Bill has expressed my thoughts exactly and far better than I might have
done so.
Thank you, Bill.
Kevin Bowden
Nashville, TN
On Mon, Sep 7, 2015 at 5:49 PM, Bill Pulliam <littlezz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It is not so simple. Facebook is essentially useless over slow internet.
We who are on the wrong side of the digital divide by pure accident of
geography can find it very difficult. Case in point, I live in a hollow wit
no cable, no DSL, and very poor to non-existent cell coverage. My internet
options are dialup or expensive, unreliable, usage-capped satellite. A
solution is in the works for us and our neighbors, but it will take months
to complete and will cost us personally $7000 out of pocket up front. It is
unreasonable to just say "well then just get on Facebook and quit whining."
Let's REALLY be fair, and recognize that we want birding communities and
activities to be open to all who are interested (a very long-standing
tradition). And let's be fair and not exclude people who live on the wrong
street or don't have a lot of spare money laying around for the limited
expensive internet options available in many areas.
And, of course, Facebook sells user data and has a poor track record with
respect to user privacy. Requiring community members to participate in one
single for-profit corporate activity is also hardly "fair." As a corollary,
we can buy our optics openly on the free market, we are not forced to use
one particular vendor regardless of their customer service practices. And
there would be an uproar if we were. You can be an active member of your
local birding community even if you can barely afford cheap garage-sale
optics.
Unfortunately, this is not just a fluke of a particular time in history,
it is the trend of the future. Internet companies are learning that by
limiting sharing they get more members who surrender personal data that can
be sold for a profit, and more eyes on their ads which means higher
advertising revenues. This makes the truly public fora and archives like
TN-birds even MORE valuable, not less, in the present and future internet.
Bill Pulliam
Hohenwald TN
On Sep 7, 2015, at 5:02 PM, Graham wrote:
Let's be fair though, if folks feel that they are missing out on the
Facebook activity, they should simply join the group on Facebook. I
understand that cross posting is important for the data archiving, but it
is not relevant for the social aspects, where Facebook is vastly superior.
If there is an obligation to post invitations to this group for birding
trips, I must have missed it in the rules. It hardly seems fair to guilt
trip anyone for posting in the forum of their choosing.
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