Going forward, I'll be posting new content on Facebook. Please "Like" my new page, and let your friends and neighbors know about it.
All the 450+ articles posted here will remain, as well as the collection of materials which can be accessed from the links to the right.
I'm looking forward to continuing our dialog.
Paul,
ReplyDeleteIt's been a pleasure reading you over the years and I appreciate everything that you've tried to do.
I, however, will not continue this journey with you. I don't have, and never will have, a Facebook account. I know too much about their entire disdain for end-user privacy to ever conceive of opening a Facebook account.
Frankly, I am surprised anyone uses them given what we know about how they operate. Goes to show that like all drug addicts, once hooked you come back for more and more even while your dealer is fleecing you left, right and center.
Good luck!
Thanks for the kind words. I completely understand your perspective on FB, and have heard the same from others. Don't know who said it first, but I agree with this perspective: "If you're getting something for free, you're not the customer, you're the product!"
DeleteMy thinking is this: This blog was written primarily to help educate the people of our community on matters of economics and governance of our school district. The core message hasn't changed in eight years, but most people still haven't heard and understood. So I'll leave this blog intact for those who might do a Google/Bing/etc search, but will try to reach another audience via Facebook.
I know I'm late to the game, but you might want to check out platforms that let you cross-post to various social media outlets -- that would let you capture the FB crowd but would also help others who either "don't do Facebook" or who are using google/archive.org to find/cite things.
Delete[for example, I'm citing this site in a neighborhood discussion about the latest Columbus City Schools levy -- expressing the need for a citizen "watchdog" group to dig into the CCS budget/policies].
DeleteJeff - thanks for the comment. FB has become so dominant as a micro-blog platform that I don't think the multi-platform posting expands the reach all that much. However, I plan to leave this blog up as long as they'll let me to serve as a research source, as you have suggested. Meanwhile if I can be of any help in your effort, please let me know.
DeleteI offer myself as an existence proof that Facebook is suboptimal for locating information about your current endeavors (from my searching, I thought you'd gone defunct). Blogger (by corporate acquisition, if nothing else) plays well with Google (and presumably other search engines); Facebook, not so much. And the tools for integrating blogger, FB, twitter, G+, etc. are pretty ubiquitous -- though seemingly exclusively one-way IN to Facebook (once Mark Z gets info, he only releases enough to entice people into his walled garden). Anyway, food for thought.
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