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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by JimmmyThePiep (talk | contribs) at 17:01, 20 May 2007 (Facebook Hates Sick Children). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Archive Archives
Past discussions from this page have been archived below and should not be edited. If you wish to start a new discussion or to revive an old one, please do so at the bottom of the current talk page.
Archive 1 (31 topics, Oct 04 - Feb 06)
Articles for Deletion proposal 9 Oct 2004, Employers looking at profiles 8 Dec 2005, Early venture funding 11 Dec 2005, Addition of features/history 13 Jan 2006, Proposed move (no consensus) 20 Jan 2006, "Digital mourning" neologism 31 Jan 2006, References in popular culture 11 Feb 2006, Proposed move (moved) 20 Feb 2006, Listed as good article 21 Feb 2006, Wikipedia:Facebook 24 Feb 2006
Archive 2 (13 topics, Nov 05 - Apr 06)
Criticism section 21 Nov 2005, Eduardo Saverin inclusion 25 Jan 2006, References in popular culture (again) 11 April 2006, Fork: "List of Facebook features" 11 April 2006
Archive 3 (19 topics, Apr-Nov 06)
"Digital mourning" neologism (again) 13 Apr 2006, Chris Hughes inclusion 3 May 2006, First schools 15 May 2006, Registration for high school networks 13 Jul 2006, News feed controversy 7 Sep 2006, Removing links 16 Aug 2006, Brody Ruckus fiasco 15 Sep 2006, Delisted as good article 8 Oct 2006, Citing Facebook 23 Oct 2006
Archive 4 (57 topics, Nov 06 - Oct 07)
Use in investigations 8 March 2007


Scotland

Why Americans always seem to be totally oblivious of the world around them, I haven't a clue, but from my experience, that attitude doesn't go down well on an international community like Wikipedia. I removed "Scotland" from immediately after "Uni of St Andrews", because there is no reason to annouce the location of it simply because it isn't in the US! If that weren't the case, we should be announcing the location of all universities, regardless of country. If you want to know where it is, click on the link.martianlostinspace 21:43, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

The United States is a large enough country such that it is not impossible that an institution of similar name might also exist there. Considering also that Facebook originated in the United States and is still composed mainly of Americans makes it quite likely that removing the clarification is the greater of two ignorances. Regardless of whether or not it is a faux pas in the internationalist wikipedia community, the location tag "Scotland" is still relevant.68.249.204.118 06:01, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
I would dispute the fact that Facebook is composed mainly of Americans - here in the UK Facebook is huge. Still, I see no problem with a university having 'Scotland' placed after it's name, to aid locating it. TheIslander 21:11, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

What happened to Pulse?

Does anyone know what happened to "Pulse"? Both the public and logged in versions are redirecting me to home.php although the "Election Pulse" remains. Does Facebook plan to sell this data to marketing research companies or is this a temporary 404? --LEKI (talk) 02:19, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Don't know the answer to that question. Pulse has always been hard to find...never a good link placed anywhere, I had to bookmark it...but now, who knows? Does anyone know anyone within the FB organization who could discover the answer to this question? David 05:54, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Facebook is now "open", but to what extent was it "closed" before?

The article mentions that Facebook is now open to all Internet users, and describes the validation techniques now in place. However, it doesn't exactly state what restrictions were in place before it became an "open" site, so I have no idea of the significance of this move.

I assume that the site was restricted to members of particular institutions (hence the references to certain colleges "having" or "not having" Facebook), but how was this membership validated? Was it purely by e-mail address, or were there other methods in place? Presumably undergrads could retain their Facebook membership after graduation, but was it possible for alumni of that institution to gain Facebook membership? 217.155.20.163 19:30, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

