Facebook Post About Cat's Loss

If I wanted my posts on a Facebook page, I would post them on a Facebook page. I find it absolutely horrifying that posts to a members-only web site are put out on a public, commercial Facebook page without prior notification to the members. This makes me want to go back and delete all my old posts.

What happened to me happened...It is done. I hope it will serve as a caution to us ALL that what is posted ANYWHERE on line is really just 'out there'.

I vented. I thank you for your support.

I have moved on to planning the 'celebration' of my peter's life. He wanted NO memorial...so, I hope, with a few weeks from his death, a celebration will not offend him.

Food, drink, stories, pictures, music, friends and family will all be included. Hope he does not 'send' a tornado (flood...locusts...lol!)

He loved trains...so it will be at the old train station here in our town.

I am OK...and will be.

So will we all.

That is what we moms/parents do.

This has been a teachable (and learnable) moment in so many ways.

Peace....

If you care, then you'll delete the Facebook post. End of story. Anything short of that is meaningless and empty in my eyes.

At the very minimum, please notify your members when you're going to link one of their very private posts to the very public space that Facebook is and give them the option to approve or deny the linkage.

I think it's fine to reword or use one of our topics or questions to start a conversation on Facebook, but I think linking to the Mamapedia post directly is very invasive and makes our members feel very unsafe.

I hope that we can all use this as a learning lesson. A reminder that no matter how safe we think we are on a site like this, it's a false sense of security, because we all "signed on the dotted" line, technically.

I'd just hope that a site supposedly created for moms would listen to it's members' feedback and rethink how they're utilizing the Facebook page in relation to the actual site. Please do the right thing.

Honest mistake it might be, but it brought to my attention, that this site is no longer safe.

Why would facebook readers need to know about Cat's loss? Anyone that "needed" to know would read it here on this page on the post created by Catwalk with her knowledge.

If you want create facebook sensation by posting the mamapedia blog writings fine, but questions from this page should not be "shared" to a commercial FB page.

I am so angry, I am turning off this site and will not be back for a week, I hope in that time the FB post is removed and policy is changed so that questions from this site are not shared to FB.

C.,

Thank you for addressing the mistake. I think we should all heed Felinestroller's advice and try to move forward, a little wiser.

And thanks for taking down the post on facebook. I do appreciate it.

Thank you, C. P. for this post. It gives Mamapedia a human face.

I do wish you had been more specific about how you are related to Mamapedia. Sounds like you're an employee or at least involved in it's running.

Would it be possible for Mamapedia to include a description of who is involved in making decisions, how those decisions are made and what the general organization is? I was unaware that a mom was posting to Facebook from Mamapedia. What is the criteria for copying such posts to Facebook? Seems unfair for a post to be moved without the poster's approval. I, too, am uncomfortable with the idea of what I write here appearing on Facebook.

I hope I understand correctly that the only way my post would appear on Facebook is if I enter Mamapedia from the Facebook site.

Perhaps Mamapedia could post a summary on their "About Mamapedia" page for all to see. Much of the unhappy feelings expressed are frequently the result of not understanding how the site works.

Leigh they connect the same way anyone can connect a post here to a Facebook page, copy and paste the link.

If you are not logged in to here by Facebook it doesn't automatically post anywhere else. If you are logged in through Facebook it posts to your wall every time you post here.

I think most of us figured by not logging in through Facebook the two weren't connected, which is actually true. We just didn't consider they would paste links over there to promote the site over here.

When they paste a link it does not connect who you are here to who you are there. This may be different if you are logged in here through Facebook though, I don't know because I log in separately. That means you are not searchable, well at least no more searchable than you were if no links were posted. We are all searchable....

I guess I wasn't as outraged because I know that many sites do this. Not just this site, but quite a few that I belong to. I even write for another site and have the ability to move peoples post to the front page and even highlight them on the FB page if I so choose to. So I know it happens.

So I guess for me, it wasn't a huge surprise. The mistake was a biggy though, and I agree that because there was a factual mistake, since I don't think the intent was to harm, the post should be removed. That is just the honorable thing to do.

