Hi — I posted this under my new "QT identity" — but you can see, from the little gray star next to my FDL moniker, that I was logged in under that ID when I posted this.

Edited by author 06-20-2007 11:06 AM
Here are some of my first impressions about FB. If I'm wrong about these points, please correct me, and welcome to it.

1. Imho what is needed is not all the "excess baggage" of the FB user model, but something far simpler. It's nice to have a "one-stop-shopping," single-login application wherein a single web app can "do it all," but imho that is impossible with present web offerings. To cover the ground, more than one web-app is, I believe, now required -- which is why I proposed my "Soc. Networking (optional)" website at [1]. Now I believe it's time to add to that, a BBS (defined below).
   
2. Yes, it's great to have uploadable pictures, but (recall the original purpose of the FB) it enforces a hard-and-fast requirement that one's real name be given before you can enter or post. (Would you want to date someone who didn't even give their own real-life name? (Me, I'm Brad Pitt.) (Didn't think so)) :) In our context, this goes against the strong privacy convictions that many FDLers guard so closely (vide raven's comment in /m6 below).
   
   I refer you to the 'PupMap [2] (now with 663 pins in it!) that is based on Frappr, another freebie web-app, that allows us to sign in using whatever "handle" we want, to upload photos, to create albums of pictures (IIRC) — all with the extra bennie of creating a map of where we all are. It also has a built-in message service that allows inter-user communications (in FB's terms, "messages") without the necessity of revealing your true name. Frappr shields your Real Email Addr behind your chosen "handle."
   
   Any FDL communications tool that has any hope of success must, imho, preserve the anonymity of its users, thus allowing people to use their FDL "handles" without needing to fake them into their FB names (says me, who managed to fool FB into thinking my name is "Sos von MA" (even "Sos from MA" wasn't accepted!)) :)
   
3. All of FB's cool conventions like "poke" and their simple discussion areas are fun, but imho either too weak for, extraneous to, or irrelevant for what we imho need most of all: a multi-threaded discussion area for FDL.
   
4. Recall the original "user model" of FB: It's a social networking system that allows people of various interests and preferences to network among, and connect with, one another based on common interests. Again I say, this is all very cool when choosing cute dates or affiliating with others in an interest group, but these functions are not imho what FDL needs.

I hasten to add, as I did in /m1 below, that in making these observations about alternatives to FB for FDL I am emphatically NOT recommending that the powers-that-be choose QuickTopic (QT) to accomplish these ends. That would be dead wrong.

Nor do we need a blog (we've got one already and we need something else in addition!) and we don't need a Wiki (again, not the right user model. Right for collaboratively creating dictionaries and encyclopedias, but not what we need here).

Here's what we imho need,not necessarily in priority order:

1. We need a "bulletin-board system" (BBS) (aka "Forum" or "Message Board") (yes, one of those old-fashioned but right-for-the-purpose thingies) prominently linked to the front page of FDL-as-it-now-stands. Yes, blogs are quite prevalent these days, but they stem from the BBSes of the past, which still have their place and fill a real need.
   
2. This BBS should have the facility for advertising space such that hits on it can add to FDL's revenues...
   
3. Proof of this assertion that we need a BBS: See the "string-within-a-string" that I excerpted from a blog entry's comment strings awhile back. This shows the need for a place, not tied to a blog post, where various subjects can be broached and discussed over a period of time greater than a single blog entry, and independent of the many-times-per-day series of blog-posts-with-comment-strings.
   
4. How many times have you had to say "Pardon the OT" or "EPU'ed from previous string?" These common conventions and events are "nature's way of telling us" of the need for a different user model than simple blogposts-and-comments-thereon.
   
5. I don't think that Google Groups or Yahoo Groups will meet this bill of particulars, but as a user of Google Groups, I could be wrong... But it's my vague impression that at least Google Groups is based on NNTP rather than the more modern transports, so there are some internal conventions and privacy issues to be considered. More than that, I dunno.
   
6. FDL users are accustomed to a PREVIEW mode and buttons that automagically do basic formatting, like B I U CODE QUOTE LINK CLOSE TAGS we have in FDL's blog, so at least this level of markup functionality really must be supported. There are many BBSes out there that offer PREVIEW and the automagic use of "BBCode" which does, really, all that's needed for BBSes -- it doesn't need full HTML functionality — in fact, the _latter is a definite hazard to the proper functioning of a BBS. See what I mean? :)
   
7. It should support emoticons.
   
8. It should have email notification and/or delivery of new post content, and an RSS feed. Thus, it should support some means of email or RSS subscription, either to the BBS as a whole or to particular topics or areas of topics.
   
   Compare and contrast these "requirements" to the "discussion areas" offered by FB. Uh-uh, no way. We need more; we're USED TO more.
   
9. It should support editing of posts made by us (when we are logged in) in the past. Either indefinitely or (as in FDL) for a fixed time. This may be limited by Moderator convention.
   
10. It should support Moderators in their day-to-day tasks — blocking IP addrs, holding all or some messages prior to letting them appear, etc...
    
11. It's a matter of policy whether anyone anywhere in cyberspace can post, or whether it's required to establish a "handle," sign in with a (hidden) email address, which must be validated by human response to demonstrate that it's a live, non-faked human emailbox.
    
12. The BBS should support the notion of "private messaging" between registered users, like Frappr does, in such a way as to shield real names and email addresses from other participants. There's no reason to use Frappr's capabilities for anything other than mapping, and most BBS SW packages I've seen do offer "private messaging" services. When you arrive and log in, the BBS SW tells you whether you have new mail; good systems send email to your "real email account" telling you that new BBS mesaages have arrived. You then enter the BBS and pick up your private messages.
    
13. This item is really the sine qua non for any successful BBS: It should have some logical equivalent to a "Next Unseen" function. In order to use it, one has to be logged into the BBS (it's not accessible to randoms). When you re-connect to the BBS as "yourself" (i.e., you log back in), the BBS can list all new messages (or some equivalent) that you haven't seen since you last entered (or left) the BBS. Without this facility, imho it really can't even be termed a BBS.

For a good example of imho a successful multi-threaded BBS with a thriving and active user community, I refer you to Randi Rhodes's (AAR Talker) main site at [3] with a link to her Message Board at [4]. This system, Invision Power Board v2.1.6 © 2007 IPS, Inc., Licensed to: Air America Radio meets or exceeds most, if not all, of the criteria I listed above. (There are several other BBS "engines" out there, to be sure!) Imho FDL should implement one of them, as long as it meets or exceeds the criterion list above.

For a particular example, the Randi Rhodes Message Board's implementation of Next Unseen appears there as New Posts, a service that is only available to logged-in users (people with a "registered handle"), which is good. Importantly, this BBS allows folks to set up accounts with any handle they want.

Click here to see my original FDL posting raising some of these issues — it will appear in another window. (Yeah, that's my real moniker — I could easily create a workable "QuickTopic" (QT) account under my "normal FDL name," thus totally concealing my true "real life" name.) You can see I was logged in as "Dan Kalikow" when I posted this, by the fact that a little gray star appears next to my name, to the left.

Please note: By starting this discussion here, this is by no means an endorsement of using QT for an FDL BBS (bulletin-board system). There are several others that are far more appropriate for this purpose. I've used most of 'em over the years. And no, the Wiki is just as inappropriate an engine for a BBS than is a blog — if not more so.

Watch, I'll do the next post while signed in as S.O.S from MA.