Today I was considering joining someone’s Whatsapp Running Community until I heard the phrase “I am the only one that can write messages and I let people answer polls”. For me, as a netizen of the 90s web, this is a red flag. It is a red flag because if all you want to do is see if people want to participate then you have events on Strava, Meetup.com and other sites and apps....
Posts tagged “community”
-
On Extroverts and the Stifled Online Conversation — Apr 27, 2026 -
The Morning Run to Breakfast With Cyclists — Apr 15, 2026Yesterday I dropped off my bike for a service. I noticed that the rear wheel no longer seemed to be true so I took it to a bike shop. They confirmed that some of the bike spokes were about to fail. Due to this technical issue I left my bike with them for maintenance. Now I find myself without a bike....
-
A Quiet Whatsapp Experience — Apr 6, 2026For a year or more I was part of GoSocial, because I’m curious. The experimental community is based on Whatsapp group chats. There is “one” chat per city, whether Nyon, Bale, Lausanne and others. I was part of Lausanne and Geneva. The first thing that struck me is that the community uses a chat client but that chats aren’t possible in the town groups, and they’re discouraged in event specific chats....
-
Thoughts On Decentralised Social Media — Mar 20, 2023The web was decentralised for a long time. The internet and social networks were designed around different niches. We had niches for people that did sports in the same area of Switzerland, that wanted to discuss a variety of topics, for music lovers and more. The change brought on by MySpace, Twitter, ICQ, Facebook and other projects is that it centralised all those communities so that everyone was in different communities, on three or four social networks.... -
On studying what you love — Mar 27, 2007I love technology, especially in the form of online communities. I’ve been part of so many online communities I have some degree of expertise. I’ve seen the birth of the chatroom and it’s evolution, the popularisation of instant messaging and through flipside and nochicktrix I’ve seen the forming of virtual communities. More recently I’ve seen the increase from virtual communities to real communities. Over the past two years, almost everyone I know has created a myspace account and for a while, this was the best place for people to be. More recently though people have moved to Facebook. Having more than 140 friends, of which only three I do not know, is a sign of how times have changed. It’s actually fashionable to be part of an online/offline community. All the parties I’ve recently been to have been advertised on Facebook among other places and it’s become the social networking site of choice. If you’re not there you don’t know what’s going on anymore. It’s a great shift. It’s also replacing e-mail. Why e-mail people when all your friends are on Facebook. Why not take advantage of unlimited photo uploads to Facebook to add all those past nights for everyone to enjoy. I love the way technology is going. It’s sociable....
-
On studying what you love — Mar 27, 2007Claire - Apr 1, 2007...
-
Bookcrossing and A November Walk — Nov 19, 2021Today I went for a slight variant and came across a book dating back to 1930 so of course I picked it up. I like the look and feel of old books. I also like that they carry history. The book is 91, almost 92 years old and it has been passed on from generation to generation for almost six generations. I looked in the book and at first I just ignored the scribbles at the front of the book, not thinking much of it. Now that I looked closer I noticed the BCID so I looked up bookcrossing.com and logged that I found the book.... -
Bookcrossing and A November Walk — Nov 19, 2021richard - Nov 1, 2021...
-
On WhatsApp and Netiquette — Dec 11, 2025I was thinking of taking a break from Whatsapp for three weeks. I have this desire, and need because I am tired of how people use Whatsapp. They create groups, where strangers are added. People with no deep knowledge of online communities delete posts that are sometimes not spam. Other people complain when people try to have conversations. The result is that WhatsApp is emotionally draining because it doesn’t feel like a healthy, tight knit community.... -
On Solitude, Cycling, and Whatsapp — Nov 12, 2025The more I use Whatsapp, in the Post pandemic age, the more toxic I find it. Last night I wrote something innocent. I wrote about rotisserie chicken and the temptation to have some before drinks. So far, so normal.... -
Thoughts on WhatsApp and GoSocial — Jun 3, 2025Before Whatsapp was bought by Facebook it was a great platform for people to chat with family and friends. When Facebook bought Whatsapp, many people, including myself, migrated towards Signal to avoid remaining in the Facebook sphere of influence. Social groups, and their luddites remained on Whatsapp, so we had to revert to using Facebook owned Whatsapp.... -
This Isn't a Recovery Ride — Jun 2, 2025Yesterday’s moderate recovery ride was hard. It was hard because we were riding at up to thirty kilometres per hour for sustained periods of time. We were riding fast from Geneva, to Nyon, and then again from Nyon to Geneva. With a small group you can afford to push like this. Witha large group there is no way....
-
Looking for Conversations in the Age of Facebook Dominance — May 2, 2025A few days ago someone wrote something about chocolate croissants. I then wrote something about Chocolate easter bunnies. A third person then said “please don’t have conversations, there are hundreds of people reading this exchange”. This is on WhatsApp. WhatsApp is, or at least was, an IM client. For those of a certain age an IM client is a conversation app. It’s the type of app that includes AIM, ICQ, Messenger, Skype and many, many more apps. Its raison d’être is to encourage conversations.... -
A Bluesky Flame and the Case for Anonymity — Dec 7, 2024In the golden age of social media I went from tweeting with a pseudonym to tweeting with my own name. This was as true on Twitter as on Facebook. There was a sense of community that meant that we were safe to use our own names, rather than nicknames....
-
Twitter Account Deactivated — Dec 2, 2024Yesterday I finally took the step of deactivating my account, and then reactivating it, and then this morning deactivating it again. Normally when I lose interest in a social network I just forget about it and I’m done. In this situation I didn’t forget about it though. I went a step further.... -
The Growing Desire to Dump Social Media — Nov 22, 2024I really miss the age of social networks. In the age of social networks our sphere of influence was limited to our friends, and our friends of friends. The result is that social media was a friendly conversation rather than a popularity contest.... -
BlueSky and the Influx of New Users — Nov 21, 2024For some people the mass X-odus from Twitter to Bluesky is fantastic because it means that the community is growing and that by growing it means that more likeminded people will arrive. The flipside of this is that with a million new users per week, and growing, that’s a huge influx. That influx is bad news because for every decent person there are changes that the amount of trolling will increase.... -
Threads and Chirping — Sep 25, 2024For less than a week I have been using Threads heavily. In that time I have commented on plenty of posts without senseing any hostility or unpleasantness so I thought that Threads may be troll free. I realise that this is not the case after posting that I would not get the new iPhone SE coming out in 2025 if it had a price hike. In my eyes this is a reasonable statement. It is not rude or provocative. It is not critical of individuals or Apple. It’s just an opinion.... -
Threads Thoughts — Sep 24, 2024For several days I have replaced Facebook with Threads and the experience has been good. I have found that the community, so far, is ordinary, rather than geeky, and friendly rather than trolling or flamey.... -
The Case for Reverting to Web Forums — Sep 18, 2023There is a case for reverting to web forums. Web forums are small communities of like minded people that form around topics, ideas, or ideals. They want to have conversations where you look at topics and sub topics, rather than following people. By having conversations on a smaller scale there is more waiting around for answers, but the connections should be more worthwhile.... -
The Apathetic Mastodon — Aug 13, 2023On at least three occasions toots that were written as a cry for empathy, or at least venting, were interacted with by apathetic people. For this simple reason I deleted two Fediverse accounts. I deleted my Mastodon.social account, and my FireFish.social accounts. I have a precise desire, when using social media. That desire is to find a community of likeminded individuals that I have such enjoyable conversations with, that I want to meet them in person....
