h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Facebook - An introduction - A55140879
Author: Nosebagbear (nbb) - U14077177

Not sure whether to come here as this is my 1st entry but Collab writing workshop isnt working.
A number of problems - i can't write in guideMl so i cant do effects, add internal links or most importantly say where some of the information cam from.
Also i am quite bad at writng humour so any jokes would be appreciated. Any other comments let em fly - ill only hide for a while.
The more comments the better as i am a complete newbie at writing on h2g2

Friday night's a bad night for comments (I'm off to the pub, and I'm assuming many others will be too!), but I've bookmarked this to have a read over tomorrow.

cheers i'll remember that - makes me feel better id started to fear no one would notice
have a good'un

nnb - this is a reasonably promising start but it could do with being fleshed out. For example, you don't mention the home page/news feed and what that's for. Nor do you mention groups.

"Facebook has annouced that data is instantly deleted when an account is shutdown but problems arised about whether the information was truly gone."

Do they really say that? Because you can't really delete an account, can you? You can only suspend it and you can restart it whenever you choose.

I think some info about other social networking sites (myspace in particular, but maybe bebo and similar too) would be useful to set the context, after which you could discuss the foundation of facebook itself.

Running it through a spellchecker wouldn't go amiss either.

Keep up the good work.

Wil lstart working on some of the points right away. The comparison to other sites i thought would make it overly long and there is already a specific facebook vs myspace in peer review although it only covers a few points hence the space to make a specialised facebook entry.
Back to you soon in any case
cheers

have added a basic overview of the home page, i may add more later. I rechecked and realalised that the controversy was over user's deleting their information but it remaining on facebook's servers. Shit down accounts are supposed to have their information hidden i believe although could be wrong there.
I have noticed and corrected a large number of spelling mistakes :D but im sure there are plenty more.
I am also changing facebook to Facebook.
Am starting work on the other suggestions
Cheers

apologies for all my sspelling mistakes in my comments as well most obvious being shit down should be shit down as readers may be guessing my spelling is not great - at least its not when im typing
Have expanded homepage info slightly and deleted extra copy of my information
I am just going to store up people who help at bottom of my page for now and deal with them later.

I think as an introduction to Facebook this works quite well.
I know of a few more problems than you mention here: although you can set your account to 'private' and only to be seen by friends, this doesn't always work.
If you link to, or click on links to other websites, they can trace you back to your facebook account, displaying your name and some account data in the worst case (happened on youtube once).

I don't agree with Elentari that you should describe myspace and beebo etc. There's currently an entry trying exactly that anyway:

Facebook vs MySpace - A55065756

cheers - i had the same thoought on the facebook vs myspace.
Ill work on the other problems later today
Cheers

Listed pronlems are dealt with - i didn't want to do very long entry's on them as i am starting to be aware of the growing length of the entry.
Nvertheless - any interesting problem and i'm happy to put it in.
Let it fly people

I don't mean anythin in depth about facebook vs myspace; something like:

While Myspace was the leading social networking site of the early 2000s, facebook rapidly caught up once it was opened to the general public and not just university students. It has a range of features not available on Myspace...

i can see the idea - although i fear for my length - your suggestion might work if i put in a brief history of facebook - when the company was founded, by whom and such like

I think you need a brief history either way, to be honest. But it's your entry!

yeah ill put an entry in - basic facts as mentioned - ill put in one and then see what people think about it - ie do facts need to be added/removed or changed
Busy tho atm having just received my order for a pool table and trying to assemble it
WOOP WOOP

Nosebagbear: since I don't use facebook, I'll rely on this entry to teach me about it. So far, I don't entirely understand.

Even if you don't want to put this in GuideML - that can be a bit daunting for newbies - you should read the Writing-Guidelines

What you're trying to convey by using smileys will need to be said using text only. And besides being a first-person statement, which generally aren't allowed, things like "Even a basic list of applications would take up more space, and time, then i have so i will leave it to users to find their own." are rather unhelpful - it looks more like you're being lazy than like you're trying to help the reader A better way of saying it might be something like "There are numerous applications like [name a few examples here] - a full list can be found at [find a link to insert]"

Exhausted sigh ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Ok now that i've got that out of my system i do understand most of what you're talking about.
I will thiink about how to redo smileys (i'll have to move them here instead)
For the list of apps would say a couple for each of the categories that i listed for groups work as they use the same categorisation system.
For a linkk can i link it too facebook - i was going to put a link to the log in page but is one straight to the apps list ok? It can be accessed by non-members (i think) as it didnt recognise me once i had logged out.
From my viewpoint the point of view it is being written from varies. I uspect this is because i tried to stay away from 1st person but couldnt think how to do so - i will have to do re-reading.
Ill start working on it.

Nbb
Cheers - nice long lsit of points to address is what i've been looking for - i'll jsut have to remember that when trying to add in these links

I don't think there is a full list to be found somewhere, mala. I think each days new applications are created, and I don't think there is only one person who knows them all.

I'd suggest to say something like: because of the ever growing list of applications offered, you'll have to find out for yourself which one takes your fancy. However, be careful: the creators of the applications may have terms and conditions different from those of Facebook, and just like it says on h2g2 entries:

>>Please note that the BBC is not responsible for the content of any external sites listed.<<

Facebook is not responsible for the content of third party apaplications, either - at least that's how I understood the last change of Fb's T&C

Have fun!

Having to log in to facebook to see things there is annoying for the casual reader. So if that's the case, maybe you can find one of those "100 best facebook apps" pages or something. I'm sure they exist.

Who decides which ones are best? I dislike most of them, I think they're pointless and childish. Yet, many people add them.