To sign in with a network, one needed to confirm through a ".edu" email address at the participating school. For example, anyone with a _____@sampleuniversity.edu email could join the Sample University network. This was the extent of the confirmation process, but combined with the limited networks, it seemed to repress MySpace-style spamming. Hope this helps. - Plasticbadge 05:46, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
It was also possible for alumni to join the individual school networks if they had something like an ____@alumni.sampleuniversity.edu email address, or the equivalent. NBS525 13:46, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Thank you both for the clarification. Can I therefore assume that it was (is?) not possible for an alumnus to join the Sample University network if Sample University did not provide alumni with e-mail addresses? 217.155.20.163 23:11, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
To my knowledge that was (and is) correct. NBS525 15:33, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Facebook's use in investigations

Facebook's use in investigations shouldn't be forked from this article. I recommend merging it back into this one. --- RockMFR 20:03, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree in principle but in practice the articles are too long to be merged. --ElKevbo 20:11, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Actually, most of the content at the forked article is already here. At most, there are just a few lines that need to be merged. --- RockMFR 20:17, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Indeed. I withdraw my objection. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ElKevbo (talk • contribs) 20:31, Feb 13, 2007 (UTC)
I would hope that more useful content would be added to this article, particularly the scholarly research into Facebook use, that would later necessitate splitting this article into sub-articles. But let's deal with that if and when it happens. --ElKevbo 20:31, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I believe that the article should remain seperate, however re-labeled/re-written to be generic regarding social networking sites with respect to the law. It makes good points on it's own, though I see no reason why it should be facebook specific. I am sure there are other situations similar to this regarding other social networking sites. Spudtheimpaler 22:14, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
I'd be happy with this alternative, too. In fact, it's probably better than just merging as there is information from the use of other social networking sites in investigations and a generic article about those uses would be very interesting and useful. Good idea! --ElKevbo 22:42, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree that it should be renamed Timclare (talk) (sign here) 23:54, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
I support Spudtheimpaler's proposal to include MySpace, etc. (See this Google search result for some ideas) --LEKI (talk) 08:39, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Per Spudtheimpaler, ElKevbo, Timclare, and myself I have moved the subarticle to Use of social network websites in investigations. Feel free to expand it there with incidents regarding MySpace and the rest as well. --LEKI (talk) 07:42, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Income

Where do Facebook get their money from? It's a free service and I don't see any advertisements... --Josteinaj 17:24, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Neither do I, but that's because of Adblock :-P They have a DoubleClick banner on most pages as well as occasional sponsored links in the news feed. [1] They also have a number of sponsored groups. [2] — cBuckley (Talk • Contribs) 22:43, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
I see they've put up advertisements now. --Josteinaj 17:13, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

PeopleRadar

I think someone should add in something about peopleradar.com. I'm not sure what date facebook started it, but it is sure to become a controversial issue pretty soon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.241.105.169 (talk • contribs)

PeopleRadar is one of many services developed using the Facebook API, and is not associated with Facebook. — cBuckley (Talk • Contribs) 18:05, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Gifts

I think some mention needs to be made of the latest Facebook feature. It was introduced as a temporary thing and for charity, but the charity aspect of it seems now to have disappeared without any notice. *smb 23:20, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

When gifts were introduced in early February, it was stated that the proceeds from gifts purchased during the month of February would go towards a charity. Facebook never claimed that gifts would be termporary or that the proceeds would go to charity indefinitely. NBS525 10:31, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Someone just made an addition to the gift section, stating that today (April 6th), Facebook added a new gift, the nail. They say that this is interesting because today is Good Friday, the day that Jesus was nailed to the cross according to the Christian faith. While I do agree that this is interesting, should we really be adding things like this to this section? I'm just afraid that, if we do, it could soon become a huge list of every gift facebook has released. Should this information be removed, or does it need it's own subsection, perhaps even it's own article (if the list does actually grow)? --Mears man 12:19, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

No, because individual gifts are non-notable . . unless for some reason there are actually multiple reliable sources talking about them non-trivially. –Pomte 20:57, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Key People sidebar edit

