Unbelievable I Know, but I STILL Have a Question About the Facebook Issue.......

I'm with you girl! Don't post anything personal that you don't want family/friends to read! I like being anonymous on here!

****I just copied and pasted my response to a similar question earlier here. THAT is ALL that has to happen for a question/response to be posted anywhere. Just thought I should 'paste' it here to help clarify****
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I am formerly catwalk...(now, obviously, feline stroller...lol).

I lost my fiance 4 weeks ago today. I posted here THAT nite, because so many 'virtual' strangers had been aware of my journey...the 'ups' and the downs.

I was made aware that my post had been 'usurped'...and posted on the 'official' (?) mamapedia face book page. I was never consulted (or told by mamapedia) that this was going to happen. Clearly, the rules here indicate that 'that' could happen....As a practical matter ANYTHING we post on line is 'there' for anyone. I was angry that they used a non factual 'tag'...(they said it was my son...not the love of my life)...and then neglected to talk to me when my wish was to have it taken down.

The post was finally removed. It was removed however, only after a HUGE response from some of my 'virtual' friends from here.

8kids dad...I hate to 'call you out'...BUT I resent your inference that somehow 'name' changes are a result of 'espousing' things here we would be ashamed of in real life. I have never posted ANYTHING here that I would not stand behind IRL. My changing my name here was more of a statement against the idea that my personal post could be not only misconstrued in terms of WHO it was regarding....but mostly, that this site would try to 'garner' more members on the 'back' of my grief.

That said, I have learned a valuable lesson...as I hope others have as well.

No matter the 'nic'...IF it is online, it IS 'out there' for anyone to see.

Anyway, hope this sheds some light on this.

And, hell...I thought feline stroller was clever! lol

best

Hi J.,

My understanding of this (as a nonFB user myself) is such:

Facebook has a public web page. That's right, public. So, you can type "Facebook Mamapedia" into your browser and get there. Anyone in the world can look at it.

Much like a Pinterest page, there are little blurbs all over the page. Some are little 'ha ha' parenting graphics, but others are an encapsulation of a question such as "A mom of a three year old wants to help her child potty train? Can you recommend any tricks?" Then, there's a link posted to the original post on Mamapedia.

The very weird thing is that people can comment on the Facebook page (much like people can comment on the daily featured blogpost) but that comment is not sent to or seen by the original poster unless they actually check for the question on the Facebook page. Mamapedia's Facebook entity does not inform posters that their posts may appear on Facebook ( I did suggest that MP add that in to the 'I have read the terms and conditions and agree to them' part, adding that there should be a disclaimer which reads "I understand that my post may appear as a link on Facebook".. but the Terms and Conditions already state that they may do as they damn well please with whatever we write here). And the original poster is not informed of any Facebook comments they receive.

The link only posts your user name, what you see here on this site. The only way your friends or family could see a post of yours that MP decided to put on FB is if they clicked the link and recognized your situation. ("Oh, J.? From Houston? Wow, that sounds like someone I know who has three kids, what are the odds?..." "Hey, J., do you ever post on..." ) This is why so many people found more anonymous names to use.

honestly I"m glad you asked because i don't get it either.

So if my name is Jane and i post to mamapedia a question about my hamster and how to interact with him more,
and that question is popular or controversial enough,
mamapedia workers will post it to the mamapedia FB site, LINKING it back to this site, but also allowing FB people to comment on the hamster post with out commenting here.
so the FB people that take the time to click on the link and follow it here can see that Jane posted about her hamster,
Which might not be a big deal until all the little details like what city the hamster lives in and the unique what ever that the hamster has that make it identifiable as the hamster that Jane and only Jane owns.

So if some random person from Jane's veterinerians office is surfing the web and decides to look mamapedia up on the fb page, they might see that and identify it as Jane's hamster.
Which i suppose they could also discover if they happened to decide to pull up the mamapedia home page. But things move quicker here and are less isolated making it a bit harder to stumble upon unique hamster traits.

again, my bigger problem is not a random veterinarian, but the mamapedia worker who posted it on FB and re titled the post with a Jerry springer title, "Blue and Purple Hamster dressed in homemade halloween costumes, IS that an over the top hobby or a new trend in the home business field??? What do YOU Say??"

