Sean's Blog

This week, something came up at work, and I felt I need to put my opinion out there in a public place without forcing on anyone, such as by e-mail. So here we go.

Plausible deniability is the word of the moment. It’s not the best stance to take on something, but sometimes it is all you have. For example, my employees are college students, so that would but them in the 18 to 23 age bracket, with occasional outliers, which makes them “of age” with regards to voting, serving in the military, and being accountable for their own actions, but still “minors” in regards to their drinking age.

I’m employed at Residential Computing Connection, which is part of the Office of Residence Life at BGSU, and as a result, I’m supposed to make sure that the students on campus abide by the rules and regulations that the university has in place. Fortunately, I’ve never been confronted with an issue such as a fight or other altercation in which, as a member of the university, I need to make sure is resolved, either by contacting campus security or stepping in myself, and with any luck, I never will. If I am ever in a student’s room or walking across campus and witness something, I need to make sure the correct people know about it. While I may sometimes have issues with particular things at BGSU, I have buy-in to the university itself, so it’s what I feel I must do.

This is where the fact that I have student workers comes in. If they happen to be talking about something while at work, while not eavesdropping, I am prone to hear snippets of conversation; it’s just something that happens. The issue is if they happen to say something like “I was in my friend’s dorm room last night…” and the sentence then continues by listing some activity that is in violation of the residential living agreement, or some other federal, state, or local law, I technically must do something about it. While they may have some right about self-incrimination, it puts me in a situation I’d rather not be in. The same thing goes for events that happen off-campus, such as parties. While they may not be violating a residential living agreement, those federal, state, and local laws didn’t stop existing. In fact, their possible to have a harder time off-campus, as there isn’t the benefit of being caught by an RA, but by an officer. That’s not saying you won’t be confronted by an officer on-campus, but the changes come up off-campus.

I should also stop to say that I think that when college students gather together, they’re up to no good. Far from it, actually, but sometimes things happen. Hell, in my mind, my employees are angels compared to the other students that are out there. Okay, maybe they’re each 99% angel; it’s that 1% of each of them that I’m talking about. That 1% where they end up talking about a party they went to on the weekend and had a couple beers with their friends and everything was cool and then they went to a movie and then played Wii sports or whatever it is those kids do. That 1% where I know that they are 19 going on 20, and they mentioned at work that they partook of libations of which they are technically not supposed to. They weren’t bragging or boasting or anything of that manner, but just talking with a fellow employee about their weekend; that’s the weekend rundown I don’t want to hear.

At the same time, I don’t want a work environment where the employees feel that they need to tight-lipped for fear of getting themselves in trouble. Despite being a supervisor, I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble, but I do have to hold be accountable for their actions. I want my employees to have a sense of camaraderie, as that way, they’ll work better as a team. In fact, I know that many of them do things together on a regular basis, and that makes me happy.

How do I know these things? It’s simple: Facebook. That alone cause an issue, as I’d like for everyone who comes through RCC to add me as a friend, something that none of the students seem to have a problem with. However, what happens if I get invited to an event through Facebook or read something about an event that is similar to the one above? It is quite the conundrum. Personally, I make sure not to go looking for that information, even if they share the information with me via the news feed. The same goes with blogs, which, while not currently prevalent with my staff, will become more common as time goes on. If my staff want to share that information with me, it shows some sort of trust exists between us, which I would not go out of my way to abuse.

While writing that, I realize that it’s quite the opposite stance that I would take while in the office or on campus and heard something that might be questionable. I’m fine with that; as I said, it’s a matter of trust. When I’m in the office working, I’m fulfilling my contractual obligations with the university and due what I must; that’s why it’s my job. However, Facebook is not an extension of my job, but is instead an extension of my personal life, and as such, that’s how I determine what I must do. My website is personal, as are my instant message accounts. My BGSU e-mail is for work. Those are the distinctions I make, and they are mine alone, as there is not set rule regarding them.

