Facebook integration? Really?

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That wouldn't address the main issue that people are concerned over. The concern seems to be more about drawing interest to threads from outside i.e. facebook. People are uncomfortable that comments they've made within the community amongst fellow Aspies and Auties could be promoted by other members to a bunch of (essentially) NT High School kids. The linking could even be done maliciously and anonymously if a member wanted to bring outside ridicule upon another member. While people can still do that sort of thing anyway it would be a trolls/stalkers heaven if they could simply click an onscreen button to humiliate someone. "Ha ha ha - look at the bedwetting loonies on WP". They could turn the place into a freak show.

Having said the "bad", I suppose the "good" side would be that links to informed discussions and positive threads could promote a better understanding of the issues of autism and Aspergers to a wider audience.

OK, I'm slow. If I click the like button here on WP how does it connect to my Facebook page exactly? Would I have to like

or become a fan of WP on FB first? I go by my name on FB, it's all mostly family and a few friends from long ago for me. How

would my mother see a connection between Aimless and my real name on Facebook? By the way I searched Wrong Planet on

Facebook for a look. The comments posted there were inane.

That's a very good point.


She might not, unless you post something particularly detailed or specific about your life, like your favourite weird food/music/books or how old you were when you started x, y, or z, or who you live with in what sort of house and how many brothers and sisters you have and how you decorate your bedroom ( like people often do on Random threads ... aswell as more serious ones sharing and exchanging info/experiences ).

But some people also have usernames that are quite unusual, ones which represent their special interests or a childhood nickname or something specific which could identify them, and others even use their real name. And the trouble with a "Like" button is that lots of people get their names linked to the whole FB network, not just the person pressing the button.

And it looks as if anyone, both WP members and non-members/anonymous passers-by, can press the button, just so long as they are members of Facebook. I haven't liked to press a button to check; but the buttons are visible and "react" to the mouse even when I am not logged in here.
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Ok, I tested it.

I logged off from WP first, and then I clicked to this page and scrolled down to the bottom, and clicked on the Like button.

It worked.

I didn't have to be logged in to WP, I could be anyone at all, and I was able to click the button to link this thread with my Facebook page, ( which I did have to be logged into for it to work ).

It posted up that xxxxx xxxxxxxx ( my full and real name on Facebook ) "Liked" this page, and opened a window for me to share this thread to my FB page with a comment, ( which could just be an exclamation mark ).

The button simultaneously offered me the option of "Unliking" this thread, which I promptly did.

But the button as it stands allows any one, any person casually or deliberately surfing through Wrong Planet, NT, non-member, etc, to link a thread to FB with two clicks of their mouse.

Edit. And I think that if you are a member and logged in to FB you might even be able to see the real names of whoever "Likes" a thread, because even if it only posts a link to this page on your FB page ( rather than creating a whole page to itself on Facebook as "Liking" something sometimes does ), FB often pops-up a list of ( real ) names of people who liked something, when there are just a couple. I could click on the "Like" button to see who else had liked this thread, and then "Unlike" it. ... I'm not sure, because FB is not always exactly consistent with this stuff. Either way the fact that you can click on the "Like" button without being a WP member is not good.
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Last edited by ouinon on 11 Oct 2010, 4:25 am, edited 3 times in total.

OK I'm not going to be clear on this unless I "see" it myself. Thanks for trying ouinon, I'm just dopey.

Yikes! That was my face! No, sir I don't like it all.

I would like to have a like button to respond positively to a specific post (not the whole thread) that had nothing to do with

facebook. Sometimes I want to simply say " I hear you" without actually going further into detail. An "I get you" button?

Yeah, I like that idea.

Likewise.

Likewise the likewise. (Ditto, +1 )

I often read posts that I think are good, but the poster has said everything that I would have said anyway and I fully agree with what they've said, so no point me posting a reply. However, the OP can sometimes think everyone is ignoring his post! I've seen that happen lots of times. The people who get quoted the most tend to be those that others disagree with. Very rare people copy someone's post to simply add 'ditto' or '+1'. So yes an internal to WP "like" button would be interesting and informative. It also gives encouragement to people who make those good posts.

I can understand how people who want to keep their facebook and the forums seperate. But on facebook, you have control over everything you do. If you like a thread by mistake, you can delete that post.

I can understand though. It's very easy to accidently press it. Maybe you could put a confirmation prompt after someone presses it?

A group of NTs could just as easily copy and paste a link to the thread to their blog, twitter, or even facebook.

Can people just delete it from their facebook after they hit the "like" button?

Can people just not hit the "like" button so it won't show up on facebook?

Well first they'd have to find this place, then dig for a quote, then go through the trouble of linking and cross posting to get the same effect. Further, there really isn't another site quite like Facebook for widely disseminating information quickly; remember that it's played key roles in quite a few internet bullying scandals recently.

This reminds me a lot of a concept called "practical obscurity" that's become an issue in the internet age. Mostly it has to do with government records that have technically always been public, but in practice someone wishing to look at them had to go down to a government building and manually look them up; yes you could do it but it took some specialized knowledge and effort. When those same records are put online in an open database, anybody with net access and Google can now instantly find your personal records virtually effortlessly, reducing actual privacy even though the laws are the same as they always were. Quick and easy Facebook linking could have a similar effect in that people who had no idea about this place and it's vulnerable members will now have a direct link to us from a massively popular site, along with samples of what goes on here.

Aspies never have had a problem finding this place, it's the biggest and most well known Asperger's forum, if not website period, on the web and any AS related search will instantly pop it up, not to mention the many links and mentions on other AS related sites. The issue with Facebook is that it will advertise our presence to people that really have no reason to know we exist, e.g. people with absolutely no connection to the Autism spectrum. I'm not saying that he site should be exclusionary or anything, just questioning why we should be advertising to people that have no use for this site and might well be destructive to it.

Well, here is what I have decided. I have decided not to make anymore financial donations to support this site. This whole fiasco with Facebook is not what I was trying to support, anyway. It isn't fair. We should at least have been given an opportunity to vote on this move! I deeply distrust Facebook, and now have even more reason to feel uneasy about it.

Last edited by hartzofspace on 11 Oct 2010, 1:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Alex, why did you think it was a good idea to put a like button at the bottom of every thread? I'm not sure that feature is needed, given that this was meant primarily as a support site, not a social networking site. Granted that people could always of posted links to this site but the like feature on Facebook definitely does have privacy concerns, especially now that "likes" are available to absolutely everyone and not just Facebook friends. It doesn't affect me directly because I don't have a Facebook account but if I did, I wouldn't want any of the personal stuff I've written here to show up there. Additionally like Dox said, it can draw unnecessary attention to this site because "likes" can be tracked, just as companies use it as a tool for marketing research.

That being said, I wouldn't mind feature letting me know how many members read the threads I started though.

P.S. This has nothing to do with the main topic, but what's with that login window that appears every time I visit the forum index without logging in. I often browse Wrongplanet without logging in but now that window keeps popping up. I was perfectly happy logging in by clicking the words "Log in" at the top right hand corner of the screen when I wanted to.

Last edited by Jono on 11 Oct 2010, 3:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.