North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Andre Pierre <hello@protocol6.com>]

Hi,

I'm a very new member of NAFEX (a few months only) and am very happy that 
this listserv exists together with the web forum and the Pomona PDFs.

When I'm not growing fruit in my backyard, I work as a Systems Administrator, 
and as such have to be at least somewhat receptive to new technologies.

Everywhere I go I see organizations wringing their hands about whether to 
diversify beyond their existing websites and forums, and embrace social media 
channels, and in the end they almost always do.

Usually the main reason for this is the fact that social media sites have 
huge memberships, and nobody in the organization (leadership) wants to be 
responsible for "turning their back" on such a large number of potential 
customers/friends/contributors. Also, the peer-pressure to join is tremendous 
from every direction, and if you resist you often get branded as being 
"behind the times", old, or not tech-savvy. Who wants that.
Finally, the organization may already have a presence on Facebook (or other 
social media site) thanks to proactive individuals who personally like the 
social platform in question. 
So the point of "officially" publishing content via Social Media is often 
moot, and folks then feel that one might as well go along with it.


To me such reasons always seem wrong-headed, however..
Sites like Facebook and Google are not *just* convenient tools. They are big 
corporations that often (usually?) have questionable patterns of behavior.
To use them, and to actively encourage others to use them, is to endorse such 
behaviors, or at best to turn a blind eye to them.

For Facebook the list is pretty extensive and in my view damning: 
https://stallman.org/facebook.html.  

Of course every individual can choose for themselves, but organizations (like 
NAFEX) which have diverse memberships should in my opinion endorse only those 
technologies and systems that don't require entanglements with badly behaved 
third-parties.


Thus, for the above reasons, if there is NAFEX content on Facebook and Google 
I for one will be happy to do without it.

Best regards,

:-)

Andre Pierre