Forum posts on facebook

smidge · Jan 25, 2015

Hi everyone!

I have skim-read this thread and although I really do understand the concerns, I think the whole debate really comes down to one issue - that the Facebook (and Twitter) pages are under the banner of diabetes.co.uk, so have credibility and seem 'official' in some way that sets them apart and yet they are not managed appropriately for that status. Fix that and you will go a long way to fixing the problem.

It is not realistic to expect that posts from this forum will not be quoted and discussed on FB and Twitter diabetes groups. As has been mentioned many times on the thread, there are many many diabetes forums and blogs on the internet that use and quote the content of this forum; it is the biggest diabetes forum on the internet, so it attracts both positive and negative interest. There is one blog in particular that likes to conduct a 'diabetes war' with other blogs and forums - largely, I suspect, to drum up interest in what is otherwise quite a boring subject! It quotes and ridicules forum members all the time - sometimes it's vindictive, sometimes it's hilarious, sometimes it's just plain stupid, but it has a lot of useful information and some very knowledgeable contributors. I know diabetes is all very interesting to us, but really, very few people are that interested!

You have no control of anything being said about you on the internet; ignore it, laugh at it but don't let it get you down and consume vast amounts of your thoughts and energy.

Smidge

Robinredbreast · Jan 25, 2015

satindoll said:
And admin isn't exactly hot on their heels either are they.

These type of 'posts' do need to be reported so it can be alerted and then dealt with if warranted.

But any questions or need anawers to these related posts, should, IMO, be addressed to anna, senior moderator/ Giverny.or @admin .
Best wishes RRB

AnnieC · Jan 25, 2015

Andy12345 said:
On saying that I don't really care if they repost anything I say

But do think it's wrong in principle

Likewise Andy it does not bother me if my posts are reposted nothing in them I would not want anyone else to see because I know this happens all the time on the internet I suppose in an ideal world we should be able to have the choice if we don't want this to happen to any posts we make anywhere but I don't think that would be possible

Sancho panza · Jan 25, 2015

AndBreathe said:
I note there has been some discussion about having a closed forum. I doubt that would be my preference. In my view, part of the special nature and wonder of this place is how much “new blood” (pun intended) we have, on an almost daily basis. How do we achieve that volume, if the door is locked. I learned so much before I made my first post, and indeed, my initial post was, like so many, to ask a question and have a bit of a sound off. But, it’s only after this that people’s voices and characters are heard.

Closed communities tend to attract people who are very much of a kind, and whilst this sounds all very nice, that tends not to be the best learning or sharing environment. In fact it can become competitive (dare I say clique-ish?), with those who don’t quite fit tending to be either driven out or they choose to leave because their differences aren’t appreciated.

We need new blood to add variety and to freshen the place up. We need the forum to be asked about testing for the 200,000th time. We need those fresh reiterations of information. It’s how new people learn and how more established members pay back the kindness and education they received when they joined. I’ve been here just over a year, and I’m still learning. Sometimes those thought provoking gems come from complete newbies whose thinking is completely left field to the well worn path.

We must ensure in all of this that we don’t end up throwing out the baby with the bath water. “The management” have done a great job building this forum. Building a forum (the IT infrastructure) is super-simple and almost any one of us could go and do that – probably for free. Where it’s tricky is attracting new members and keeping those members coming through the doors. By the very nature of the kind of support this place offers, the active membership list will be extremely transient. Many folks come in, join in, learn lots, then push off and get on with their lives. That’s absolutely fine. Indeed, that could be considered a success of they are managing their condition better than when they arrived.

I know that’s been a big, big ramble, but it feels like “we” are thinking of this in a purely “today” basis, which I don’t believe helps us longer term.

I don’t know how the infrastructure of this forum has been built, but would it be possible to have a handful of boards where sharing (with Facebook etc.,) could be allowable, with the other boards not shared? Perhaps Greetings and Introductions, Newly Diagnosed and Ask a Question being “sharable”, with the balance not?

I think we have to tolerate the Google search aspect, because that’s all how we get the new blood. The little poll I started perhaps demonstrated that?

To be honest, I’m looking forward to the forum settling again into the positive supportive environment where it functions best.

An excellent post @AndBreathe very well put
Without the constant footfall of new blood into this place we are nothing
It's by nature a support forum it / you all supported me when I first arrived and that's what we do best.
A closed forum serves no purpose in this respect and I for one don't think I would be happy in such a place.

There's some interesting debate going on here and whilst that's good we should remember that this place has cost us nothing to join and for the majority of us helped us manage our condition far better than the drs or nurses we see.
For that I would like to thank whoever ultimately owns this forums and admin and all the mods for what they do for us on the forum and behind the scenes.