Cat, celebrate his life, everyone deserves to be celebrated and remembered. It sounds like your Peter was pretty awesome guy :)

C., I'm writing in here late. I assume that you work in management for Mamapedia - you've done some "PR" here on your threads for MP, including soft-pedaling MP/Twitter.

What I'd like to say in response to your thread here is that I believe that your staff needs to work TOGETHER better. It seems to me that the left hand and the right hand don't know what the other is doing. I wrote Marc this weekend and he told me during the weekend that the FB post had been removed. I had also written ____@____.com this weekend and I told them that everyone was upset about this and the staff should really re-think their policy. This is what Christina wrote to me on Monday, AFTER I heard back from Marc:

"I am very sorry about this issue. This post was not supposed to get aired through our Facebook page however a filtering issue occurred. Can you please tell me the URL of where you seen this on Facebook as we are trying to remove all of the posts as fast as possible.

Warmly,
Christina"

I was not about to go to MP's facebook and doublecheck Marc, for fear of MP hijacking my Facebook. But Christina was not even aware that Marc had gotten it taken down. See what I mean about the left hand and the right hand not knowing what they are doing?

Now, I'm not sure what a filtering issue is, not being all that computer savvy. But it seems to me that a filtering issue is not the same as human error that you mention in your note to us. So it seems like different reasons for this thing that happened are being explained to different people. ANOTHER reason for your staff to communicate better. Can you see where I'm coming from here?

I'm not trying to belabor the point or beat you up over this. It's kind of "brave" of you to come on here and write about this, especially since it's not a private message like Christina has sent to ONLY those who wrote mamasupport. But I'm going to go ahead and finish my thought process. Since you posted this, what has happened on this site is that so many people have changed their names that it's hard to know who each other is. People have removed, and plan to in the future, their questions in order to prevent MP from using their material. (We assume that you won't put a thread without a question attached on Facebook.) One poster here suggested that if we all just swear in our posts that MP wouldn't put it on FB. You also have longtime posters that have said goodbye to the site.

What Mamapedia could do to make people feel better about coming here after this is to actually revisit your policy of using our writings on your FaceBook page. We have asked for you to allow us to opt out of this. Go to your team and discuss it. Right now, as things actually are, MP's policy has a stranglehold on what people think and how they feel about the site.

Respectfully,
D. (and yes, that's my new name after 6 years)

thanks for giving us SOMEONE to whom to respond, C.. the faceless monoliths of MP and FB were not what anyone needed. it's a shame the person who posted cat's entry to facebook didn't step forward (unless it was you?) and that a public apology didn't happen THERE, but this is better than nothing.
so now that MP knows how their policy is being perceived, is there discussion about changing it? about notifying members if their posts are being considered for FB sharing?
intent means little if it doesn't direct action.
khairete
S.

Who is "C. P." per this post anyway?
She does not clarify herself at all here, nor her "job" description/role for MamaPedia.
Nothing I hate more... than Professionals who do not even, identity themselves, for their so called valued, customers.

Talk is cheap. Unless something is actually done.
After 3 days, fish stinks.

Could someone please explain how FB and MP connect? And please don't request that I "go to the Mamapedia FB page to see" because I don't have FB and no one in our family does, and I have never used any one else's account or spent any time on it....I'd really like to know what it is from MP that is ending up on FB and how it gets there.

Can friends who are not on MP but who are on FB search my first name and location, and now be able to see my MP posts or replies, even if they are not registered users on MP at all? I genuinely don't know. I intentionally chose to be part of the MP community and have just as intentionally chosen to have nothing to do with FB, but if the two are growing closer together, that would be a reason for me to end any MP posting.

Let this be a lesson that the two should NEVER cross paths. We on this site think highly of what is said and done and that it stays here. If we wanted it to be truly out there in the public we would post it ourselves for all to read.

What was done whether by accident or not should not happen again. Momma with small children has to learn to not be distracted when dealing with these things. We all have had small kids at some point and did not do this.

I am glad that Ms. Feilnestroller is okay with what happened. It is just so personal and at a time of deep pain that something like this opens a deep wound to more pain.

Let this be a lesson in how not to do things in the future. Until you have walked in those shoes you don't understand the pain.

the other S.