In regards to being invited to a party or other event, such as through Facebook, I’ve sometimes wondered if they actually want me to attend, or if they simply invited everyone in their list. My knee-jerk reaction is to decline most invitations that are sent to me through Facebook, especially birthday parties, as I’d rather not put myself in a situation where I would have to be the responsible adult. However, there are those times when those restrictions (self-imposed or otherwise) tend to irritate me more than anything.

I feel that I should include that if I ever hear of anything the is self-destructive or may harm others, I would step in. That’s not an obligation of work or anything; that’s just being human and caring for other human beings.

If I happened to find out about something happening to or with students on campus, especially my students, I’m not saying that in every case it would be something that I would go tattle on to a department; it may be something that simply needs to be talked about in passing. As a supervisor, I feel it’s my responsibility to assist in the education of students who work for me. If that’s as simple as occasionally talking to them about any number of issues they may face as a student, so be it. If it means that they need an “adult” to talk to about something, I’m there.

So, what’s all this mean? Well, it’s something I had to get off my chest as I’ve been mulling it over since I left work. Some of this, especially being more than just a supervisor, I’m considering for the first time, as I realize that this job has the potential to turn into a career field that I enjoy. It’s also to mention that the camaraderie that my employees have is something I personally like to see, and makes me feel that, as a supervisor, I’ve done something right, even if it is to make sure they have a gathering that “is for RCC employees (THIS EVENT IS NOT IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM EXPLICITELY OR IMPLICITELY SANCTIONED BY RCC, BGSU, RESLIFE, OR ANYONE LIVING OR DEAD) and their friends.”

Touché.

I have a moment or two this morning, so I just wanted to get some comments down on screen about Facebook, namely the profile for “Sidney Ribeau” and the “RCC sucks” group.

First, there’s the profile for Sidney Ribeau on the BGSU portion of Facebook. The biggest issue I see with this is that the contact info includes an e-mail that is not Dr. Ribeau’s at all, but instead belongs to one Aaron O’Neill. How odd… I didn’t know that was Dr. Ribeau’s secret identity. One might be willing to say I’ve uncovered the crime of the century, but as this has nothing to do with the theft of peoples’ garbage, I highly doubt it. I did the only thing I could really think of: sent an e-mail to the Office of the President. While the profile wasn’t defamatory to Dr. Ribeau, I thought they should be aware of it. After all, I doubt there are many people in the upper echelons of the any university who use Facebook (or MySpace, orkut, etc) with any regularity, and only know what they have heard from others or seen over the shoulders of students and young professionals that may work for them. And who am I to say that Mr. O’Neill isn’t making the profile for Dr. Ribeau, and would cause more problems by reporting the profile as fake? I doubt this is the case, but the Office of the President can look into it and do what they will.

My other comment on Facebook is a group near and dear to my heart: RCC Sucks-their taking all of the bandwith away from students. It’s not that I have a problem with a Facebook group that is opposed to networking policies of the university, it’s just more that I don’t expect much to come from this group. We’ve been telling students a phrase constantly over the last couple years about what they can do to work on getting the policies changed.

We would encourage you to take any concerns or suggested changes in policies to student government organizations such as the Undergraduate Student Government, or Resident Student Association.

Has anything happened as a result of this? The answer is a simple no, and I think that is the part that is frustrating. I’d like to think that the Facebook group will change this, but at the moment, I truly doubt it, despite the description that they have.

all students need to complain so we can get bandwidth back.

lets make this a group effort

us gamers need our internet to be fast

lol i spelled bandwidth wrong in the group name. o well

Yep, they did misspell bandwidth, used the wrong spelling of “they’re”, and haven’t heard of capitalization or punctuation. That, as a member of University, makes me feel that the institution has failed. Can you expect anything from a group that the creator fails to communicate in the mutually agreed upon language, that is, English?

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Three of our staff joined the group and posted unofficial messages on the group’s wall, as well as did one of our alumni. What happened to their comments, which offered helpful information about RCC, the network, and what they can do, or the post someone (not an employee) made commenting on their spelling? Dust in the wind. But do not worry, the comments about the sexual orientation of RCC are still there, in case you were wondering.