AnnieC · Jan 25, 2015

smidge said:
Hi everyone!

I have skim-read this thread and although I really do understand the concerns, I think the whole debate really comes down to one issue - that the Facebook (and Twitter) pages are under the banner of diabetes.co.uk, so have credibility and seem 'official' in some way that sets them apart and yet they are not managed appropriately for that status. Fix that and you will go a long way to fixing the problem.

It is not realistic to expect that posts from this forum will not be quoted and discussed on FB and Twitter diabetes groups. As has been mentioned many times on the thread, there are many many diabetes forums and blogs on the internet that use and quote the content of this forum; it is the biggest diabetes forum on the internet, so it attracts both positive and negative interest. There is one blog in particular that likes to conduct a 'diabetes war' with other blogs and forums - largely, I suspect, to drum up interest in what is otherwise quite a boring subject! It quotes and ridicules forum members all the time - sometimes it's vindictive, sometimes it's hilarious, sometimes it's just plain stupid, but it has a lot of useful information and some very knowledgeable contributors. I know diabetes is all very interesting to us, but really, very few people are that interested!

You have no control of anything being said about you on the internet; ignore it, laugh at it but don't let it get you down and consume vast amounts of your thoughts and energy.

Smidge

Yes you are right we don't have any control and we all know that anything we say on the internet can end up anywhere, the social networks like Facebook are full of reposted stuff. As you say anything we say on here even if reposted somewhere else is only going to be of interest to the diabetic community. If we worried about stuff we say on forums and social networks being reposted we would never use them

adrian207 · Jan 25, 2015

AndBreathe said:
Being devil's advocate here Totty, I would suggest "we are deliberately being exposed to unmoderated abuse once the content goes onto Facebook" might not be completely fair. Management have stated they moderate the Facebook content. Unfortunately Heathenlass found an instance where the moderation failed to pick up a completely unsuitable post. Sadly, that can happen anywhere - even on here, and even on a private forum. Where people are involved in reviewing posts (I don't know if bots are used to pick up on profanity or potential pornography/grooming) there is room for human error. It's most unfortunate there is such an example, but, thus far, to my knowledge there's just been the one such post spotted. I'm assuming Heathenlass reported the date/time/poster to Admin in the usual way over here so that it can be dealt with.

Perhaps in the forum description, a sharing note could be added. But, my experience of managing IT areas, with active online content, is that people may be just as unlikely to read those statements to the end as they are to read the T&Cs. People are by and large lazy, and don't read static text. They want to get into the bit that interests them.

As an aside, a few years ago, I did a piece of work to prove that people don't read web pages carefully. Within a multi-page dynamic form, "we" changed some of the wording, on pretty routine pages, which required those completing the forms to change the responses they made. Circa 80% just didn't read them properly and we had some howlers of evidence. And these people were informed a new version was being opened to them, so they should have been alert to differences. It just goes to show, people read what they expect to see.

I'm not challenging your feelings or saying anyone is wrong in any of this, just trying to make counter points so that whatever discussion takes place, we try to be open minded to various options, and the likely outcomes.

Could this T&C's text be hidden and only accessed by clicking on a check box. Without clicking the check box (which will now open the T&C's) the post will not be posted. Now I know that some people would just skip reading the T&c's or statements but at least they can't say they didn't know about them. Perhaps it could be incorporated in the "Post Reply" button so that a scroll down text box with the T&C's came up including another "Post Reply" button. In theory you will have read or not the T&C's and by pressing the new "Post Reply" button accepted them and posted your post.
Now I'm no technical whizz by any means, probably don't know what I'm talking about but it's a thought .

CLICK ..................... T&C's
sdjdfglksdglkjfdgn;ska;elrkan,d.f.gl
flksdfkglskjalskdflaskglkgslfg;aslgs;dg;al
fhkfflkjgfglkjdsfgkjsdfghkjdhl

CLICK............... Post now posted

AnnieC · Jan 25, 2015

poshtotty said:
Very well put, LGC but I don't think that is necessarily the point.

What seems to be coming across from other posters is the decision by Administrators to repost certain threads without our knowledge, as if they are playing God.

I for one would feel much happier and have a better sense of being respected as a member, if a note was added to the bottom of the thread in the way that moderators do when they lock a thread or edit it, simply saying that this thread has been reposted to Facebook because the content is considered to be of interest.

