06-15-09: The COCModSquad has decided that invites to social networking websites are not appropriate for posting in CITY-o-Clay.

 

We've caught a number of social networking invites in moderation and have informed the sender that it is not appropriate to invite nearly 2,000 people, as a "friend".

 

Since the social networking websites are a new phenomena we've had to create a new policy to address the issue.

 

Let's count how many online social networks I could find:

 

MyLife, MySpace,
FaceBook,
Grouply,
BeBo,
Opera,
Twitter,
LinkedIn,
Nexopia,
Hi5,
Tagged,
XING,
dol2day,
Badoo,
Skyrock,
Orkut,
Friendster,
Multiply,
Wretch,
Xiaonei,
Cyworld,

 

That's 21, ok, multiply that by 1,917, our membership as of this moment. That equals 40,257 potential invites. Hokey Smokes, can you imagine what would happen to any Yahoo Group if everyone sent just one invite, let alone multiple invites from multiple social networks?

 

CITY-o-Clay is a group, a group cannot be counted as a "friend" on a social networking website, it's not logical.

 

Individuals in this group might be your friend, if you've emailed each other off list, know each other in real life, visited each other's homes if you live far from one another. Sending those individual an invite to a social networking website should be done off list.

 

Please, do not send an invite to a social networking website to someone you don't rightly know.

 

Please, do not get your feelings hurt if someone you did invite off list doesn't accept your invite. I don't accept invites to social networking websites because, frankly, y'all here are all I have time or energy for, meaning CITY-o-Clay and the other CITY-Lists I volunteer on.

I know many people who refuse to accept invites to social networking websites at all, for a number of reasons:

 

The incident of hacks on social networking websites would be reason enough for me not to be involved.

 

Private pictures are not private. Pictures that are deleted are kept on the website's servers long after you've deleted them off of your page.

 

Accounts are shut down for no reason because "the name sounds strange", meaning anyone with a name that's unusual for the country that social networking website might be on is liable to have their account deleted with no warning. I read an article about a lady whose last name was Istanbul, a jeweler, sold her work on a social networking website, had over 300 "friends" meaning customers, got her account deleted without warning because her "name sounded strange". It cost her hundreds of dollars of lost sales and the goodwill of her customers.

 

The saddest tale I read about was a young man who was killed in an auto accident. His parents tried to get his social networking account shut down. Time and time again they contacted the website administration and they were unable to shut his account. That account got hacked and someone wrote something very unkind and untoward on it and caused the family a lot of unnecessary grief.

 

That's why I gave my grown sons all my usernames and passwords for when I die I want them to do a wholesale closing of online accounts.

 

But I digress...

 

Each time an invite to a social network comes through the COCModSquad will have to remind the group that it is not appropriate.

 

The first invite can be forgiven, two invites will cause a ClayMate to be put on Moderation, a ClayMate who is still on Moderated status will stay that way if invites to social networks come from their email address, multiple incidents will cause the volunteers to realize that the ClayMate isn't paying attention to our policies and that ClayMate might be asked to leave.

 

Just as CITY-o-Clay is for teaching and learning about polymer clay and miniatures. Our social bonding takes place in this group by way of posts and replies. The COCModSquad cannot vouch for an off list social networking website and cannot allow invites to be posted to the group as a whole