thomas leverett weblog

CESL FaceBook

There's talk around CESL of having a CESL FaceBook page- but, unfortunately, this would take a time commitment from some or many CESL faculty to maintain and uphold it; this alone has been why I haven't run with the ball. I don't have it- the time, that is.

FaceBook is a hopping place. My son (almost 21), who keeps track of such things, says he has respect for the FaceBook developers, who keep on top of modern trends and add innovations as soon as they can develop them. In fact, FaceBook was started by this generation, for this generation, and as anyone can see, it's where they are as well as what they're doing, and how they're doing it.

But, careful! Here are a couple of points I have encountered. First, FaceBook owns everything you put on its territory. Your birthday, your favorite movie, your favorite color, and whatever you told your friend about yesterday's test. They own it, and they can sell it, give it away, or decide who sees it. Second, not only universities, but also two-bit hustlers, and your run-of-the-mill spam maximizer, not to mention your porn purveyors & rx salesmen, all of these people are onto how much of a hoppin' place this is. That means that people who try to take advantage of FaceBook, building communities, gathering friends, linking wherever possible, etc. are immediately put by many in the same class as these other no-count web hustlers and maybe ought to think twice about how this is seen in the wider world.

A site? A group (of friends)? CESL can and should think about it; I'm sure it can be done and done well. I am somewhat benevolent with my own personal site, but that means I have lots of junk that friends and former students spread my way, crusty movies, spam, connections to spam factories that I don't even know about, not having time to clean house or get rid of it. But that doesn't bother me; it's a personal place, & I have lots of junk in my van too. I feel differently about my office. If you're going to come by and tape soft-core porn or raunchy posters onto the walls outside my office door, I'm going to clean it up every day and complain...often.

But my biggest problem is, I don't know the difference between a group and a site. I'm sure I could find out, if I invested the time. I could advise CESL, tell what would be good, at least for the moment. But that wouldn't say much about what will happen, and where all of this is going. Who knows? We're all just here, at this moment, knowing it's big, knowing it could wash us all away, and knowing we'd better not just ignore it. Kind of like how I feel about Ike.

Labels: cesl, facebook, internet

posted by tom @ 1:20 PM