Talk:Facebook/Archive 2

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Appropriate Criticism?

The following text was recently added to the article:

Facebook suffers from several security loopholes. Certain profiles/photos that normally prove inaccessible may be accessed through the messages menu, by clicking on the portrait of a person who isn't a Friend. This means that if a person is harassing you, do not send an E-mail reply back to them as they can use your profile to get information on you.

I removed it for a number of reasons. First, "several" is not one. Secondly, this may not be a security loophole but instead an assumption by the people that run facebook that you'll allow anyone you message to see your information. Thirdly, the use of "you" is plain bad style.

If anyone can substantiate this as a real loophole, feel free to edit this and re-insert. As it stands, I am disinclined to do so myself. Thesquire 03:52, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm inclined to believe that reason regarding messaging myself, Thesquire. I don't think it's a security breach at all. Mike H [[User_talk:Mike Halterman|(Talking is hot)]] 04:17, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a soapbox, or a publisher of critical reviews or personal essays. Thesquire, please take these "comments" off the article. -- Perfecto  14:29, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Huh? I was explaining my deletion so that noone re-added it without editing it. I fail to see how this is a "critical review or personal essay." I do have a talk page if you want to gripe at me. Thesquire 04:34, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, my english was bad. I meant that the paragraph "Facebook suffers...." is a critical review and personal essay of a person's experience with the site. Please remove it because it's original research. I apologise for the misunderstanding -- Perfecto  04:44, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

The italicized text is what I took out of the main article. Since it's no longer part of the main article, as of 21:48, 20 November 2005 when I removed it, the problem you're complaining about was solved before you started in on me for fixing it. Thesquire 05:05, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

I think the whole criticms section is very poor and should be deleted or revised. It's essentially whining without personal pronouns. Electricbassguy

I second this. The criticisms section is very, very weak. Fstutzman 21:58, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I third it. See Talk:Facebook (website)#Source for criticisms below. I think we should move the information about people with large numbers of friends and Facebook's attempts to curb this behavior up to the section on Friends and trash the rest. - AdelaMae ^{(talk - contribs)} 04:15, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I think some of that section should remain in the article (not necessarily in its own section but in some form). We also might want to take into account the fact that with the recent changes allowing high school users to interact with college users (and the fact that you no longer need .edu to fully use the site), some cricisms may soon arrive. For example, this Harvard Crimson article describes a backlash at the new feature [1] and the creation of groups such as "Advocates for the return of Facebook to college-only exclusivity". - L1AM (talk) 09:36, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Revised as requested. Summary: I removed the criticisms about accessabilty between schools because they were too weak. I moved the criticisms about friends lists up to the "Friends" section and the one about fake profiles up to the "Profile" section. I restructered the privacy concerns and made it clear they had been addressed. I wrote a subsection about the new high school debate (fastest growing groups at my school it appears) and because it is somewhat controversal and weak, added a cite sources template (see the below section on this talk page). Opinions: It's only a four day old policy so hopefully people will be on the look out for evidence of this criticism. I believe the section should be kept; please continue to improve it. - L1AM (talk) 08:18, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Source for criticisms

Do we have sources for any of the criticisms of Facebook? Right now, the section is a lot of "some people think" without ever specifying who it is that thinks these things, and I'm worried that it's going to turn into a place for people who don't like Facebook for whatever reason to come and vent their frustrations anonymously on the Wikipedia. Really, the most common criticism I've heard - the one that's been mentioned over and over in the news articles I've read while working on this - is the privacy issue, and that isn't even mentioned in the Criticisms section right now. Does anyone have some good ideas for how we could fix this section up? - AdelaMae ^{(talk - contribs)} 08:04, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Other than the "popularity contest" and "fake profile" bits, I think most of that section could be scrapped with no loss to the article. Thesquire 08:18, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't even see how the "fake profiles" are a bad thing. They're pretty amusing. Electricbassguy

does anyone know if facebook is actually cracking down on the fake profiles? I've noticed that some popular profiles like Napoleon Dynamite seem to have just disappeared. And I agree with Electric, the facebook profiles are pretty funny and allow users to demonstrate their creativity in ways they wouldn't otherwise be able to do. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.40.64.134 (talk • contribs) 02:59, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Eduardo Saverin

