Joined: Wed Apr 26, 2006 12:44 am Posts: 2056 Location: San Francisco
Facebook is a fast transient information source. There is no "history" to search on the groups or postings, information is ephemeral. I have realized this and am coming back to G.O. as posts stick around and this is a much better format and info source than the Zuck's machine. I encourage all of you who spend time on FB to post a comment about coming to gemologyonline.com This is a much better resource and archive than anything on FB.
_________________ Custom Gemstone Cutting and various other activities!
I agree. I very frequently pull up old threads to pick at obscure bits of knowledge and experience in the archives. Facebook has immediacy but imo can't produce as good an environment or community.
Amen.So many of the pages there are flooded with nondescript rocks and questions are these rubies tourmaline or diamonds...im not a gemologist but what ive learned here makes me feel like a phd talking to five year old kids that will forever be five. Just last night I was removed from one of the pages for arguing about the mohs hardness of an ugly rock someone posted...they stated it was a 9 on the mohs scale...and the evidence was that it wasn't scratched by hematite lol
This forum really is a wonderful place. Whenever Im google'n info on gems, Im always happy when I see a search result from GO, cos then I know it will most likely have the best info.
Ive learnt a tremendous amount of information from old threads.
A big thank you to the owners, mods and contributors.
Honestly, the fact that social media sites rarely have a focused topic and desire to have millions of active members makes any moderation almost impossible. Facebook and Twitter's so called "algorithms" almost always favour who gets the least user flags in a dispute, and are useless for policing visual content, thus forcing the sites to rely on thousands of workers to review graphic content every day for pitiful wages. Having to see that stuff day in, day out doesn't sound great for your mental health.
Would you want a mentally worn-down moderator, with no knowledge on the topic, who only has maybe a minute to make a decision policing your posts? The mods here do an excellent job, and it's made easier in no small part by the lower activity level in this community, and the desire to recruit staff from it.
The other thing is these sites often have the bare minimum for allowing you to search for information, from what I understand Facebook doesn't allow you to exclude keywords from results. With this forum's software you can do that in addition to everything facebook's search can. The only social media site I've used that comes close is Twitter. Now compare this to something like Tumblr's search function. Non-text content searching is a whole other can of worms, and the only reliable way I've seen requires the viewer being able to assign tags to the images, music, etc. that they find. Using this system apparently has a high server load...
I have to admit that I'm guilty of spending more time on the fb gemology and related groups than here at GO. But I agree with what everyone else has said - this community is one of the nicest out there, and the body of shared knowledge is an amazing resource.
I make it a point of coming back here regularly, even though I don't post as often. I hope others will do the same and keep GO the great source of knowledge it is.
And kudos to Barbra for creating and maintaining this community
-Allan
_________________ Allan Aoyama http://www.omnifaceter.net <- Omnifaceter is back online!
Joined: Tue Jun 12, 2007 6:41 pm Posts: 5534 Location: Massachusetts, USA
I am on FB because I have a commercial page there, but link to GO very often for the content reasons we all know about. Another issue with that place is you are flooded with obnoxious rough dealers, in addition to knowing every keystroke is sold. The exposure is good, but it's kind of a bad neighborhood, and on FB, "exposure" usually means an X-Rated selfie.
Joined: Thu Jan 24, 2008 4:01 pm Posts: 1902 Location: Pine City, NY and Dothan, AL
jleb has it exactly right. What you see on Facebook is whatever their algorithms decide to show you. One particularly ridiculous page is "Faceting Diagrams & Gemstone Designs" where people post files of designs in various formats with no way to do an intelligent search on them. Probably I should post a request that original deigns be submitted to the USFG website for inclusion in their library. I haven't yet done that because I would be the one to check them out, derive the proper images and downloadable files, and add them to the library. Maybe when I finish moving into my new house.
Joined: Mon Aug 20, 2012 11:32 pm Posts: 1747 Location: Florida, United States
FB monetizes your information and that was part of Zuckerberg's business plan. You can decline friend offers or block those you deem as persistently obnoxious. To use a comparative metaphor, GO is like living in a village, while FB is like living in a metropolis with CCTV cameras mounted on street light poles. I think both have particular advantages.
I think one of the worst things is watching people post insanely stupid guesses on requests for rock or gem ID. It's true you typically can't firmly ID something from a photo, but that doesn't mean any 'ol guess is OK.
Joined: Tue Jun 12, 2007 6:41 pm Posts: 5534 Location: Massachusetts, USA
Yes, and it's in all the topics ion all the fields. People seem to post just to have something to say. and much of it is nonsense. Asking for a gem ID from a picture is a lot like asking how a picture or roses smells. I have never seen a site with so much bad information.
Facebook *does* have pictures of gemstones. A whole lot of them. Pictures large enough to make out details. Here we must format photos down to such a small size/low resolution that one can't really make out much. Other than that, Jon is right Facebook is a trashy neighborhood with a lot of time wasters/scammers/angry people about. If you are wanting to use it for archiving, post everything to your own page in a folder first so you can find it later. I literally cannot figure out how to make my pictures small enough to post here, so I stopped.
Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 32 guests
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot post attachments in this forum