The addition of Andrew McCollum as Co-founder to the Key People sidebar was deleted a couple of weeks ago. Is there a rationale for that edit someone could offer? When Mark wrote Facebook during his sophomore year at Harvard, Andrew was a key contributor, especially to the graphics. He solved various problems that arose and generally supported Mark throughout the development of the site. It was Andrew's summer internship at EA that prompted Mark to go out to Palo Alto with him in June of 2004, and Chris and Dustin to go along to help out. Within a few weeks, Mark persuaded Andrew to leave the EA internship to work full-time on developing Wirehog, an idea he and Mark had come up with that spring. The potential for legal problems with Wirehog being a file-sharing site led them to create it as an entity independent from Facebook, but Andrew was always present at the house and, later, in the Thefacebook office, helping with any programming problems that came up that no one else could solve. That's why his name stayed on Thefacebook site's own list of "About" people ("General Rockstar") for so long, despite not being a regular employee of the company, per se, and why he is recognized as one of the original founders of the business. I'm not sure, then, why he shouldn't be recognized as one of the Co-founders in the sidebar. The same could be said of Sean Parker, whom they joined up with in Palo Alto in June 2004 and who contributed invaluable business expertise to the project at just the right time and place. --Salspsyche 03:23, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think we've been going on only using current employees. You can take a look at the old discussions about the inclusion of Saverin and Hughes, respectively. But your comment brings up an interesting policy. From the company infobox syntax:
    Key People (Variable: key_people)
     - Which three people closely associated with the business organization are most popular and efficacious?
       *Use: no more than three names unless reasonably appropriate.
       *Use: popular names instead of formal names, if available.
       *Note: The executive branch of a business organization is not necessarily the key people.
So we might want to narrow it down to three. The current about page lists Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, Owen Van Natta, Adam D'Angelo, Mike Sheridan, and Matt Cohler which along with Chris Hughes, Andrew McCollum, and Sean Parker would be far to many. I would say keep Zuck, Moskovitz, and Hughes because they were all co-founder and each have articles already. The policy says c-level is not necessarily key people so I think the rest can be left off. --LEKI (talk) 17:45, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
You've made a good point. Of the current team, Zuckerberg, Hughes and Moskovitz are the only ones who were members of the original group of Harvard sophomores who actually founded the site (the fourth sophomore being McCollum, and Saverin's financing was there in the beginning as well.) Everyone else came later, after the move to Palo Alto. So if you're going to include only three "Key People", those three would be the most appropriate on that basis.--Salspsyche 00:07, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

mini-feed

"Another problem is that Facebook users may be under the impression that deleting something from one's Mini-Feed deletes it from the News Feed as well. It does not."

So why does the dialog that comes up when you click the 'x' to delete a story in your feed say "Hiding will remove the story from your Mini-Feed and prevent anyone from seeing it."? 87.112.83.155 23:25, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

It does exactly what it says on the tin. It removes it from your mini-feed, and prevents anyone seeing it there. The wording is poor, however, since it remains on other users' news feeds. If you click to remove it from your profile, then when another user visits your profile, that feed item will not appear. However, the information from that item will still appear on your friends' main news feeds. In effect, you only change what is seen by visiting your own profile. — cBuckley (Talk • Contribs) 00:14, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

ambiguous statistic

"On 2 March 2007, a survey was conducted by eMarketer.com that discovered Facebook was the most viewed site by females in the United States (69%) ages 17 - 25 in 2007 and also the most viewed website by males (56%).[78]"

By "males" does it mean all males or only those in the mentioned age group? It's not clear, and the source requires subscription. MickO'Bants 23:05, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

TOC font size?

Uh, anyone know what the TOC was set to be 80% of the regular font size? EVula // talk // ☯ // 03:42, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Removed links

Wikipedia is not a link repository. The article (before this posting) had 31 links under the "External links" heading. That's WAY too much; most of those are just random news stories that really need to be reincorporated into the article as sources; if not, they need to stay gone.

