[Dixielandjazz] To All DJML Members

[Kit Johnson]

Good concerns overall, Gary, and I appreciate the analytical approach. We do
need to be careful to separate reality from myth when drawing conclusions,
though, such as those cited in your post below. I'm not positive about MP3
files, though that isn't an option now either on the list. Related to point
#1, I feel it simply isn't any harder to type in a FaceBook post that an
email post, especially since we only accept text-based posts in the DJML. On
point #2, the "rising to the top" concern is dependent on the settings you
choose in FB. It's not necessary that you put up with that. The latter
clause in #2 is indeed true in my experience, though clicking once to see
older posts is a pretty innocuous task. For point #3, I just experimented
with searching for old information in the Black Swan FaceBook page and it
seemed to work fine. I really think that the message in point #4 is blown
out of proportion and largely inaccurate. Snopes speaks to this theory and
largely debunks it.

Again, I don't mean to find myself advocating for FaceBook and am fine with
not going that route. The suggestion was made to consider FaceBook or
another mechanism primarily because we are at a point where the existing
service provider seems uncooperative and therefore change is inevitable in
some fashion. As an email list, my suspicion is that the membership will
continue to decline and become less relevant as the range of thinking on
DJML matters narrows.

Kit W. Johnson
Black Swan Classic Jazz Band
503-970-1251
kit at bscjb.com
www.bscjb.com


it is true that facebook will allow attachments, although it won't allow MP3
attachments, they'd need to be hosted elsewhere and linked.

the biggest drawback to Facebook that I see is the way the medium is not
very conducive to precisely the sort of conversations we tend to have, ie
...

1 - long posts: facebook is an outgrowth of the cellphone txt, messages
longer than a few lines are difficult the read, and more difficult to write
-- with email, you use the software of your choice for both

2 - long threads: every time a post receives a comment, it rises to the top,
and the thread navigation quickly begins to become tedious as some messages
are truncated (until you click 'show more') and others are hidden (again,
until you click)

3 - archival information: go ahead, try to find that post you did four years
ago about that band that you cannot remember their name but you know some
trivial detail about the message itself. there is no historical search in
facebook, everything is start at the top (now) and work your way down.

4 - searchable by outsiders: this is controllable of course, and also
controllable on yahoogroups, but Facebook is notorious for breaking the
security rules such that posts once thought private are suddenly re-cast as
public.  same is true of emails of course, however I happen to think for our
particular sorts of conversations there is a benefit to having an searchable
archive of all messages that is findable by the general public.