In fact, if I unblock them, I still get emails from an elementary school in the Seattle area because 20 years ago I dated somebody with a kid that went there and I subscribed to their event email.
I missed out on a lot of communication for my kids’ extracurriculars because they were only on Facebook and I don’t use it. It’s infuriating, but less infuriating than the other platforms that a couple of the groups used to attempt to communicate schedules and requirements.
It’s ridiculous that this sort of thing isn’t a solved problem. Schools need to communicate with parents in an effective way, yet none of the platforms I’ve used work well. I’ve been in tech for decades and I still have trouble with their shitty UI.
OTOH you may have missed the communication even if you were on Facebook. These days your feed is just 1/3 the groups you’re in and pages you’ve liked, 1/3 is the “recommended for you” random garbage, and 1/3 is ads. I’ve missed many notifications for events that interested me, they’d pop up a few days after the event actually took place.
Each state should have a website that each district can post updates to, and whatever else. It would cost next to nothing. There is no reason to use fb at all, let alone exclusively.
Yeah no kidding, we should actually start a group on here to get local governments to also post updates to the fediverse, we could even set them up with a program to do it automatically from their fb post or something. Have them post it to mastadon, but then maybe autopost from there to here? Not enough people on here but if it’s automatic it’s no effort on their part, and it would give us a lot of press, as the municipals would say on their sites they post to fb, mastadon, lemmy etc.
Anger is pointless without action. Either accept the situation as it is, or start regularly attending school board meetings. If you want a policy changed, speak out about it. Don’t just give them vibes either, give them good reasons to change the rules and processes. Have a solution at the ready which is idiot-proof, accessible, and well-supported. Oh, and also, make sure that your clear solution is zero-cost, which is why schools fell into using Facebook and municipal groups used Twitter.
If you want to change the situation, you have to understand why it became the way it is and address the pain points that led here, as well as their pain points that both prevent moving and/or encourage moving. If Facebook suits the needs of the school and the majority of parents, stop being angry and realize that there’s a value in the platform for the purpose.
I don’t have any kids. But I’ve been in similar situations. My previous employment place used Facebook for company comms. I spoke out about it many times. I’ve volunteered for multiple orgs and asked them to move to Nextcloud several times and they just refused. I’ve even turned down volunteer opportunities because they refused to communicate over anything other than Google Chat. No one cares.
Government employees will take it personal too. Like even just asking a park employee what herbicide they are spraying in a park on weeds they will get an attitude. Like right off the bat. They consider anyone asking, or challenging the methods they use as a crank, they commiserate about crazy assholes, think people are stupid, and all back each other up. All government employees back up each other and their decisions by default, whether it’s supporting local cop abusing his authority or a school only using fb.
Any sort of effort to get them to change needs to be an organized attempt if it has a chance of success, as the psychology of these guys precludes individual efforts from helping much.
I get your frustration. Why don’t they care? Have you asked people directly what benefits they get from Facebook and why they won’t move?
I expect you’ll get the following, based on my experience:
Exposure - Most people can access Facebook regularly.
External Accessibility - Facebook can be accessed on multiple devices, by people who are not tech-conscious.
Reliability - Facebook outages are rare enough to be newsworthy, so no matter what conditions the school or the org is in, it will stay up and be exposed and accessible.
Internal Accessibility - Everyone in the org, even the people who aren’t regularly involved in marketing or community comms, knows how to post to Facebook.
Cost - Facebook’s non-monetary costs are subtle and mostly apply to private users. To any organization with a tight budget, Facebook and Twitter are godsends, because they don’t need to have a P&L line that can be scrutinized and audited. I’m sure you understand as a volunteer how important it can be to dodge the accountants while getting messaging out.
Of course there’s also experience, knowledge, and negative inertia built up over time. Until you can cover all 5 of those points at least, you don’t have a viable option. Nextcloud is neat, but who will administer it without pay? Facebook runs the platform without being visibly paid by the school or the org. Facebook has widgets prebuilt to integrate with the website (that the org also outsources administration of). Nextcloud doesn’t natively have that. Facebook is hosted on a massive network of data centers, Nextcloud would have to be run on one mistakenly undiscarded computer acting as a server in the basement. And it would have to be that way because the org doesn’t have the budget approval for AWS or added hosting. And yes, everything will always come back to that cost issue. Until you can beat that, you have nothing.
I mean, yes. But I was trying to get at why it works and what would be needed to change the status quo. Tbh if Facebook or Twitter could be prosecuted for their role in harm to children or sex trafficking, schools would very quickly be ready for change.
I’ve recently accepted that the vast majority of people who use technology daily will never question or understand how it works, but will act as if it is indispensable, omniscient, and impenetrable.
I can’t stand how many companies and organizations only have a presence on Facebook. When I reach out to them to ask if there is another way to stay connected I usually get a big NOPE.
This makes me so fucking angry.
Second to worst for that is the excessive use of Google stuff, including Chromebooks replacing PC labs, and a bunch of G-software
My kid refused. The school district was notified that they needed to do something else, or we would sue. They changed.
That’s what email is for.
In fact, if I unblock them, I still get emails from an elementary school in the Seattle area because 20 years ago I dated somebody with a kid that went there and I subscribed to their event email.
Yes, I tried to unsubscribe for many years.
I missed out on a lot of communication for my kids’ extracurriculars because they were only on Facebook and I don’t use it. It’s infuriating, but less infuriating than the other platforms that a couple of the groups used to attempt to communicate schedules and requirements.
