, Face emailed the contest holder and reported him for 'cheating').

Wow, he did admit to that? That's a horrible thing if he did in fact do that to someone here.

*Ahem*

Last time I checked, Face wasn't a Dayton Kitchens dual.

I'm not saying he isn't capable of it, but from all ive seen of him, his schlick was rep bombing and crude comments at the worst possible (ie, the infamous comment he made about Nibbles' death nine years ago). I've always have seen him be open about his trolling attempts and always agaist people he had a grudge with, like Reno Floyd, or Tamar or Ted the creep that he was 100 percent right about. There's slways some purpose, so I'm not sure of what that purpose was here or what possible reason there was to pull such shit.

That said, if there is more evidence than heresay, I'm more than willing to STFU and never mention it again.

Soooooo..

Before I release this one, is this something that'll be discussed with the board? What exactly do ya want with social media cross connection?

Just looking for ideas, would be good to get member input.

...and then Face has to be an ass.

Didn't know the feed updated automatically, but I'm glad it's turned off now.

How long is the face ban?