I’m not saying I’m not sympathetic to their issue. How does one protect a network that is for a business (BGSU) but still have it usable as a network in a home (the residence halls)? That is one hell of a gray area, and difficult to manage. Then again, from a professional standpoint, that is what makes universities an interesting place to work.

That Facebook group I mentioned at the end of last week has apparently been deleted within the last half hour or so. I’m curious as to what guideline or part of the terms of service they violated, or if this was just something that the Facebook admins decided that they had to do to prevent the posting of images and video of the event on the website. I’m sure that would cause the deletion of the group. I also doubt it was because of the counter groups, which are varied, as they don’t appear to be as many.

Prior to this, Brody Ruckus, the creator of the group, had his account suspended.

I sent an e-mail to the Facebook team, but I doubt I’ll get a response. As someone who finds how people use the Internet interesting, I’d like to know what the group did to get banned. Much like on any social networking site, I’m sure there’s all sorts of groups that a few people would deem inappropriate, and some groups that a lot of people would deem inappropriate. However, without the Facebook team offering any information about what happened, except maybe to the group admins, it’s hard to know why exactly.

And why not: voting is open in regards to this event, which can be found here. However, the site appears to be down.

23:12 Update:
According to a comment on digg, the site/event was a front for www.ruckus.com. I also got the following reply from Facebook:

The group was removed not because of the content but because the
creator was using the group to acquire e-mail addresses as a marketing scheme.

Ok, so those comments are interesting to consider. Now, the Wikipedia article is protected/locked, but the talk page has plenty to say. So, it should prove interesting to see if this was really something someone wanted to do to actually have a threesome (not that we may ever truly know), if it was a publicity stunt by the Rukus music service (though I’m not exactly sure how that works), or, much like Lonelygirl15 at YouTube, it is all just an elaborate look into how people react and what not.

I also figure I should pull some information from the wiki talk page, just because it could disappear. The below is from the Hoax section:

There doesn’t seem to be a Brody Ruckus in the Georgia Tech directory.

* The Brody Ruckus in question is Facebook member number 12822071. It says he is part of the Atlanta, GA network, but his member number begins with 128, which is Georgia Tech’s school prefix. (least significant 5 digits are the user number unique to the school, most significicant 2-4 digits are the school ID). Not sure why he isn’t part of the Georgia Tech’s network. Cheesy
o He WAS part of the Georgia Tech network, until people noticed that there was no such person at Georgia Tech. This is all a big scam, a publicity stunt for a new college music downloading company called Ruckus Music, which has a partnership with Georgia Tech. 159.178.251.46 11:02, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
o 128 means he registered under Georgia Tech, and 22071 means he was the 22070th person to register a facebook account at Tech. Though Brody deleted this information from his feed, the person before him (Matt Fogel registering under the pseudonym Rockefeller Q. Einstein) registered at 11:39am on September 5th, 2006. I can’t see the person after him, but the person after that (Dr. Phillip Thompson) registered at 3:39pm on that same day. That day was also the day that Brody created the facebook group (at 2:45pm). This means that “Brody” created his facebook account less than three hours before the creation of the group. This leads to the conclusion that he either never had a facebook account to begin with and decided finally to join facebook after making this bet with his girlfriend, or he created a new (fake) account to pull this hoax. Given his familiarity with facebook it would seem that the latter is more likely. This also explains the complete lack of information on his profile and why nobody at Tech has ever seen or heard of this guy. Whether or not this is a hoax, however, clearly the phenomenon alone is worthy of a wikipedia article. Jaardon 12:52, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

This has been discussed on facebook. Not only does is Brody not a member of the network, Georgia Tech is a partner with Ruckus Network, an online music service that is free to all students at partner schools. Several facebook members have done fairly extensive searches of Georgia Tech’s records, as well as local phone listings and listings for various large cities and internet sites, and can find not only no Brody Ruckus whom is a student of that school, but no evidence of Ruckus being used as a surname. Moreover, as of…7:00 AM…Brody Ruckus now has a link requesting people spam our talk page to try and get an article of him on wikipedia. Hewhorulestheworld

* Also, Brody’s domain name is registered anonymously. Why someone would plaster their name all over a website, a Facebook group, and tons of merchandise, and then feel the need to be an anonymous domain registrant is inexplicable–unless they wanted to hide the fact that “Brody Ruckus” is not the his real name. 159.178.251.46 11:08, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I briefly heard something about changes to Facebook today, but only recently got around to checking Facebook. Once I logged in, I saw the following:

An Open Letter from Mark Zuckerberg:

We really messed this one up. When we launched News Feed and Mini-Feed we were trying to provide you with a stream of information about your social world. Instead, we did a bad job of explaining what the new features were and an even worse job of giving you control of them. I’d like to try to correct those errors now.

