Phil and Jo versus the Facebook Monkeys

Prepare yourself, faithful reader, for a chilling tale. A tale of derring do! (Though I'm not entirely sure what my 'derring' is, or what it do.) A tale of blood curdling terror, of monsterous surprise, of man and woman fighting against the odds, backs to the wall, against the onslaught of ... Yeah, ok, you've got me bang to rights, I'm hacked off about Facebook. Again.

You'll know that Facebook has now given us groups, rather than just lists. Groups are funky little things that we can create, and we can do interesting things with them, like have chats, and share documents and stuff. Really neat and nifty. OK, we can do all of that via blogs, wikis, Google groups, mailing lists and whatever, but that's not the point. The point is that we can now do it safe in the comfort zone of Facebook, which is there to look after us, to provide us with sensible options, good code, a secure environment. Or not, as the case may be.

So, I created my 'Librarians' group. It wasn't easy - there's a menu option on the left, and it's being rolled out now. I suppose I could have checked to see if there were any manuals, FAQs and stuff, but hey - it's there, and by golly, I'm going to use it. It asked me to invite members. I have no clue as to the Facebook names my friends use, so I was forced to typing in letter A, to see what Facebook suggested. I then added in people, and went to B and so on. Through the entire alphabet. I then created my group of about 30 librarians. Facebook then told me something had gone wrong. No sh!t Sherlock, it's Facebook - that's par for the course. However, my group was created! Hurrah! It's alive master! It's alive!

Except it wasn't, not really. It added in 9 of my librarian friends, not the 30 I was expecting. It also added in another of my friends, who is not a librarian, and who probably has no wish to be associated with them. Bill - I'm very, very sorry. Normally, this wouldn't be an issue, but the Facebook monkeys who write the code do not appear to have given me an option to remove you. I can ADD people, but I can't take them off. You're going to have to do that. What fun.

So, I have my group, and off I go, doing other Facebooky type things. (Why yes, that did include playing Bejewelled for a couple of minutes). Then 'ping!', someone was in a chat with me. Not a person to person chat, but a 'Librarian group' chat. It was my friend Jo, who I had added to the group. She'd been told about it by Facebook. Cool. She could see who else I had added. What's more - and this is the wonderful brilliant thing - she could add some herself. Anyone she felt like. Seriously. Me? Oh, I'm just the administrator, nothing to do with me, oh no. So we've now got this group, where anyone in the group apparently is able to add anyone else. I can't delete them.

I thought 'Well, at least I can delete the group.' So I looked for the option, and it wasn't there. If I click on the option to leave the group this is what I get:

"Are you sure you want to give up your administrator privileges and leave this group? The administrator position will be offered to other people who are currently in the group. This will also prevent members from re-adding you."

I'm sorry? I looked (textually) at Jo, and she looked at me. I thought she summed it up in her usual clear, concise and eloquent manner. 'WTF?'. I couldn't have put it better myself. This is a madder situation that when Jack McMad won the Maddest Man of Madville competition last summer.

Jo and I then explored the documents option. I wrote a document. Jo edited it. Unfortunately she edited in a bunch of code. She didn't want to, didn't expect to and didn't mean to, but she did. Still, easy to go back in and edit it out, eh? Oh no. Facebook code monkeys don't like you doing that. She couldn't, having tried 3 times. It took me two goes, and I wrote the damn document in the first place!

We looked at each other, Jo and I. We nodded, wordlessly, and quietly put the group down, walked around it once or twice, then tiptoed quietly away. Maybe we got it all wrong. Maybe it's a Rolls Royce of code, and a work of genius. But I couldn't work it out by looking at it, and neither could Jo. So maybe it's just pants, and the Facebook code monkeys are perched in their cubicles cackling happily, as their work is done for another week. Mad.

Edit to add: OK, not quite as bad, but still tortuous and convoluted. I've played around with some more vict^H^H^H^H friends, and in the main group window I can unsubscribe people, photographs or postings, though it's not obvious where you can actually do that. They've split the commands into different places. Also if someone else adds a person to the group there's a message to say that they're added, and I subscribe them, but they're already subscribed. And it looks as though I can only unsubscribe them by subscribing them in the first place. Nuts!

Comments

[Hilary Ely]

Gosh, thanks for testing this to destruction! I found myself added to a Group yesterday,(a *cough* fan thing), and yes, I could go through my friends and add others I knew were fans too. Narrowly avoided adding some who would have wondered why I'd landed them on Planet Zarg, and wouldn't have thanked me for it. Am I glad I was careful, because it would never have occurred to me that I couldn't undo. This is a timely warning of all the other bear-traps it seems to have. Thank you!

Now I'm getting deluged with email every time someone comments, and a chat box keeps flashing at me. Much as I love my fan-girly friends, seeing them in my timeline has been enough for me.

I do so hope they mend it, and I don't like being experimented on!

[Adrian Thompson]

Is this another example of Facebook fixing something that wasn't broken? The old group set up was pretty good - not perfect, but you could moderate new members (let anyone request membership, but not let them in until you'd checked them out), but that doesn't seem to be there any more - and the ridiculous situation of not being able, as an admin, to delete a user means that one troller can kill the whole group, and can't be removed unless s/he decides to go. Nice work, Facebook, now hit undo, and go back to the way it was - I can't see any reason why the new features couldn't be added to the old group system.

[Therese Kenny]

LOL :)
Phil, I always enjoy reading your posts but this one had me laughing aloud on the train this morning. Love your writing style and sense of humour.

Thanks for sharing your experiences...
Phil & Jo 1: Facebook 0 :)

Cheers,
Therese (TL in Sydney, Australia)

[Hazel Edmunds]

OK, I had my say, such as it was, on Facebook. Only thing to add is that Wiktionary defines derring do as "Valiant deeds in desperate times; Brave and adventurous, often reckless actions"
I don't have you down as the reckless type, Phil, but do please keep up the valiant, brave and adventurous actions on behalf of the less brave and valiant.

[Jennie]

I had no idea that I could be involuntarily added to groups - that's fine if it's something ok like a Librarians group, but what happens if someone adds you to a dodgy group? Especially if you're using Fb in any sort of professional way, eg as an organisation. Is it possible to add non-people (eg like an academic library) to a group?

Anyhoo, methinks I'll quietly remove myself ;)

[Phil Bradley]

Yes, exactly. I'd originally - when I started the group - was that it was just a way that I could arrange *my* contacts in a slightly different way. I wasn't expecting it was going to have the implications that it has - particularly since I've had other people asking to join the group and others have been joining yet others. Facebook monkeys strike again.

[Miss Crail]

I cannot tell you how happy it made me to read Phil's post. Got into a terrible mess myself when the reasonable-sounding idea of a Facebook group started to go sour on me, and things one logically ought to be able to do could not be done. The logical conclusion was that this was due to my incompetence. So to find out that Phil Bradley, one of them clever people, and big fan of Facebook, has had a bit of a tussle has - I'm sorry - made me feel SOOOO much better

[Phil Bradley]

To be perfectly honest Miss Crail, I'm not sure where you've got the idea that I like Facebook. I really don't like it very much at all. I find their attitude almost as arrogant as Google, the difficulties in setting privacy levels is insane and they've got far too much power and it looks like it's going to be increasing.

Of course I use it, because I have to. Same way that I have to go to the Dentist. It's a necessary evil, but I don't need to actually *like* it.