Anyway, here are the links from the article; this is just a straight copy/paste from the article, as I've removed them entirely from the article. EVula // talk // ☯ // 03:47, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh my. Feeling bold tonight, are we? :) --ElKevbo 03:51, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Haha, quite true; of the four edits I just made to the article, only one of them didn't involve removing content...
Also, given the sheer number of links, I'm enclosing them in a scrollable box; that should make just looking at them a bit easier...EVula // talk // ☯ // 04:01, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I put a link to the WikiSummaries.org summary of the Facebook TOS (check it) in the "Privacy concerns" section of the article. The original link was to WPs general TOS article; this link readers may find more relevant. Anyhow, this is more of a suggestion, but I feel it fits within the context of the article. --Geneffects 16:02, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Extensions

Print media

College newspapers

Information

New layout

If you go to this poll, you can see that most Facebook-users clearly dislike the new layout. Is it unreasonable to mention a change Facebook made that nearly 60% of the users disliked? - Hmwith 01:25, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Are you seriously claiming that a poll of 101 users is representative of the entire Facebook user base? --ElKevbo 01:28, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

It's called a statistical population, which, in this case, is based on a pretty random sample of Facebook users. It would be impossible to poll every user out there, so you use a sample. - Hmwith 02:00, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

And where can we find out more about the methodology being employed in this poll? What is the sampling strategy, who is conducting the poll, etc.? --ElKevbo 02:11, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
As a Facebook user, I've seen that poll, and voted in it. It's definitely not a reliable source. --ALL IN 02:20, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Paper facebooks

"The name of the site refers to the paper facebooks that colleges and prepatory schools give to incoming students, faculty, and staff depicting members of the campus community."

There is no source for this. I fact tagged it and that was removed with the explanation that "it's obvious." If it's that obvious it shouldn't require saying. However, without a source, this constitutes original research and should be removed. "Look at the disambiguation page" is not a source. A perfect example of how Wikipedia can sometimes create and perpetuate truisms. Savidan 16:39, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Fine then. [3][4]. [5][6][7][8] Gdo01 21:30, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for tracking those down. It be better if there was a way to cite this to Zuckerberg or facebook itself, but one of those would be fine. Savidan 23:54, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Virginia Shootings

The section on the Virginia shootings is not cited. I think it should be removed unless anyone can find a reference to back it up. 70.51.247.126 23:12, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

It would be better to saunter over to the Virginia Tech massacre article and grab the correct citation(s) from there. If there are no such citations in that article, then you're probably right in that the section could be deleted. But there are definitely citations to be had and I'd hate to see this deleted because it's easier to delete it than spend a few minutes adding a reference or two. --ElKevbo 23:18, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Why can't it just be added in the memorial section? - hmwith talk 06:10, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Most Popular Group on Facebook and other statistics

I'd love to know what the most popular group (i.e. group with the most members) is on Facebook, but I can't seem to get hold of this information. If someone could help that would be most appreciatted.80.229.225.16 22:18, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Probably "The Largest Facebook Group Ever" [9], but I have no reliable source saying that the group is actually the most popular. --ALL IN (u t c m l ) 22:25, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

External Link

Hi guys,


I found a great profile on Mark Zuckerberg that I think should be added on to the external links section, but someone took it down. It clearly added value and was relevant to the topic. When people come on here to read about facebook, it is logical to expect there to be information present about the founder and CEO.


Thoughts?

(Babar54BabarBabar54)

April Fools Section

In 2007, Facebook played a number of pranks on its users during the course of April Fools' Day. Making light of the site's 'poke' function, Facebook offered to dispatch a live person to poke any friend that the reader chooses. Jokes were also made about the basketball tournament competition, Harry Potter, Grey's Anatomy and The Oregon Trail. Also in the footer about the copyright information, the name "Mark Zuckerberg" was replaced by random other names, including those of Facebook software engineers and the user's own name.[1]

