Facebook is really not built to facilitate intelligent conversation, is it?

[randomness]

There's a conversation going on in a Facebook group I'm in that may someday become my personal Exhibit A for why Facebook is a terrible place to have any kind of substantive, meaningful conversation.

I'm not linking to it now because I don't need an Exhibit A at the moment. Moreover, pointing large numbers of people at the conversation who have no connection to the group will probably not be helpful.

Comments

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

The lack of simple quoting and threading is definitely a problem.

On the other hand, it may be that the Internt, or Earth, both suffer from similar problems...

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, it may be that the Internt, or Earth, both suffer from similar problems...

While you're certainly not wrong about that, I've had conversations off-line with folks contrasting LiveJournal's granular handling of comments within posts with the lack of functionality to do the same in Facebook.

That conversation over on FB is definitely suffering from not having those tools. One of the moderators has been having some trouble with the lack of ability to put a conversation on hold so comments can get filtered before going public.

[gee-tar.livejournal.com]

Still better than Twitter.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Hah! Yes.

On the other hand, I'm finding even Disqus better than Facebook, and I hate Disqus.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

I agree with the basic, technical lack of ability to keep coherent conversations.

But the whole interface practically begs for the ten-second, off-the-cuff comment which is not something that facilitates thoughtful conversation, either.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

But the whole interface practically begs for the ten-second, off-the-cuff comment which is not something that facilitates thoughtful conversation, either.

Yes. It's definitely the wrong tool for the task.

[cos]

I was having the same thought while reading parts of what I think is the same conversation you're talking about. People should come back to LJ!

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

It's true!

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

The thing that's pissing me off about Facebook these days is that every so often someone posts something with an image that's triggering, and Facebook doesn't exactly slice things for great control over that if the OP didn't suppress the graphic image. I just unfollowed someone today because HOLY SHIT STOP IT PLEASE.

Ironically, the person had been griping a day or two before about how affected they are by the kinds of advertising ASPCA does, and then this? This was WORSE. I _hope_ they hadn't _realized_ how graphic an image they were sharing, but either way AUGH NO NO HIDE HIDE NO.

Sorry, this is off topic, it was just crazy upsetting.

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

Some of us never left!

I've started seeing an uptick with dissatisfaction about how most everything with Facebook works. I'm hoping there will be more people returning to livejournal because of that.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

I think that's going to be complicated by the mass exodus of fandom from LJ, for some combination of Dreamwidth (which I have an account on but don't regularly use) and Tumblr (which is a weird combination of awesome-for-fandom-related-images but irritating-for-responding-let-alone-threading). That having been said, I've actually met awesome people on Tumblr through shared interests, which is pretty cool.

I still wish more would come back to LJ though, I like it here even though I could list the problems with it.

[chris-warrior.livejournal.com]

i went over from LJ to view what i think is the same conversation, shuddered, and ran home.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

It's probably for the best. I've been thinking of leaving the Facebook group, myself.

[gingicat]

It reminds me a great deal of Usenet. This is nice when one is trying to resurrect alt.callahans, but not so much in this instance. (Then again, the Callahanians seem to be avoiding WORMS posts this time around.)

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Facebook doesn't exactly slice things for great control over that if the OP didn't suppress the graphic image.

Are there any controls over images that the reader can implement if the OP doesn't turn off the default thumbnail? I don't know how to do that.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

My memories of Usenet are better but it's probably because my memories all date from before the September that never ended.

Or it could be just "good old day"-ism on my part.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

No, not as far as I know. The OP can choose not to let FB display a thumbnail image, and can pick through such images if FB finds more than one to use in its automated scan of the link. That's if you're linking to a page.

I don't know if the OP in this case didn't realize that there was that option, or whether in this case the plea and the photograph were all one larger image, but she said she found a way to fix it so the image did not show to our feeds, after I said something. I need to thank her, but I'm still pretty displeased so I'm going to stay off Facebook for at least a few more hours.

The reader can hide an entire post, and can choose to partially filter someone by downgrading them from close friend to friend or friend to aquaintance, or can get the poster to not show up in newsfeed at all, but cannot hide just the image.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

Green Day are gonna be waiting for that a LOOOOOOONG time....

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

Usenet is a perfectly viable conversational medium, and has been for decades. It's not all gui graphical wunderkind stuff, but if you're conveying concepts, it's really very nice.

Of course, most Facebook users aren't really into actual discourse.

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

Comment threading is required for good conversation.

[drwex]

In other news, round objects are still round.

To be a bit more serious, Facebook's revenue model is built around ads and page views. Things that cause people to make short replies and repeatedly load pages play into their revenue model. Long, thoughtful writing is contrary to that model.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Long, thoughtful writing is contrary to that model.

This. I didn't want to start by highlighting the "Facebook likes it this way" aspect of the situation, but I'm glad you did.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it's required but it sure helps.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

Certainly I've heard nothing to suggest that Facebook is trying to be a useful platform for quality conversations. Mostly it seems to be to support ADD socializing of high-school students.

[st-rev.livejournal.com]

I find the quality of discussion on Twitter to be extremely high, despite the incredible barriers Twitter presents to it.

[ron_newman]

To my knowledge, LJ doesn't give moderators the power to "put a conversation on hold" either. (If it does, please let me know how, since that could occasionally prove useful in the LJ community I co-moderate.)

[ron_newman]

to what extent does Usenet still operate today? (Serious question.)

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I find I can freeze comments individually on a personal LJ. I can also retroactively disable comments, or screen them, and I can change the security on an entire post. Each of these options is available on the "edit post" page.

I don't administer a community LJ, so I can't speak to how those work.

[ron_newman]

As a community moderator, I do not have the ability to do any of these things, except to retroactively screen comments that have already been posted.

ETA: I can also freeze already-posted comments (thus preventing new direct replies to them), but I can't prevent new top-level comments from being added.

[awfief.livejournal.com]

Now I want to see a video similar to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYu_bGbZiiQ (Conference Calls in Real Life) but have it be "Facebook conversations in real life"....

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

That I'd like to see.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I wonder why community LJs work differently from personal ones.

Maybe it has to do with the fact that multiple accounts can moderate communities?

[colinmac.livejournal.com]

Yep, I've switched back to LJ (though I'm still crap about posting regularly). Not a lot of folks still here, but there's a high proportion of old friends I care about.