It’s ridiculous that this sort of thing isn’t a solved problem. Schools need to communicate with parents in an effective way, yet none of the platforms I’ve used work well. I’ve been in tech for decades and I still have trouble with their shitty UI.
OTOH you may have missed the communication even if you were on Facebook. These days your feed is just 1/3 the groups you’re in and pages you’ve liked, 1/3 is the “recommended for you” random garbage, and 1/3 is ads. I’ve missed many notifications for events that interested me, they’d pop up a few days after the event actually took place.
Is there a reason an emailing group isn’t a good solution?
They tried that but as spam filters got more prevalent people would miss things.
Then you have the threads where some replies to all and then everyone else replies to all telling them not to reply all.
Each state should have a website that each district can post updates to, and whatever else. It would cost next to nothing. There is no reason to use fb at all, let alone exclusively.
I think it’s a great use for the fediverse. Government institutions have their own mastodon servers.
Yeah no kidding, we should actually start a group on here to get local governments to also post updates to the fediverse, we could even set them up with a program to do it automatically from their fb post or something. Have them post it to mastadon, but then maybe autopost from there to here? Not enough people on here but if it’s automatic it’s no effort on their part, and it would give us a lot of press, as the municipals would say on their sites they post to fb, mastadon, lemmy etc.
We need a dumb browser.
That’s a browser I can get behind.
There is NetSurf, Dillo, Links and W3M.
+1 for NetSurf,links and Dillo
and i never heard of W3M
+1 for NetSurf, I wrote the Amiga GUI for that.
Ah, dillo brings me back :)
I, uh, misread that word.
Awe, I miss browsers like Lynx, and MDA and EGA monitors. Those where the days.
Anger is pointless without action. Either accept the situation as it is, or start regularly attending school board meetings. If you want a policy changed, speak out about it. Don’t just give them vibes either, give them good reasons to change the rules and processes. Have a solution at the ready which is idiot-proof, accessible, and well-supported. Oh, and also, make sure that your clear solution is zero-cost, which is why schools fell into using Facebook and municipal groups used Twitter.
If you want to change the situation, you have to understand why it became the way it is and address the pain points that led here, as well as their pain points that both prevent moving and/or encourage moving. If Facebook suits the needs of the school and the majority of parents, stop being angry and realize that there’s a value in the platform for the purpose.
I don’t have any kids. But I’ve been in similar situations. My previous employment place used Facebook for company comms. I spoke out about it many times. I’ve volunteered for multiple orgs and asked them to move to Nextcloud several times and they just refused. I’ve even turned down volunteer opportunities because they refused to communicate over anything other than Google Chat. No one cares.
Government employees will take it personal too. Like even just asking a park employee what herbicide they are spraying in a park on weeds they will get an attitude. Like right off the bat. They consider anyone asking, or challenging the methods they use as a crank, they commiserate about crazy assholes, think people are stupid, and all back each other up. All government employees back up each other and their decisions by default, whether it’s supporting local cop abusing his authority or a school only using fb.
Any sort of effort to get them to change needs to be an organized attempt if it has a chance of success, as the psychology of these guys precludes individual efforts from helping much.
I get your frustration. Why don’t they care? Have you asked people directly what benefits they get from Facebook and why they won’t move?
I expect you’ll get the following, based on my experience:
Exposure - Most people can access Facebook regularly.
External Accessibility - Facebook can be accessed on multiple devices, by people who are not tech-conscious.
Reliability - Facebook outages are rare enough to be newsworthy, so no matter what conditions the school or the org is in, it will stay up and be exposed and accessible.
Internal Accessibility - Everyone in the org, even the people who aren’t regularly involved in marketing or community comms, knows how to post to Facebook.
Cost - Facebook’s non-monetary costs are subtle and mostly apply to private users. To any organization with a tight budget, Facebook and Twitter are godsends, because they don’t need to have a P&L line that can be scrutinized and audited. I’m sure you understand as a volunteer how important it can be to dodge the accountants while getting messaging out.
Of course there’s also experience, knowledge, and negative inertia built up over time. Until you can cover all 5 of those points at least, you don’t have a viable option. Nextcloud is neat, but who will administer it without pay? Facebook runs the platform without being visibly paid by the school or the org. Facebook has widgets prebuilt to integrate with the website (that the org also outsources administration of). Nextcloud doesn’t natively have that. Facebook is hosted on a massive network of data centers, Nextcloud would have to be run on one mistakenly undiscarded computer acting as a server in the basement. And it would have to be that way because the org doesn’t have the budget approval for AWS or added hosting. And yes, everything will always come back to that cost issue. Until you can beat that, you have nothing.
External accessibility is actually shit. you won’t have access to even read most content without an account.
Because the status quo works for them. Anything else is a you problem.
This answer applies to a broad swath of topics.
I mean, yes. But I was trying to get at why it works and what would be needed to change the status quo. Tbh if Facebook or Twitter could be prosecuted for their role in harm to children or sex trafficking, schools would very quickly be ready for change.
One of the following:
I’ve recently accepted that the vast majority of people who use technology daily will never question or understand how it works, but will act as if it is indispensable, omniscient, and impenetrable.
In other words, it’s a god
Indeed
If I ask or tell them anything at all, they just get annoyed because they don’t care.
I can’t stand how many companies and organizations only have a presence on Facebook. When I reach out to them to ask if there is another way to stay connected I usually get a big NOPE.
It is the asking that matters. If you sound really unhappy it makes maybe a little tiny bit of pressure, but many little bits make a lot
Literally the only reason my family interacts with Facebook. It’s infuriating.
Oops. I basically duplicated your reply. You are spot on the mark.