I deleted the April Fools section since it has nothing to do with responses to Facebook (the heading it was under) and is nothing but a list of insignificant self-deprecation already listed in other April Fools articles. In the long run, the above is hardly notable. Gdo01 21:48, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Keep. It's notable information about the site, and it shows how the site remains friendly and lighthearted. They had never done it before, and it was surprising and humorous to many people. It's definitely notable. - hmwithtalk 21:58, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
So what lots of sites do this and we already have the info at April 1, 2007. This info has no encyclopedic value to someone who wants general knowledge about Facebook. Gdo01 22:35, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I think it goes a ways towards describing the rather light atmosphere on Facebook. Perhaps it should be placed elsewhere in the article? EVula // talk // ☯ // 22:52, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
How does a one time thing show the light atmosphere that only existed for one day. I'd rather a discussion on the dynamics of the "member in this group are also in" than something insignificant as this. Anyway the cite only talks about this in the sense of the April Fools thing, there's nothing about the "light atmosphere."Gdo01 22:57, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Thus far, that's 2 votes for keeping the section, and one against it. However, I feel that the section should remain until a more thorough consensus is reached, but I do not wish to partake in an edit war. Plus, if it's reverted again, it will be a violation of WP:3RR, anyways.
Others Wikipedians, please voice your opinions on this subject. Should the April Fools prank section stay or should it go? - hmwithtalk 04:06, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
Much to minor to have its own section, but I wouldn't object to its content being placed in another part of the article.--Jersey Devil 05:11, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
Remove - this is information about April Fool's Day pranks, not Facebook. If it happens year after year then possibly a sub-article Facebook's hoaxes as per Google's hoaxes. Martin Hinks 14:34, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
If Google has it's own sub-article on the subject, Facebook can't have its own section for it? - hmwithtalk 17:31, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

(undent)WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS is not a good reason. Anyway, three things have to be addressed:

  1. Why is it in the responses section? All the others are responses by 3rd parties or by the users themeselves while this section is fully about what Facebook itself did not what other people have responded with.
  2. What is the reason that it is notable and why doesn't the citation support that reason? The citation just states the pranks, it doesn't say anything about "friendl[iness] and lighthearted[ness]" or the "light atmosphere." Find a cite that does or put this in its own separate article (a move that will likely get it deleted anyway given that they "had never done it before").
  3. The citation blatantly violates WP:SOURCE; its nothing but a chat transcript. Gdo01 17:38, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
Maybe it's in the wrong section of the article. I didn't add it. I'm just saying that it should be kept... somewhere. Also, note that I didn't bring up the Google comparison. If the chat isn't a reliable source, it should be removed, and a ((fact)) tag should be placed. It doesn't necessarily mean that the section must be fully deleted. Plus, it doesn't say bluntly how "lighthearted" and "friendly" the site is, but, rather, the entire section as a whole demonstrates the fact. - hmwithtalk 20:37, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

References for above section

  1. ^ "IRC Log explaining April Fools' Day jokes". 2007-04-01. Retrieved 2007-04-08.

Additional Features Section

Added new marketplace entry and placed it with gifts under a new section entitled additional features to break it from the Responses sectionBoston2austin 13:17, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Prosed!

Hey folks. I made the time line into prose, but wasn't logged in when I did it. Anybody know a way I can revert it and put it under my name? I'd like to have it in my edit history, because I worked pretty hard on it. I'll try to write a lead-in later. Benuneko 05:33, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Privacy Concerns

This section is no longer out of date and, as usual, I don't have time to fix it. Could someone, perhaps? The problem is that the quotes from Facebook's privacy policy are out of date. 132.162.240.52 02:09, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Facebook Hates Sick Children

I'm not sure if it's encylopedic or not, but recently Facebook has been closing down quite a few accounts (taking part in a radio contest for The Edge), on the grounds of 'spamming other members'.

One such account that was closed happened to be a charity trying to earn money to donate towards 'Sick Children's Hospital' in Toronto.

Again, not sure if it's encylopedic or not, but Facebook seems to care more about their users than they do about helping out dying children. JimmmyThePiep 17:01, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

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