How poor daniT1D feels about seeing his dating thread reposted and finding himself laid bare and exposed to potential mockery, I cannot imagine. As things stand at the moment it seems we are encouraged to post as members simply to provide additional material to promote DCUK on Facebook but we are offered no protection or even the courtesy of being informed. We are afterall members of this site, and normally membership means we are protected by a governing body - not exploited by them.

No we are not protected just because we belong to a forum, how could they prevent anyone coming on here to copy and paste something and repost it somewhere else

AndBreathe · Jan 25, 2015

adrian207 said:
Could this T&C's text be hidden and only accessed by clicking on a check box. Without clicking the check box (which will now open the T&C's) the post will not be posted. Now I know that some people would just skip reading the T&c's or statements but at least they can't say they didn't know about them. Perhaps it could be incorporated in the "Post Reply" button so that a scroll down text box with the T&C's came up including another "Post Reply" button. In theory you will have read or not the T&C's and by pressing the new "Post Reply" button accepted them and posted your post.
Now I'm no technical whizz by any means, probably don't know what I'm talking about but it's a thought . View attachment 11216CLICK ..................... T&C's
sdjdfglksdglkjfdgn;ska;elrkan,d.f.gl
flksdfkglskjalskdflaskglkgslfg;aslgs;dg;al
fhkfflkjgfglkjdsfgkjsdfghkjdhl

View attachment 11216CLICK............... Post now posted

I would bet a very large sum of money, they wouldn't be read, and would receive poor feedback. People are lazy!! Nothing personal to anyone on here, but folks, online, want to achieve their objective with the minimum of clicks.

In reality, that's effectively what happens now when someone registers with the site. That is the time I would say they are most vigilant; although we are hearing others feel that's not the case.

adrian207 · Jan 25, 2015

AndBreathe said:
I would bet a very large sum of money, they wouldn't be read, and would receive poor feedback. People are lazy!! Nothing personal to anyone on here, but folks, online, want to achieve their objective with the minimum of clicks.

In reality, that's effectively what happens now when someone registers with the site. That is the time I would say they are most vigilant; although we are hearing others feel that's not the case.

Yep, fair point

urbanracer · Jan 25, 2015

Sorry @Kat100 I don't know why my response above has appeared inside your quote. It wasn't intentional.

Kat100 · Jan 25, 2015

urbanracer said:
Sorry @Kat100 I don't know why my response above has appeared inside your quote. It wasn't intentional.

That is ok ....kat

Kat100 · Jan 25, 2015

smidge said:
Hi everyone!

I have skim-read this thread and although I really do understand the concerns, I think the whole debate really comes down to one issue - that the Facebook (and Twitter) pages are under the banner of diabetes.co.uk, so have credibility and seem 'official' in some way that sets them apart and yet they are not managed appropriately for that status. Fix that and you will go a long way to fixing the problem.

It is not realistic to expect that posts from this forum will not be quoted and discussed on FB and Twitter diabetes groups. As has been mentioned many times on the thread, there are many many diabetes forums and blogs on the internet that use and quote the content of this forum; it is the biggest diabetes forum on the internet, so it attracts both positive and negative interest. There is one blog in particular that likes to conduct a 'diabetes war' with other blogs and forums - largely, I suspect, to drum up interest in what is otherwise quite a boring subject! It quotes and ridicules forum members all the time - sometimes it's vindictive, sometimes it's hilarious, sometimes it's just plain stupid, but it has a lot of useful information and some very knowledgeable contributors. I know diabetes is all very interesting to us, but really, very few people are that interested!

You have no control of anything being said about you on the internet; ignore it, laugh at it but don't let it get you down and consume vast amounts of your thoughts and energy.

Smidge

Sadly it is awful for anyone as a viewing guest to read ....not a blog I support ....I don't like seeing people being laughed about ....
It remains sad that there is no answer yet , regarding the FB discussions with non members giving their point of view ....

AndBreathe · Jan 25, 2015

Kat100 said:
Sadly it is awful for anyone as a viewing guest to read ....not a blog I support ....I don't like seeing people being laughed about ....
It remains sad that there is no answer yet , regarding the FB discussions with non members giving their point of view ....

Kat - I completely agree with you about not liking to see anyone being laughed at (unless they are comedians. of course), but it's not like that doesn't happen offline too? Online, these days, is merely an extension of off-line life. Horrible things happen offline too.

One could argue that at least online, there is a record of the abuse or nastyness, if anyone wants or needs to do anything about it. The face to face spoken word is just as damaging, but between two people is difficult to prove what actually said whet, when and in what context.

As for nothing done yet? It's the weekend. In the bigger organisational picture, this will be something to be dealt with, not a crisis requiring weekend working.

