38Talk:

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And to add one more bit, there already is a Facebook group for the
38th Voyagers set up, I believe, by someone at Mystic Seaport.

Matthew Bullard

On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 4:21 PM, Frank Reed  wrote:
> Hello Bex,
>
> You suggested: "why don't we create an invite-only Facebook group where we
> can continue these discussions for free in perpetuity?"
>
> Uh-oh! I did not mean to create the impression that 38Talk was in any danger
> of vanishing. That is not even remotely the case. I've been managing online
> communities since the mid-1990s. Most recently, I have been managing the
> NavList community under the same conditions and systems as the present
> 38Talk for the past nine years. There are very few communities on the
> Internet that have been around for nine years. Even Facebook (astronomically
> larger, of course) has been open to the public for a bit less time than
> that.
>
> Facebook groups are great for what they are. But they tend to be light, or
> rather lite. Serious discussions never work on Facebook. I've watched this
> for many years. It's a great place to "like" a photo of a sunset or to
> "like" a video of sails in the wind, but that's where it usually ends. It's
> no place for discussions beyond one or two sentence replies. In addition,
> Facebook discussions are not quite free since FB drops advertising on every
> page, and the algorithms used to populate those ad blocks are driven by
> content you post in your group. As for Facebook being around for
> "perpetuity", yes, the company and its basic social media operations will
> undoubtedly be around for years and probably decades. But any single
> feature, including any group you may imagine, can be removed, re-arranged,
> re-targeted in any fashion that Facebook management sees fit, and you as
> group members have no recourse whatsoever. I use Facebook myself (friend me
> up!), but it is a commercial operation with a voracious appetite for growth
> and little regard for its members personal needs or desires, apart from the
> generation of advertising revenues.
>
> Finally, why "invite-only"? I say, invite everyone who may be interested.
> That's one small way to guarantee lasting value for the 38th Voyage. Don't
> shut the public out; invite them in! And incidentally, Google is already
> indexing these 38Talk messages.
>
> The huge advantage of a community like 38Talk compared to a Facebook group
> is that you have someone to complain to. If it's offline or if you're not
> receiving messages the way you want to, you contact me. And I fix it right
> away. Good luck finding anyone, anywhere on the staff of Facebook who will
> pay attention to individual concerns.
>
> You also wrote:
> "Plus, your inbox won't be flooded with emails (unless you really want it
> to) but you can check the group homepage whenever you need a dose of
> maritime nerdiness."
>
> Just to clarify, 38Talk offers the option of receiving messages by email,
> but it is by no means the only way to follow the group. If your inbox is
> "flooded", then you may have missed some previous messages. You can check
> the homepage for 38Talk anytime you want, right here. And you can turn off
> emails or adjust your settings, perhaps switching to daily digests easily
> (instructions here).
>
> And you concluded:
>
>
> "And Frank won't be out more money."
>
> Asking for donations is always risky. But that's all it was... Wikipedia
> regularly asks for donations, thus saving us from more advertisements. And
> that's the model for 38Talk. Donations help, but they're not essential. If
> you can't make a donation or simply don't feel like it, that's no problem at
> all. NavList donations generally support 38Talk, too. A quick thanks to
> those 38Talk members who have already contributed!! It really helps.
>
> Frank Reed
> Conanicut Island USA
>
>
>
> View and reply to this message

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