So...

You may argue, then, for your PhD in Human Being.

i wish people like you would walk off the edge of a cliff

is so much mroe disappointing though.
to create a real community, one needs to work at manners, courtesy, kindness, sharing... too many people are all "me me me" these days. Online its generic. we are all the same. we can go on, play nice nice and say the things we wish we had the courage to say in real life..and when we get tired of it, we log off and b!tch about the neighbors dog, and the way its a disgrace that so and so doesn't care for thier yard as much they should.
Its so much easier to cultivate online friendships, as we don't have to interact with those people in a real way and see them with thier all thier flaws.

sorry, I couldn't resist posting when the title started the song in my head, since it's going around in mine, I thought I'd share the fun or pain.

back to farcebook - I joined because a few people said it was a way to keep in touch. I get several hundred messages each month, but only about five a month make any sense, the rest are the games and such. I don't have the time for them, so I don't join in the games. I say that right up front in my profile, yet people still send me things to get involved in their games - aaargggh.

I'm glad you enjoy it, and wish you well, but please don't send me any fish or flowers or animals or mafia hits.

that you can block all the games?

15 and 4. I didn't get any of the 15's, I think.

My family and friends in real life use it, so thats how I ended up there. None of us live that close to each other to visit much. I'm still wary of FB strangers. I don't think I could keep up with that.

Real life communities are disintigrating because people today have such busy lives and we have the internet. We are a global village now. When I grew up in the 50's and 60's, my family and friends and their families and friends all lived close to each other. Everyone knew each other. We only had real-life friends. People used to help each other out. Not so today.

There is an everyman for himself attitude that doesn't lend itself to having a community like what I knew when I grew up. I don't know most of my neighbors and don't care. I have some good friends and family. Thats enough for me.

I always try to be open to everyone, but I'm very choosy with real life friends because some people are just too negative. Being that I'm older and wiser, I just don't get involved to begin with and save myself a lot of grief.

FB and TR does fill that community need and the nice thing is that you can meet people from all over the world that share common interests. Its fun and it can be as much or as little as you want.

AV

..

cut back on all those messages about what they won etc in the games.

What's most annoying is your Farcebook 'Home' page and your Farcebook 'Wall' are two different pages and you need to check both to see if anyone has posted a message you need to reply to. I sometimes forget about the 'Wall' being a different page and don't always check it.

This joint fills my need for cyber-socializing. No one in my family that I care about uses it, I see enough of my fellow employees at work, and all you guys are already here.

I am on facebook, I love it :) I have found so many people on there that I had lost touch with either through having to change my email address of mobile numbers being changed, and have made so many new friends through it as well, particularly people who I might not have necessarily kept in touch with otherwise. Sometimes it has caused huge problems, ive seen people fall out never to talk again because of a comment made on Facebook, but I like it :)

I joined Facebook because my 16 year old nephew was on it, and his Mom and Dad had no idea. I talked to them about monitoring him and what he posts, and got blank looks. So, I took him aside, told him I was joining facebook, and he had to add me as a friend. He did add me, and I'm happy to say that he's being very responsible. We have a deal. I don't post embarrassing comments or pictures about him, and, as long as there's nothing "bad", and I'm the arbiter of "bad", posted, what happens in facebook stays there.

I swore I'd never do facebook, but I got sucked into the brainwashing app known as farmville. I made deals with myself. I'll quit when I reach level 10... I'll quit when I get a house and barn... now, I'll quit when I get a million coins.

I was able to connect with someone who was a real-life friend over 20 years ago. It was fun trading posts with her. Otherwise, I have just a very small group of friends on there, and don't spend too much time there.

I joined Facebook 3 years ago as a way to talk to a friend of mine when on the road.

Since then, I have had a dumpload of people add me that I knew in various stages of life.

I'm not real active on Facebook, hardly touch MySpace anymore, and I've never even seen Twitter (and never will).

I just don't like Facebook's style...the "hey look at me and what I did" thing. Plus, their security is a joke.

MySpace: even worse.

Twitter: Got no enthusiasm for even looking.

I have found another chatroom site with cool rooms and people from all over the world. I check Facebook about once a week to msg with 3 of my 4 best friends on Earth. Otherwise, I haven't added anyone in weeks now. Probably will avoid it if possible.

Not that Facebook doesn't fulfill some peoples' needs, but it's just not what I want or need to feel good about life.