For all we know, the decision makers may be reading all of this.

Kat100 · Jan 25, 2015

they are , that has been said ....

I will stop posting at weekend then ....

tim2000s · Jan 25, 2015

I think what I find frustrating is that people are concerned that others who they do not know may be laughing/being nasty at content of the forum that they have posted, and taking it personally, after the others have followed a link on Facebook. As has been said elsewhere, Facebook isn't the only place this happens, and frankly, I don't understand why people care so much. I get it isn't very nice, and before you knew about it, it didn't matter.

Just because comments are slipping through the net and occasional unmoderated ones crop up from people you don't know about people they don't know shouldn't be a reason for what is generally a helpful and useful resource both on Facebook and as a forum.

On a day to day basis, people do not walk on eggshells around diabetics, and we will all receive face to face comments about shooting up, etc. The only difference is that you don't know these people on the other side of the Internet. Unfortunately it is part and parcel if the human condition and we should all learn that it really shouldn't make a difference to us.

Work with what you can control, and don't worry about what you can't. It really isn't worth it.

AndBreathe · Jan 25, 2015

Kat100 said:
they are , that has been said ....

I will stop posting at weekend then ....

That wasn't what I meant. The moderators moderate posts I believe, although that could be different for Facebook and Twitter. But I thought I might have seen noblehead this morning, and Anna's online right now:

I thought you meant we hadn't had any feedback on the bigger question yet.

anna29 · Jan 25, 2015

Administrator said:
Just to alleviate any concerns - the Diabetes.co.uk Facebook page is moderated - currently it is moderated by a member of the DCUK Team who spends 80% of her day moderating the DCUK FB.

Please remember this post from Administrator here ...
States clearly that the Diabetes.co.uk Facebook page is moderated .

anna29 · Jan 25, 2015

anna29 said:
Please don't get personal or heated up in this thread with each other .

Please send your thoughts in via PM source to either -
@Giverny or @Administrator "only"

This way they can take your reflected points to consider .

This is being handled by them and not the moderators team here on
this forum .

Reminder of what to do if you wish to ...

JTL · Jan 25, 2015

I show as online when I'm not cos I don't log out.

urbanracer · Jan 25, 2015

Mike D said:
With respect, read up on the word "principles" .... NOTHING should be dictated by T & Cs when it impinges upon the freedoms for people in need of help.

Where is the humanity in that may I ask? Stop disguising the argument with a reality many simply don't understand. THEY are simply seeking guidance, and regardless of your comments (valid or otherwise) why should they have to go thru THAT trial?

Dear Mikey, how are things in Aus', I trust it's considerably warmer than it is in the UK right now?

In your response above, I hope that you are not questioning my principles, but let's leave that to one side for the moment.

I fail to see how freedoms have been impinged, we can all carry on doing today exactly what we've been doing since we joined DCUK. The only thing that's changed is that some forum members now have more knowledge, which from my point of view is no bad thing if it helps them to protect their own privacy. Today '"THEY" (your words not mine) are now empowered to choose what they post with a better understanding of internet privacy and the fact that in reality there is very little.

It wasn't my intention to 'disguise' the argument in any way and perhaps I've been overly blunt in citing the T's and C's whilst responding to some people. For that I apologise. However it is still firmly my belief that DCUK have done nothing illegal or immorral. To many organisations, the reposting of web / forum content on FB is accepted practice. ( I have just replied to KAT100 about this). It's just the way things are in the world today and something that may once have been viewed as immoral may no longer be viewed in the same light. The world changes and time moves on.

Having re-read the posts this morning I cannot help feeling that for many respondents, fear and loathing of FB comes across much more strongly in their arguments than does any concerns about privacy (with notable exceptions.) FB is a tool and with my family and friends being widely dispersed (at a global level) I use it to keep in touch. Indeed, I used it to announce that I had been diagnosed as a T1 to those I couldn't speak to personally. Of course, I also announced it to friends of friends and whoever wants to repost or share it, but then again why would anyone bother. And if some person wants to take the P155 and feels that they can get away with it with relative impunity, let them. It's no different to what happens out here in the real world from time to time apart from the fact that you are more likely to know about it.

If you have personal information and want to keep it private, whether it's your bank details or the number of units you inject each day then don't post it up on the web. Again I'm being blunt here but that's just me. I wouldn't expect the firewalls on this place to prevent any 16yr old starting out in the world of computer science from gaining access to any of my unpublished personal information if they had a mind to. But that's a risk I knowingly accept to participate in such a forum.

Keep your revs up.

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