Can we please decide whether or not to include this guy in the article? -- Thesquire (talk - contribs) 08:52, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

eduardo was a friend of mark and dustin's but wasn't a founder of facebook. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 204.15.20.246 (talk • contribs) 18:56, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Can anyone provide any source to confirm this guy's involvement? The current edit war over whether he was an "initial funder" or a "co-founder" is silly, especially considering that all the people who insist that he was in fact involved are not making edits from valid Wikipedia user accounts. I propose that his name be removed from the article until someone can provide a source to clarify the degree of his involvement, if he was in fact involved at all. NBS525 04:37, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Eduardo is a Co-founder of the site. For the sake of clarity, here is an early screenshot of Thefacebook About Us Page [2] —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.96.188.226 (talk • contribs) .

To sum it up:

[[Image:Facebook-peeps.jpg]]

So shouldn't we add Andrew McCollum? - L1AM (talk) 08:37, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

It's not as if that screenshot makes it clear. That's one grievance I've always had with facebook...they use sarcasm so much when they should realize that it's an honest-to-goodness business, not just some little thing with friends anymore. Expanding it so big has made them lose their intimacy, so the sarcasm and "jokes between friends" are now painfully out of place. Mike H. That's hot 08:50, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Who cares? Why can't an "honest-to-goodness" business run by geeky 21-22 year-olds for 18-22 year-olds have some sarcasm? I don't really think that the facebook had strict job categories when it started up. For what it's worth, Andrew is now back at school, class of 2006. --jacobolus (t) 09:55, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Who cares? Obviously I care or I wouldn't have said anything. Be civil, please. Mike H. That's hot 05:53, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I work at Facebook in Palo Alto. Eduardo was Mark's friend early on and helped him fund the site but isn't actually involved with the company in any way. Listing him next to Mark makes it seem like there's no difference between Mark, who actually created Facebook, and Eduardo, who paid for some servers. They should probably both be included (since Eduardo was important to Facebook's history), but Eduardo isn't a founder. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 204.15.20.246 (talk • contribs) 00:19, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Despite good reasons for removing Saverin from being a founder and multiple people making this edit, he keeps on being added back to the article by someone whose IP is 65.96.188.226. Can we block that IP so we can get this set once and for all? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 12.186.4.2 (talk • contribs) 04:08, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Eduardo is in fact a founder of facebook. facebook was founded by eduardo and mark in partnership, and dustin only later joined. it is simple to verify this fact.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 140.247.125.232 (talk • contribs) 22:41, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

If it's so simple, why don't you provide us with the verification? -- Thesquire (talk - contribs) 05:19, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

he is a founder. view a google search and page graphic above. as example, look at a feb. 2005 article http://thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=505942 which lists key players of the site. dustin was first employee, with mark and eduardo as the first two founders. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 141.154.199.156 (talk • contribs) 07:09, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Um, all it says is Saverin is 'Chief Financial Officer' (as of Feb. 2004) and was "an early investor". It doesn't say he's a co-founder. - L1AM (talk) 09:08, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't want to take a position on his inclusion yet but heres an article in the Yale newspaper (not exactly verification but still) that says Joboozle.com [3] "was founded by a group of six college seniors, four of whom attend Harvard, including thefacebook.com co-founder Eduardo Saverin." Joboozle describes their service saying "Joboozle provides both college students and employers with... integrated profiles... [and a] social networking interface with which they can directly communicate with company recruiters and representatives" so it appears Mr. Saverin has founded some sort of competitor to Facebook. This might explain all the 3RR wars going on between anon. ips with only Facebook related contribs. However, Saverin is not listed on Joboozle's 'about the team' page, so who knows? - L1AM (talk) 07:26, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Current course schedule feature

The article currently states that the feature to add your current course schedule was added in September 2004. I graduated in the spring of 2004 yet I still recall being able to post my class schedule when I was in school. Can anyone confirm the date that this feature was added? dsemaya 02:46, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I was the one who added that when I created the whole "addition of features" section of the article, but now that I think about it, I believe I was able to list my courses earlier than that as well, which means it must have been added in April 2004. Can anyone else confirm this? I apologize for my error. I have removed it from the article. NBS525 14:02, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Fads