When I made Facebook two years ago my goal was to help people understand what was going on in their world a little better. I wanted to create an environment where people could share whatever information they wanted, but also have control over whom they shared that information with. I think a lot of the success we’ve seen is because of these basic principles.

We made the site so that all of our members are a part of smaller networks like schools, companies or regions, so you can only see the profiles of people who are in your networks and your friends. We did this to make sure you could share information with the people you care about. This is the same reason we have built extensive privacy settings – to give you even more control over who you share your information with.

Somehow we missed this point with News Feed and Mini-Feed and we didn’t build in the proper privacy controls right away. This was a big mistake on our part, and I’m sorry for it. But apologizing isn’t enough. I wanted to make sure we did something about it, and quickly. So we have been coding nonstop for two days to get you better privacy controls. This new privacy page will allow you to choose which types of stories go into your Mini-Feed and your friends’ News Feeds, and it also lists the type of actions Facebook will never let any other person know about. If you have more comments, please send them over.

This may sound silly, but I want to thank all of you who have written in and created groups and protested. Even though I wish I hadn’t made so many of you angry, I am glad we got to hear you. And I am also glad that News Feed highlighted all these groups so people could find them and share their opinions with each other as well.

About a week ago I created a group called Free Flow of Information on the Internet, because that’s what I believe in – helping people share information with the people they want to share it with. I’d encourage you to check it out to learn more about what guides those of us who make Facebook. Today (Friday, 9/8) at 4pm edt, I will be in that group with a bunch of people from Facebook, and we would love to discuss all of this with you. It would be great to see you there.

Thanks for taking the time to read this,

Mark

This also appeared on the Facebook blog. The Students against Facebook News Feed group has a good compilation of media related to this Facebook event. That group appears to be just under 741,000 users at the moment, and it appears to be slowly losing members. This is just as well, as the discussion board for that group has, and probably continue to, be full or topics that are meant to anger people.

And now, to counteract any remaining positive use of Facebook groups, I unfortunately point you to If this group reaches 100,000 my girlfriend will have a threesome, which has reached just over 99,000 members. Someone even submitted it to VH1′s Best Week Ever. Oh, and in the last couple minutes since I started typing this update… the group broke 100,000 members.

Well played, I guess.

As of now, less than 24 hours after I posted about Students against Facebook News Feed, the number of student in the group is at 538,192. That’s a change of about 225% in less than 24 hours.

One thing that would make that number more interesting would be the total number of Facebook users, in order to get a percentage of all users who are in that group. I would hazard a guess, as well as to make the numbers simple, that 11 million is a good number, especially since there were 7.5 million accounts in December of 2005, growing at a rate of 20,000 daily [1]. That rate seems high, but possible. Any way, that would be about 5% of the user population is against the news feed.

The only problem with that number is that the group probably consists mainly of students from the United States, and while that was where Facebook started, I would assume that about 10-15% of the total number of accounts are not by students in the US. Also, I would assume that about 40% of the high school users don’t mind it either, which might factor down to about 10-15% of the total as well. However, these are just assumptions.

Jim Rizzo, whom I know through ResNet, had the following to say in a Facebook note:

To anyone who happens to see anything I might post and hates the new “feature” of Facebook…

If you have issues with these new “features” of Facebook, I would suggest you send some well written hate mail to the Customer Service form for the site.

