Luring in younger bulb growers

Rodger Whitlock totototo@telus.net
Thu, 17 Oct 2013 19:04:33 PDT
On 17 Oct 2013, at 17:38, Jane McGary wrote:

> I'd rather see our material kept on the PBS website rather than on
> Facebook... 

That makes two of us.

> I am one of those who have some psychological resistance to Facebook. 

My resistance is purely intellectual. As has been said by others before, on the 
internet if something worthwhile is free, that's because *you* are the product 
and the real customers are advertisers.

Facebook has not just a cavalier attitude towards privacy, but an outright 
malignant one. Zuckerman isn't an altruist; he's a businessman and a fairly 
ruthless one at that. Facebook is not an innocent operation over which one 
daintily exclaims "oh isn't that nice!" while sipping chamomile tea.

There is no reason to put anything on Facebook; whenever I need to look up some 
matter-bulbous, Google often presents me with a PBS Wiki link as the first in 
the list of hits. There is absolutely no reason to balkanize our material by 
splitting it between two sites.

Unless we as a group feel compelled to hold the hands of those too lazy or 
ignorant to use Google, the PBS Wiki remains a solution to the problem of 
disseminating knowledge-bulbous in a nearly optimum manner. Perhaps I should 
add that the PBS mailing list is (imo) for enthusiasts with some experience, 
not raw newbies who don't know which end of a bulb goes on the bottom.

Note that my objections to Facebook don't even touch on the issue of them 
claiming that material posted there is theirs free to use in any other manner.


-- 
Rodger Whitlock
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Z. 7-8, cool Mediterranean climate



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