I have never heard of or seen "downing" and it seems to me that chain letters are neither specific to the Facebook nor so widespread on it that they are worth mentioning in this article. Does anyone feel strongly that this section should be included? Otherwise I'll go ahead and remove it. NBS525 23:58, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I've never heard of downing either, but the fads are growing. I don't think these fads are worth a mention, though. SujinYH 03:23, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed the whole section. I also should have noted that there were many grammatical errors in the writing and that it was in the "Features" section, which hardly seemed appropriate, considering that every other subsection in "Features" refers to an actual feature provided by Facebook. If anyone still feels strongly that this should be cleaned up and included, please add to this discussion. The following is what I removed. NBS525 14:21, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Downing - Growing in popularity among Facebooks users is the action of "downing" other users' posts. The purpose of downing is to push down another user's post by invading a friend's wall and writing "Down with ____!!!" (where the blank would be filled with the name of the user directly under the current poster). Other posters would in turn "down" the previous poster, usually creating a chain. Many good "down" sessions involve flooding an entire wall with "downs." Downing is among the first fads on Facebook.

Chain letters - Another popular fad on Facebook is sending chain letters. Chain letters were originally sent by message, but soon were posted straight to the users wall. These chain letters usually consist of stories and jokes.

That's fine. I was also wondering what it was doing in the Features section. Also, in the short time I had made a small change in the article last night, an anonymous user bulleted what you had deleted. Odd. SujinYH 02:05, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Southeast Missourian article

Some anon. users from 204.8.190.xxx (all from Big River Telephone, Missouri, USA) keep re-adding the Southeast Missourian article. I've read the article a few times now and cannot find anything useful about it. We already have enough college newspaper articles and more should be added only if they provide something useful. Please stop with the linkspam to a non-notable article. — L1AM (talk) 04:12, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

NCSU Event

There are citations, references, and additional information to point to in regards to the part I added about the alcohol citations at NCSU. I'm a n00b, and don't know if I would be putting them in the right place.

This is the first local news article that reported the event along with the segment itself: http://www.wral.com/news/5204275/detail.html

The other news had it available online but doesn't anymore (it happened last fall). Anyway, this is where it was: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/2833298p-9283981c.html

The school newspaper has also removed the original article and the followups. You can, however, still find other articles that directly reference the event from their homepage. http://www.technicianonline.com/

For more school reaction from the event, this is the topic that talked about it on the unofficial school message boards, also with a link to the now deleted school paper article: http://www.thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=360995

The disucssion from thewolfweb also had a little significance in itself because it was used to make the point about how anything from the internet could be used to give you citations by university policy by a university representitive from student conduct in a meeting open to the public hosted by student government.

I haven't researched what wikipedia has about legality of use of such pictures or university policies and enforcement, but there was a news event fairly recently (I think in the last month or so) where a college student recieved was awarded a large sum (around $100,000 I think) because the university kicked him out on charges that had no proof behind them. Anyway, that seemed another issue, but very relevant.

Any help in putting that information in the right place or adding more information would be appreciated. Alan 00:33, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I've moved the paragraph you added to Facebook's_use_in_investigations#Alcohol_policy_violations. Thanks for your contribution! — L1AM (talk) 02:28, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Facebook down 3/27/2006

Removed this from article, talk about it here: On March 27, 2006, Facebook went off-line for an extended period of time. Several users became frustrated and updated Wikipedia. Enraged students complain on campus-wide forums across the nation, wondering when their beloved facebook will come online again. This is probably due to the new search features. Facebook servers must be unable to maintain the workload of network-wide search. This is why forums like SomethingAwful restrict this feature to users who pay for this option. 128.211.251.72 21:14, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Removed it again. Definitely not worth a mention, especially not how it was presented (see here). cBuckley (Talk • Contribs) 21:34, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Help!

