Oolite Bulletins

This button has been added experimentally.

Please feedback your opinions on it here.

Well, it initially (disconcertingly) showed up as a 404 page in an iframe because I have facebook.com redirected to 127.0.0.1, but I adblocked it, so it’s fine by me. :-)

[old codger mode]Where is the 'not-like' button?[/old codger mode]

Where is the "I hate the like button" button?

I don't care about facebook, and haven't the faintest idea what clicking the button would do. I'm also not really interested in finding out.

In other words: I'll simply ignore it.

EDIT: I have one issue, though: for multi-page threads the button causes the page numbering area to cross the right boundary, at least for facebook-non-users:

Where's the Ambivalent button?

Though I do use FB - it's an useful tool for controlling my Legions of Terror keeping track of my minions staying in touch with my friends - I'm wary of the viral spread of the Like button. And the Share button. And the Tweet button. And all the other buttons. If we keep this up, link C&P will soon be a lost art...

If it helps spread the Good Word, great. If not, the BB will just be another page that displays "sending request to facebook.com" for no apparent reason.

Where is the 'Facebook-is-a-parasitic-cancer-and-I'll-be-damned-if-I'm-going-to-give-them-my-personal-info' button?

(Not that I'm a hater or anything....)

I see there has been a change in position. Now each single post has the button instead of the thread. It also has been cropped to an unobtrusive size. I completely overlooked it completely in the first dozen or so threads I was crawling through. Actually I was just about to post "no more debate needed, it's been removed" when I finally discovered it.

Given its unobtrusiveness I don't mind it staying there for the benefit of our facebook users. I also wouldn't mind having it removed again. Therefore my vote is: do whatever you like best.

For those without Facebook (with some of whom I understand its equivalence to an all-invading cancer) - here's what the 'like' button does:

It publishes a link to the page on which the chosen button appears on the clicking users 'wall' (which is essentially a form of micro-blog), noting the user's recommendation. The intent being to draw other Facebook users' attention to the page. Essentially it's a form of advertising for the bulletin board and, incidentally, for Oolite.

At the moment it's a little difficult to make it point directly to the post 'liked' as the URL is stripped of its anchor (a pointer to a marked position on the page) despite me trying to cunningly encode the anchor in a variety of ways - hopefully this can be righted at some point.

I'll use it - since often useful stuff comes up on Outworld or the Fiction threads - and if you sort the anchor issue out - then posting screenshot posts directly to my Newsfeed would be nice!

Nice one Aegidian. I'm a 'fan' of facebook, or more precisely, I find it rather useful. I'll be using this.

Cheers,

Drew.

UPDATE: link anchor issue fixed.

Also note that topic pages also now feature Open Graph Protocol meta headers, identifying the content of the pages for further dissemination.

Thargoid wrote:

A nice beacon for spammers, chancers and all the other rubbish and dodgy dealings that live off fastbuck.

No, it won't open the board to any of that, there won't be any extra advertising on the board, just the little button down there.
It should draw extra people to the site, so we may get a few more idiots, but they should be a minority among the extra good folk that get informed about Oolite.

Thargoid wrote:

I thought this place was more intelligent than that. If we're forced to have it, please make it optional so we can nuke it individually from orbit.

It's entirely optional - don't press that button.

Thargoid wrote:

The button looks terrible just floating in the middle of the post display area (at least on the way the forum displays on my machine, which is different from what McLane posted) and as it's a button I will never ever wish to press, as I said for me I would be perfectly happy if the whole thing went away again or could be turned off individually.

Okay, I think the best way to manage that is to install a board 'style' you can choose as a user that doesn't have the Facebook button enabled (it won't appear). That'll let you keep the forum as it appeared as of yesterday. I'll get on that right away.

I agree the positioning of the button could use some tinkering. That's part of the experiment of course.

Thargoid wrote:

On t'other board I moderate there's just been the realisation that the current spate of facebook posts/emails asking people to push certain buttons or copy/paste some script into a web browser is causing an app to be installed that potentially shares every piece of information in their profile (hidden or not) to various destinations.

Users are able to include all sorts of rubbish in their posts already - we have a reasonably good system for dealing with that with our spam assassins. Adding this button won't increase the occurrence of spam though.

Thargoid wrote:

Oh and I now see we've already been joined by the FaceBook [Linkcheck] 'bot. Bring on the flood

The computer is your friend.