Love the excuses, lol :p
Reef Discussion
All good, just been working a lot the last 3 months, forgot what daylight looked like for a second there!
I had a look at the facebook page - I reckon it'll fizzle - I see what they're trying to do but its a really narrow topic with repetitive material - you can only come up so many witty lines! In reference to the comments about price hiking though, don't forget retail prices are not just based on what people will pay for something or what the business paid for it. As consumers, even though a lot of us know there are other costs incorporated into the retail price, there seems to be this funny thing we do where we only want to consider the perceived value of the item and couldn't care less about the inner workings of the business we are buying from.
There are definitely two sides to the coin but as the consumer, I know I personally only care about getting what I want, at the level of quality I'm happy with for the price I've paid. A lot of people constantly complain that prices of things are too high, but as a small (miniscule) business owner myself now, I've recently discovered that there is a 'sweet' price where items sell well and that if you do pick up something good quality at a cheap price & decide to pass the savings on to your customers, the items often don't sell as well as you would expect them to. That was a bit of a learning curve for me, as it was only when I put the prices up to reflect the true value that I sold the stock I wanted cleared.
These are small businesses in a small industry selling non-essentials. I can't imagine reef shops would be the most lucrative of businesses either to warrant all of the criticism about pricing?
I had a look at the facebook page - I reckon it'll fizzle - I see what they're trying to do but its a really narrow topic with repetitive material - you can only come up so many witty lines! In reference to the comments about price hiking though, don't forget retail prices are not just based on what people will pay for something or what the business paid for it. As consumers, even though a lot of us know there are other costs incorporated into the retail price, there seems to be this funny thing we do where we only want to consider the perceived value of the item and couldn't care less about the inner workings of the business we are buying from.
There are definitely two sides to the coin but as the consumer, I know I personally only care about getting what I want, at the level of quality I'm happy with for the price I've paid. A lot of people constantly complain that prices of things are too high, but as a small (miniscule) business owner myself now, I've recently discovered that there is a 'sweet' price where items sell well and that if you do pick up something good quality at a cheap price & decide to pass the savings on to your customers, the items often don't sell as well as you would expect them to. That was a bit of a learning curve for me, as it was only when I put the prices up to reflect the true value that I sold the stock I wanted cleared.
These are small businesses in a small industry selling non-essentials. I can't imagine reef shops would be the most lucrative of businesses either to warrant all of the criticism about pricing?
Some of the shit these keyboard heroes are writing is just plain embarassing.
"why don't you buy a bottle of bleach and drink it" - Sarah Payne
"You are just being a little cocksucker. Come up with your own ideas you little faggot. Is it because your friends page was mentioned? Aww. As much as I am heterosexual, I will destroy your anus if I ever met you." - Overpriced Fish and Coral Australia
Sadly, this person has probably bred.
Edit. Seemingly the first one, definitely has.
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Whilst I can see (and to an extent appreciate) what the initial intent of that page is (was?), the fact that it's now become troll central is indicative not only that its already past its useful life, but it has also again proven that Facebook is again a haven for trolls and trolling; and not all of that is directly from whoever set up the page, but others who engage with the page.
I've no doubt that the person who set it up never intended to become as much a troll as they now appear, but I'm sure they cop so much shit every time they check their messages on FB now that's taken them to a place in their mind where their entire response mechanism is.. well.. troll. A person can only take so much shit from so many people before it starts to affect how they interact with others.
Sadly a bigger issue is highlighted here that is endemic to social media; bad behaviours breed bad behaviours.
At least back in the earlier days of the internet, you needed to invest in, setup and maintain a website, and unless it was hosted on a free service, you had fairly limited amounts of anonymity (and this is still the case). Now, people can create these pages with no real cost and greater anonymity all thanks to the platform that is Facebook. Facebook being Facebook are too big to care, so they have no interest in taking some control over what pages and groups are of actual benefit, and getting rid of those that serve no real purpose other than to defame and to bring out troll behaviour.
Teenagers already struggle to behave appropriately toward each other on the platform, with bullying and "keyboard heroes" rife on the service. The adults are starting to behave much the same in FB groups where they feel they can get away with such bad behaviour without any consequence. Ironically, Usenet in the 1990s was a useful internet service that started being overrun with SPAM and trolls; the fact that it was an unmanaged DMZ that provided anonymity brought out antisocial behaviours that took a perfectly functional and useful internet service and turned it into something that I doubt 95% of the readers of this message have never heard of anymore.
Alas, Facebook risks failure from the inside; it either needs to be more proactive in regulating the behaviours of its users, or the rubbish will drown out the useful content and the convenience of having a centralised "news feed" that aggregates content will be overshadowed. Its own demise (which will probably be a slow process) will then open the door for something new. That something new will need to take all of the positive elements (information aggregation, groups, apps) of a service like Facebook, and remove the negative elements (trolling in its many forms, better management of fake profiles, spam and so on).
Facebook are into being free, open and sharing information; all very important things, yet they don't temper this with much responsibility.
I've no doubt that the person who set it up never intended to become as much a troll as they now appear, but I'm sure they cop so much shit every time they check their messages on FB now that's taken them to a place in their mind where their entire response mechanism is.. well.. troll. A person can only take so much shit from so many people before it starts to affect how they interact with others.
Sadly a bigger issue is highlighted here that is endemic to social media; bad behaviours breed bad behaviours.