So how many people are now on facebook (total)? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by EKN (talk • contribs) 03:47, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Citations needed

I removed some parts from the article that were untagged. Feel free to add them back after finding sources to confirm them.

1. "In addition, two students from the University of Kentucky wrote another "The Facebook Song" poking fun at the "hook-up" aspect of romantic networking on Facebook." - from References in popular culture
2. "Rutgers University - Camden, St. Louis University" - from Digital mourning
3. "At East Lansing High School, MI, many students were threatened with disciplinary action for joining a Facebook group about how much they hate the principal." - from Other investigations

The end of the Integration of high school users section still is tagged with {{citeneeded}} regarding the comparisons to issues with MySpace. Please be on the look out for a citation for that as well. —L1AM (talk) 22:25, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

The pop culture references need to be converted from external links to whatever citation format is used in this article. Pepsidrinka 03:20, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

References in popular culture

The following section was removed as it was considered non-notable. If you wish to add it back, please state your reasons here. Thanks! --L1AM (talk) 01:47, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Various songs have been created about the Facebook phenomenon. A student at Duke University composed one entitled "The Facebook Song," [4] which satirizes college students' seemingly-universal addiction to the site, as well as some of its quirks. In 2005, Nsami wrote and performed "Facebook Livin" [5]. In addition, a group of music finalists from the University of Cambridge, UK wrote a song "On The Facebook" [6] which proved a worldwide hit, having been downloaded over 60,000 times worldwide in just over a week. The website contained an accompanying pop video, showing aspects of the Facebook's role in student life.

In April 2005, students at Michigan State University created Facebook: The Movie.[7] The movie begins by saying "There are three types of people. Those who refuse to join Facebook because everyone else is on it. Those who are on Facebook and use it casually. And finally, there are those who use Facebook as a substitute for social and human interaction."

It seems to me that if we're going to have a section for "popular culture references", they should be... well... popular. 60,000 downloads in a week doesn't make song "a worldwide hit" by any stretch of the imagination, and "On the Facebook" isn't even in the same league with, say, the Numa Numa song - not to mention that the statistic is unverified and seriously dubious, considering that the website for "On the Facebook" has only gotten 82,972 hits in the last three months - and the fact that college students have made up songs about Facebook is just not interesting unless you are one of those students' friends or really hardcore into Facebook. I'm not one to cite WP:NFT, but I really don't think the blurbs on these songs contribute anything to the main Facebook article and I can't see them surviving in a separate article. - AdelaMae ^{(talk - contribs)} 03:55, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with what AdelaMae said. Also, didn't we try to kill it once before? -- Thesquire (talk - contribs) 04:53, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Addition of features section

I don't have time to work on this right now, but it seems to me that the article would benefit from paring down the "addition of features" section to include only the really important and verifiable features, like Groups and Photos... whatever is verifiable but minor could be moved to List of Facebook features. - AdelaMae ^{(talk - contribs)} 05:18, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I added that subsection in the first place because previously the history section was long and disorganized with some information on the history of the Facebook as an organization scattered around information on the features of the service itself. I also wanted to add some information about how the introduction of certain features, such as Groups, actually changed the way people used the site. However, now it seems that the section has just become a timeline where people add a new paragraph whenever the site adds a new graphic or removes an apostrophe. NBS525 12:37, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I also agree that after the section is cleaned up, it should be moved to List of Facebook features. I suspect people like to use this article as a central repository of feature updates, but it looks like other (more appropriate) sites are picking up the slack there. MaxVeers 06:38, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Recent changes

Does anyone understand why exactly they eliminated the colleges listing in the profile menu? Or clubs and jobs? Is there official reasoning behind it?

The colleges listing is back, as of today I guess. I think the "clubs and jobs" list was removed from the profile because the new "work info" section can include much more detailed information about all the clubs and jobs you wanted to list in the old section. They probably removed the old section because it would have become redundant once people started listing all their clubs and jobs in the new section as well. It is still possible to list all of the information that you could list before, but you just list it in a different place and in a different format. NBS525 13:19, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Has anyone also noticed that merging of profiles has disappeared from the "help" section of facebook? Abhishek 02:48, 28 April 2006 (UTC)