Much rather be in a pub in England with GG, NeilB, and Shellbot having pints and laughing and talking about sillyness and interesting things, than sitting behind the keyboard reading about whose kid knows their ABCs now or how they hate work.

Blah. I need a beer...now.

You never know. :p

http://www.manta.com/coms2/dnbcompany_1p0pj

With my Sunday morning coffee. Since I'm already mindless then, I might as well...

ALL of my family and ALL their friends that I never heard of and ALL their friends...shall I stop now? I'm the only one in the family that does IT for a living & am in front of a computer enough all ready. While visiting my folks (& guess what? defragging, updating, etc.) and saw how many facebook entries were in their Inbox - NO way, jose!
2. I really don't want anybody who feels like it to know my buzyness.
3. I agree - everyone on TR are the best "social" network there is.

I live in north-eastern Ohio, USA and I have a virtual brother now who lives in Brazil. We 'met' while playing Requiem. As I was on my way to fulfill a quest, I saw that he was about to die (or at least I thought so) so I helped him. He accused me of stealing his kill and cursed me. After he calmed down, I explained that I was only trying to help and he apologized. Soon after we became friends and spent months together questing and killing monsters. If we ever meet in person, I know we will throw our arms around each other and dance for joy.

You bugged me into it.
I like being able to say **** without the asterisks even though I rarely do. For **** sakes, we're all adults. Why put up with ******** censoring when we don't ******* have to?
******* ****** me off to ******* have to ******* tone it the **** down when I think that the way some TR peeps treat each other over here without ******* cussing is much ******* worse.
******* ***** *****!

Then you are on your way out of youth, dragging it still behind, but on your way to greater.

I'm 56 this year and love gaming, but I refuse to pay the monthly protection racket fees for the on-line games. I love gaming, but as part of a local network, by myself, or on the free Battlenet sites. I started enjoying gaming when you had to have it on your computer and could only network locally, then migrated to Battlenet (but only a little bit), and absolutely detest the idea of NOT being able to play a game I paid for the disc for because they want you to pay a monthly fee to protect YOUR character on THEIR server, and stiff if their server gets trashed.

edit to add

Most of the people I know who are heavily into the on-line gaming are in their mid twenties to mid thirties. Gaming isn't just a teens thing today, and few realise that.

on their web site - we have the Italian case with Google, and there's been two US cases with people being charged over what's on their web site.

Here it is... the answer to your question...

...cuz it's EASIER to ignore someone online who's managed to totally peeve you than it is to ignore the guy down the street who refuses to bathe on a daily basis. If you don't get to KNOW the guy down the street in the first place, you don't have to worry about when he becomes an annoying hanger-on and you have to try to politely not come to his backyard barbecue or offend him by not inviting him to yours. If you meet someone online who annoys you, you simply don't respond to them anymore.

Flesh and blood encounters are a lot more 'messy' than online. You end up with GREAT communities of like minded people online because you've collectively ignored the ones who drive you batty. You can't do that in real life, mostly because once the whole neighborhood has started ignoring someone, they still have to sell their house before they can go away.

:)
Some folks, like myself, don't have much of a social network in real life. I don't work, live in the boondocks and just don't have many friends. I KNOW 100s of people but we don't have much in common. Thank god!
Online social networking gets me away from the humdrum that would be my life if SN didn't exist. Browsing the Internet worked for just so long then I felt a need to 'connect' with others of my species. Over time I've become friends with several. I count my online friends as being real friends. I've shared intimate details of my life with a few, have received gifts and cards from online friends and, for the most part, I give a **** about what happens to them.
For awhile TR filled a niche in me that needed filling. Some might say that's sad. Tough ****. I don't live my life by what some will say.
SN helps me to have a decent home life. If it was harmful I'd steer clear. I don't do the games much anymore because our satellite Internet has a small daily bandwidth cap. That's fine. I can still keep up with things with a few people using all of the tools at my disposal, e.g., SN websites, IM, email and *shudders* snail mail.
Filling the niche I'm talking about would require that I burn gas and meet and greet folks. I'm glad that I don't have to do that as, generally speaking, I don't like people very much. Folks from all walks of life can be rude and crude and you can't easily browse to a different page of reality. You have to carry bail money in case some people won't just go away and leave you alone.

they se all your information and is set up (the default) for all their friends to see it also.

Just too much invasion there for me.

I have facebook, but it is a tight ship.