clevermanka | The inevitability of Facebook

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The inevitability of Facebook

I might join Facebook. The prospect is galling, but it's becoming increasingly obvious that Facebook is the way to go for tracking down former students of the program.

Here's my question for those of you familiar with the different aspects of identification on the site: Is it possible for me to join using my name and (work) email address, but identify only as the KU English department, with minimal personal information available on the profile?

I don't want old and unwanted friends and acquaintances tracking me down. Especially in a forum that is supposed to be work-related.

Thank you everyone who responded. What a great collection of advice!

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You can put your name and work email address. You do not have to list any personal information on your profile at all (and you can opt to keep other information hidden), beyond your name, and I think, gender...certain information, though is considered publicly available information...your name, your gender, your profile picture (if you put one up), your friends list and the pages you become a "fan of". You can opt to not post your friends list on your profile, but that makes it more difficult for you to see it yourself.

You can opt to limit who can find you in searches (either publicly through, say Google, or through Facebook itself), but for your intended purpose you may not want to do that, so students can find you. You have the option, though, of ignoring friend requests, and limiting who can see certain information only to those people you allow to friend your profile.

If you you do make a Facebook, click on the "Settings" link at the top of the page first thing and then click through every single privacy option available, and limit each aspect as much as you feel necessary.

Also, be aware that once you have a Facebook, people will be able to tag pictures of you to link back to your profile. You want them to do this, in that you can then opt to remove the tag. Once you remove a tag from a photo of yourself, no one can put the tag back on. This effectively keeps the photos from being attached to your profile (through the photos tab), although they do still exist on the Facebook site. Some people use this to pull tags off photos they find unflattering, to minimize who sees such photos, but I would think if you are keeping your Facebook work related, you may prefer to keep tags off all faire related photos of yourself, etc.

Another thing to know...if people send you invites from any application (the little games, etc.) opt to block each application with the first invitation, and you will then receive no further invites from the particular application. Ignoring the invites, will only allow them to keep coming.

Hope that helps.

D.

D, you can block people from tagging you in photos. I have it done on mine, I just can't remember exactly where or how without going through the options.
A friend told me she tried to tag me, but it just wouldn't "take".

Ah, more than fair. I can see where that would work quite well for

chernobylred's purposes, and it's certainly a simpler route. I would expect that option would be found following the the settings, privacy, photos chain of links.

I know that the others who use the other route are interested in seeing some of the photos put out there of them (as people tagging you is a way for you to know what is floating about the internet), but want to have control of what their name is attached to.

D.

It's been a very eye-opening experience for me, in that some photos of me which I had specifically told the photog NOT TO post online, were on Facebook open to the world. They were pix of me in a burlesque show and there might have been a bit more of my ass and flesh than I'd like visible to anyone who didn't come to the show.
I was furious, and he claimed that he'd thought he'd locked them down to private viewing only, but something went wrong with the coding.
So yes, I can certainly see the point of seeing who's tagged you with what.

Depending on when you saw the photos, he might have been telling you the truth. When Facebook did the last code change up where they went with the changes as to what is "publicly available information", they appear to have also opened up peoples photo albums (that is, they changed the privacy settings to the default of open). I know that because there are a couple of people I had checked out who had previously completely closed everything and suddenly their walls and all their photos were open.

Facebook has a habit of changing code out from under everyone...it's one of the things I most dislike about the site, as what may be true today, won't necessarily hold true for how the code works tomorrow.

D.

Oh dear, well I feel bad for thinking the worst of him,
although it doesn't negate the fact that I said No Internet,
for the very reason that it's never a firm grip on who can get what.

I imagine he knows better now and I hope his ass has healed.

I've got mine locked down as tight as I can get it.
You can make lists of people and are able to post so that only they can see it.
It's a bit complicated with the new "features" to lock down all your profile info, but it is possible with patience.
I think making it KU English Department is the best option for what you want to do. You'd just be a moderator of sorts. But you'd want to lock yourself down tighter than a frog's ass (and that's watertight).

You can make the minimal info you do have to fill out visible to only you, only your friends, your friends and their friends or everybody. You can even make it so you do not come up in a search result unless they are already your friend should people try to find you. That way, people can only friend you if you initiate it.

I honestly like it a lot more than I thought I would. The parts that I do not like are all the applications. Once I block it the first time, I never see it again from anybody though.

I locked mine down a lot while I was working. When I start looking for work again, I'll lock it down once more.

My mother and a friend both use fake names even though it is technically against the rules. I *think* there may be a way to use a handle instead of your name.

DO NOT accept any invitations to any games, programs, etc. None. At all. Or you will be swamped with notifications that never end. Also, remember that when you comment on a picture, thread, wall, or anything else that other people comment on you will get all notifications from every comment made after yours no matter who makes it. There *might* be a way to turn this off but I haven't found it yet.

You might want to route facebook emails into their own folder in your email program... call it "wtf?" or something.

I think (hope?) you can get to those by going to "Settings" then "Notifications" and unchecking any variant of "comments after me" on wall posts, photos, notes, etc.

D.

This is the part that's most irritating to me about FB. Why can't they send notifications of replies to my comments without notifying me of every single reply? It would be a simple fix, threading discussions, but FB shows no interest in doing so. Thus I have no idea if someone replies to one of my comments on their posts. *sigh*

My job uses several different accounts for different programs/ events. So I know you can list your name as KU English Department. All your personal info can be the schools and you won't have to put your name on at all.

On the homepage- instead of signing up for an individual account, right below that is a link to create a page for a business.

I just checked, and "KU English" isn't yet a user. If you input real information (such as your email addy) and use that, you should be fine.

Or make it more specific, such as "KU Englishgrad" or something.

You can sign up with your actual name and lock everything down in privacy settings. Heck, you don't have to put that much info to begin with. Then you can make either a "fan page" or a "group" for the KU English department. Accept student/professional contact only at the official pages you've set up rather than your personal profile.

I'll add that making a fan page or a group (probably fan page is best for this) means that you don't lose out on things if you do want to use FB for personal networking, and you don't have to keep track of separate accounts. You can use the same email address, but they behave like two different accounts in terms of privacy levels and functions.

The totally non-intuitive place you go to set this up is when you're logged into FB, go to the pages link on the left of your screen under "more."

Gah. Did it wrong. sorry about that. Ironically, my boss just had me set up a department fan page today. This is what it looks like:

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#/pages/Overland-Park-KS/JCCC-Education-Technology-Center/262830077399

And I didn't actually have to be a fan of the page in order to create it.

Edited 2010-01-19 22:16 (UTC)

You can start a page for KU English. We did one at UMKC.

You may need your own account, then set yourself up as administrator. While, yes, you can set up an account as First Name = KU and Last Name = English, facebook can (and will) delete it at any time. Plus, why not have a page for community building? You can post events on there, photos, etc.

off topic, but I am excited to see the generational movements of internet life--- as in, our kids (read: your kids) have a definitive electronic identity, inescapable from past (as in, their kids can find the stupid 16 year old posts online)

I love the fact that I'm foreign enough from the internets to be the me who I am, not the me from 12 years ago-- -but kids generationally below me cannot.

How will that affect internet stuffs, say, 30 years from now? reckless abandon is so much easier when you aren't accountable for EVERY STUPID THING....

i digress. sorry.

Haha!

I, OTOH, see it as an insidious way to get young people completely oblivious to the idea that there may once have been privacy in our lives, and that posting one's every movement and event isn't quite the good idea Facebook plays it up to be.

I was in facebook for just a tad. I never liked it.

Good luck if you do go for the virus.

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The inevitability of Facebook

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