To make it easier for you to navigate to this form (which took me a few minutes to find as there is no “contact us for support” page here), I will provide the direct link.

http://bgsu.facebook.com/help.php?show_form=2 (edited for BGSU users)

If you read the blog entries, it does not sound like they plan on removing this new feature at anytime, but would rather make it better. So if you don’t think it’s entirely evil, send suggestions. I made a comment to the blog post stating that they need to add a privacy setting that allows users to prevent account and information changes from being displayed in either of those feeds.

If you want to get this message out, please feel free to copy and paste this exact message to your own notes. The more people that see it, the more likely the message will get across to Mark and company.

Jim’s comment references a post on the Facebook blog, and while I found the title amusing, it does not seem like they are currently planning on doing anything about it. Who knows, maybe that’ll change as the day and week goes on.

Events such as these are interesting to observe, as they show how people use and react to changes of the technology they use.

I noticed that there was a way to have RSS from a different source imported, which I like and am unsure if this is also a new feature, or just a result of me not using Facebook that often. So, posts sean-ward.com from now show up there as well.

On an unrelated side note, I need a new favicon.

Update:
A javascript bookmark hack, found via digg, is listed at http://evernex.com/facebook/ and will supposedly allow a more automated way of removing items 10 at a time.

1 – Facebook on Wiki

In some crazy turn of event, both the BGSU and Facebook pages were updated on the same day.

BGSU

The BGSU site style was updated to what is off-handedly considered the “Web2.0 design”, with it’s rounded edges, beveled images, and scrolling main page image. That image that scrolls across the background is interesting too. Many students that I heard talking about this were caught off guard, as were many departments.

It almost seems that the decision to change went like this:

“Let’s change th style sheet”.
“Ok. When?”
“Preferably after the semester starts.”
“Ok. Should we give all the departments time to update their pages?”
“Naw, they’ll figure it out.”

Seriously, it’s great when you can browse through and pages don’t match the standard style. It is nice to see that they changed how the tables were laid out. The HTML for that was ugly.

Facebook

Facebook added an interesting feature called news feed, which does not provide an RSS news feed to your Facebook page, as one used to seeing the phrase “news feed” might think. Instead, it shows on your profile page what you have done, such as adding/removing friends, joining/leaving groups, and so on. Using the news feed, people who are your friends can then see everything you have done, which gets filtered to their feed that they see when they log in.

There are two ways to look at this.

First, there is the privacy argument. A lot of students are bothered by the invasion of privacy. After all, there are 165,485 members in the group Students against Facebook News Feed. That number went up by almost 600 members in the time it took me to type the sentence. Ignoring the fact that number might be over-inflated, or that there are numerous other groups of the similar concept and counter groups, there is a lot of fuss about this. Even if you have someone listed as a friend, they’ll be able to see what you do, as well as you being able to see what they do. I believe that this is counter to part of their core principles, taken from privacy policy, which states:

1. You should have control over your personal information.
Facebook helps you share information with your friends and people around you. You choose what information you put in your profile, including contact and personal information, pictures, interests and groups you join. And you control with whom you share that information through the privacy settings on the My Privacy page.

Currently, the only way not to have items show up in your feed is to delete them as they appear. There doesn’t appear to be any other option to disable the feed once you get it going. Also, I’m not sure what would have happened if I hadn’t clicked the button to use the feed. As a result, the news feed also violates the second part of their core principles:

2. You should have access to the information others want to share.
There is an increasing amount of information available out there, and you may want to know what relates to you, your friends, and people around you. We want to help you easily get that information.

Sure, as I stead above, you can delete each item, but there is no way to stop the items from showing up in the first place.

However, the counter argument is that Facebook is a social networking site for students. It makes sense that they would show how students are connected to one another as well as allow others to see what you can do. Without the ability to turn off the feed, and the ability of others to see what you do, I feel that any argument made to support the feed is hard to make.

In an attempt to gain support for the stand against the feed, there is going to be an attempt at A Day Without Facebook. It should be interesting to see what becomes of this, especially if the students using Facebook get changes made.

It’s funny though, that the students are getting upset over issues with Facebook, but haven’t done much when it has come to politics. Hell, I didn’t even take the time to post much about the invasions of privacy the government has been at fault for doing.

Funny thing, this Internet.