Well, if your real name is indeed J., and your last name begins with a B, and you live in Houston, TX, and have 3 kids, whose picture you have displayed in your Mampedia profile, then YES, theoretically someone from your real life could read your posts, see your profile, recognize your kids, and know exactly what is going on in your life, as disclosed to us, the Mamapedia community.

It doesn't matter whether you even HAVE a Facebook account. Mamapedia links our regular replies from THIS forum to THEIR Facebook page. Best to not use real names, real cities, or real photos of our families or ourselves.

You might think that a person would have to intentionally go to the Mamapedia FB page to see anything that MP might grab from here and post to there. That would be logical, so far. However, hasn't FB started randomly posting things on your timeline that "it" thinks you would be interested in? I know I get things like that on either my timeline or my news feed all the time. Like little advertisements. So, I suppose it is possible for them to show up on someone else's also. And why not MP showing up the same way?

I don't log in through FB, nor have any links whatsoever from this account to that one. But before the scandalous post, I used my actual first name and last initial. If someone I mentioned in a post came across it via FB's little "we thought you might be interested in this" posts... then it wouldn't take much for anyone who knows me, to know it was me. So I changed my "handle". I don't think anything but my "handle" will now show up on any links MP might use over on FB.

And to clarify an earlier question, changing your "handle" doesn't set up a new account. Every post I have ever made here is still here under the same account, but my handle changed (even on the old ones) to what I currently use. So I have a "new name" but a string of responses and some questions. I don't look like a new user just because I changed my name. That would actually require a person to set up an entirely new (additional) account. Not just editing a pre-existing account.

It just links them back here. Only handles, not real names. But people who know you well could figure you out based on what to write, I suppose.

All I know is that about a year ago I went to Mamapedia on FB and saw something I'd posted and was shocked. I hadn't remembered logging in here with my FB account and still don't ever recall doing it. I don't know that anyone I know saw any of my posts or comments.

At the time I thought I'd found something here to unlink the two accounts, but I've recently checked and found nothing. So I really can't be of any help, I just wouldn't use my real name here in case something makes it's way to FB, or ever use FB to log in here.

I have posted links to my own pages on Facebook and they do not come up in a search by my name. I posted them! If anything could make something searchable by my friends and family that should have done it, but nope! even signed on to my Facebook profile, using my name listed here and my username here, it does not bring up anything about those linked posts.

What I am pretty much saying was the privacy issue I had was not being searched, it was placing private moments out there to be looked at by people who are not members of our community here.

It will show up exactly as it does below. If you come to this page through facebook, though, you can't click on any of the links. You have to sign in through mamapedia to do that.

It's a lot like the question I asked about chocolate chip cookies. A lot of people responded. I printed the page. I showed it to other people. Same thing, really, just with a larger audience.

You can also get directly to this site without being a member. You have to be a member to click on names and to POST anything, but just to read, you don't have to log in.

As always, I follow the policy on-line that you NEVER post ANYTHING you wouldn't want your Grandmother or your Mother-In-Law to read. Nothing posted on-line is personal. Even if you try to delete it, there's a very good likelihood that it's cached somewhere, and there is always the possibility of someone having saved it to their personal computer, somewhere, or having printed it.

Having read this and the responses... seriously considering changing my name!

Glad you asked this, since I wasn't really too sure what was going either! I did go to the MP page on fb and checked it out. I have to say, I don't like how they take other people's posts and put them on the public fb page "asking for help for this mom." I get that ANYTHING you put online is NEVER private, but it's still a lil disheartening to see this.

I do understand people wanting to change their names here so as not to be recognized. Makes me consider changing mine or just not posting anymore.

ugh i really dont like this fb mommapedia page. i really wish there was a way to delete my profile !

I have only noticed it when I was responding to the story at the top of the mamapedia email. The first time I noticed it I was talking about an experience I had with my sister and luckily did not say anything hurtful but it automatically posted to FB. Have never "Like" MFB page. It posted as though I had written that posting in a status box on fb so no need for anyone to search for it. It showed up under my name and referenced the story I was responding too. I don't think it does it to personal questions but def does it for the story (Journal Entry story) at the top of the emails if you respond to them. The next time I went to post something I noticed there was a box checked for it to post to FB so now I make sure to un-check that box every time just in case bc I don't care for anyone on FB to see what I post on here.