This is a serious question.

What would one expect the benefits of joining a FB model engineering group would be compared with partaking in a model engineering forum (such as this one)?

Ian P

PS, by benefits I dont mean that the member is joining for some selfish reason for what they could get out of it.

If it's a closed shop there won't be much activity IMO, an awful lot of people begin as lurkers

If they can't lurk then they move on

I am not knowledgeable on FBs operation but from what I have seen it mostly shows the various posts in one long time sorted list so how would one follow a particular thread? Its bad enough on this type forum when postings might give a very pertinent response which makes no sense because it has got separated by other replies.

I suppose my original question was really enquiring as to what advantage a FB group has over a forum.

Ian P

Facebook doesn't appeal to me, but it does have useful features. In comparison:

• Forum is mostly open, with limited inter-member communication and no groups. Facebook supports groups and several inter-member communication methods, including 'call to action', news feeds, ticker, and telephony. Friends are a strong Facebook feature, a weak one on the Forum.
• Forum has limited support for Events (ie members notified when something happens on the forum.) Facebook supports Events, Poke and Alerts
• Forum has limited capability for hosting photographs (size reduced JPEGs only), Facebook supports Videos and live streaming
• Facebook supports Likes and Reactions, Forum doesn't.
• Facebook supports Applications, Forum doesn't.

There are many overlaps and similarities, for example, the Forum can link to videos hosted by a third-party, and Facebook can be open.

The forum caters for the group of all Model Engineers, everything is visible and all members are equal. The lack of focus doesn't suit everyone. Facebook caters for groups and sub-groups, not everything need be visible, and the needs of a tight interest group are met.

I'd look to Facebook if I was collaborating on a project with several others, or was interested in a specific something where thread drift was unacceptable.

The Forum doesn't support document hosting (like PDFs & DXFs), may be wrong but I don't think Facebook does either.

Security is a concern. The Forum and Facebook both share member information, but Facebook have been caught doing so egregiously. They've also suffered serious leaks of data thought by users to be private, and account hi-jacking. The Forum is safer in that everyone knows their contributions are public, so we don't share sensitive information on it. Consequently, it doesn't matter much if the Forum is hacked, Facebook is a different story.

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 07/08/2018 10:32:58

Too intrusive. They want to know everything about you that they can accumulate. Yes, they sell data – but also, it seems, lose personal data too.

I will not touch ‘twitface’ for as long as I can manage without – not even with a long barge pole! Too risky.