At least back in the earlier days of the internet, you needed to invest in, setup and maintain a website, and unless it was hosted on a free service, you had fairly limited amounts of anonymity (and this is still the case). Now, people can create these pages with no real cost and greater anonymity all thanks to the platform that is Facebook. Facebook being Facebook are too big to care, so they have no interest in taking some control over what pages and groups are of actual benefit, and getting rid of those that serve no real purpose other than to defame and to bring out troll behaviour.
Teenagers already struggle to behave appropriately toward each other on the platform, with bullying and "keyboard heroes" rife on the service. The adults are starting to behave much the same in FB groups where they feel they can get away with such bad behaviour without any consequence. Ironically, Usenet in the 1990s was a useful internet service that started being overrun with SPAM and trolls; the fact that it was an unmanaged DMZ that provided anonymity brought out antisocial behaviours that took a perfectly functional and useful internet service and turned it into something that I doubt 95% of the readers of this message have never heard of anymore.
Alas, Facebook risks failure from the inside; it either needs to be more proactive in regulating the behaviours of its users, or the rubbish will drown out the useful content and the convenience of having a centralised "news feed" that aggregates content will be overshadowed. Its own demise (which will probably be a slow process) will then open the door for something new. That something new will need to take all of the positive elements (information aggregation, groups, apps) of a service like Facebook, and remove the negative elements (trolling in its many forms, better management of fake profiles, spam and so on).
Facebook are into being free, open and sharing information; all very important things, yet they don't temper this with much responsibility.
I would recommend people make complaints to Facebook about the content of that group... But Facebook will do absolute crap all about it.
I know of people (and been involved with) who have had to apply insane levels of legal and political power upon Facebook to get them to take action, and that was in very serious case of fake profiles being used to fraudulently acquire funds. In such cases most of the people being duped are oblivious - they trust everything they see on Facebook, didn't do any even remotely simple research that would have indicated quickly that the person they thought they were dealing with was infact some little dweeb in Thailand.
In the past year alone I've handled two cases of fake profiles of a client that were being used for nefarious purposes that I've managed to expose the creator and managed to scare them off before Facebook even got close to taking action.
Only once have I ever actually been contacted back by Facebook reps regarding a complaint I made, and that was only because there were some really expensive lawyers crawling up their collective arses over it. Every other time I've dealt with them, there's been no lawyers, so Facebook seem to do nothing.
Facebook are big enough that they don't need to care. If something gets enough media, then they'll think about dealing with it. Otherwise, if its going to wind up costing them money.. particularly legal fees, then they might take notice. The deeper the pockets of the complainant, the quicker things get done.
It's the very behaviour that will inevitably lead to its own demise. The idea of being free and open is great in a virtual world full of people there to learn and use it as an academic pursuit in the way it was originally intended.
The fact that it's become a virtual version of the real world that the masses have invaded for largely trivial pursuits is problematic in that there are few rules applied to it, and the masses lack understanding and respect for netiquette that traditionally kept some sense of structure to virtual society. Social media creates a platform for the masses to communicate, and without them having any sense of netiquette or boundaries, what do we really expect is going to happen? If there is one platform that actually needs an active form of governance, it's Facebook. And by active, I mean it really, really needs to tighten up on pages, groups and profiles, and it needs to be able to respond quickly. Unfortunately they already own our data which they use to make money, so they have little incentive to do anything other than what they do already.
Pretty much.
FWIW, I don't much like governance as far as the concept relates to the Internet all that much; I'm all for open and free information. Sadly, it's the behaviour of a relatively small percentage of people that really do screw things up that bring about the need for someone to maintain some level of control of social platforms.
@DavidS Clearly a fan of Facebook then :p
I on the other hand think Facebook is awesome. Helps to make the world seem like a small place which it vital for me.
I on the other hand think Facebook is awesome. Helps to make the world seem like a small place which it vital for me.
No, no. don't misconstrue - I don't have much of an issue with Facebook in itself; in fact it keeps me in contact with friends that I'd otherwise never be in contact with.. some of whom are scattered around the planet.
The problem isn't the nature of Facebook, it's the way it's run, and to a lesser extent some of the people who use it.
I actually find our fascination with Facebook well.. fascinating, but then I've been online for a long time, worked for multiple ISPs, run a web hosting business and used to have Hayes modem commands committed to memory, so it's something of a professional pursuit to understand the nature of the beast, how and why people interact with it, and how to leverage it to advantage.
There are parts that I dislike though (other than how its managed); but most of my issues with it are as much to do with its users, and that part of me that misses that time when nearly every internet user understood what a TCP/IP stack was. :p
Nothing wrong with keeping unscrupulous reef shops on their toes. Recently a toxic rhodactis was advertised for the bargain of $60.00! Pity it was just a common fluffy morph under actinics......I politely pointed this out, but was given a good serve back.
In the end the dude just embarrassed himself. These FB reef shops are a complete rip off, and the mugs that buy the stuff are ill informed without a doubt on many occasion.
Sometimes I have to wonder that the sheer volume of stock available and posted just goes into a lot of death tanks.....and if they really have any thread of concern on reef ecology and conversation........just my 2c.
In the end the dude just embarrassed himself. These FB reef shops are a complete rip off, and the mugs that buy the stuff are ill informed without a doubt on many occasion.
Sometimes I have to wonder that the sheer volume of stock available and posted just goes into a lot of death tanks.....and if they really have any thread of concern on reef ecology and conversation........just my 2c.
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