I am working with administrators of the group, Sara and Duncan, to integrate Jowett Talk with the facility. I have linked it in on the jowett.net home page, but there is lots more we can do.
However, the Facebook group users should understand that what they contribute there may not be accessible in future to those looking for help with Jowetts or wanting questions answered or wanting to know the history about Jowetts. JowettTalk does all those things and will be around for the next 20 years.
Facebook controls what you see using its algorithms. It feeds you things to maximize its advertising revenue. There is no advertising when browsing Jowett Talk and no data is sent to third parties. You are also free to browse wherever you want.
You have to be logged into Facebook and many Internet users do not want to do this because Facebook then collects all their browsing history for advertising purposes. Thus your audience may be limited. On JowettTalk the public forums can be viewed without logging in, so are accessible to everybody.
Once you put your contributions onto Facebook you lose almost all control over them. If you put them into your personal album on JowettTalk you have control over them and can define who can see them. Public forums such as 'Natter' or 'Parts for sale' or the 'Club event's are seen by the public. Forums such as 'Remembrance' are only seen by Registered users and forums such as the those in the Library are only seen by club members. Contributions put anywhere can be moved around by moderators. Facebook provides no such control on access or placement.
You cannot easily find things in or navigate across Facebook. JowettTalk has an advanced search facility and there is some logical structure to its content.
So if you want to contribute to the Jowett digital legacy put your contributions into JowettTalk.
By all means encourage others to use the Facebook group as it might reach people not found by Internet search methods and it might promote conversation about Jowetts.
Jowett Talk Advantages:
- Registered users have been vetted to verify they have a genuine interest in Jowetts.
- Club members are contained within a group that have privilege to see certain forums.
- Topics can be sorted and filtered individually (various options that everyone can choose from). Click link to see the options in your UCP.
- Posts can be sorted and filtered individually
- You can use various individual notification settings
- There is an advanced search
- There is the ability to see all unread posts
- BBCodes for formattings (just like this list) are easy to extend by administrators
- Stored data is not connected to other projects and as such not subject to be spread elsewhere - if an administrator promises he won't share any data then you can actually believe him (in contrast to Facebook which is so big that governments surely have their own access to it)
Everything on JowettTalk is under a club member's control. The operating system, the database and the software are all open source so not subject to proprietary whim to force change. The system is transportable to other operating systems and can run in a virtual hardware compartment so is not dependent on any changes of technology or company ownership that might occur in the future.With Facebook, you are literally the product, member or not. Everything you type and everything you upload (photos, videos, documents, etc.) becomes Facebook's property the moment you use their service. You completely give up your rights to privacy and ownership of your data since you are not actually paying any money for the service. Each member is worth approximately $12 to Facebook with about 1 billion users to date and growing. It is proprietary software that uses complex algorithms to identify your interests and needs. You don't know where they sell your data to, the extent of it, or what else they do with it.
You are in control of your browser that is connecting you with JowettTalk. When you use a Facebook app you have given much of the control over to it, allowing it to see a lot on your device such as your PC or phone.
I use Facebook but in a controlled environment and not on my home PC. I make sure I have restricted all the Facebook app's privileges down to a bare minimum.Facebook relies on loopholes and legal exploits with addictive elements added to their site to keep people browsing, thus being exposed to more advertisements and tracking where you visit, what you've seen, what you've liked/disliked, which ads caught your attention, what your browsing habits are outside of Facebook, and so on. They then throw new changes in their long Terms and Conditions list which you have to agree with when you sign up or log in