Sean-Ward.com

I have a moment or two this morning, so I just wanted to get some comments down on screen about Facebook, namely the profile for “Sidney Ribeau” and the “RCC sucks” group.

First, there’s the profile for Sidney Ribeau on the BGSU portion of Facebook. The biggest issue I see with this is that the contact info includes an e-mail that is not Dr. Ribeau’s at all, but instead belongs to one Aaron O’Neill. How odd… I didn’t know that was Dr. Ribeau’s secret identity. One might be willing to say I’ve uncovered the crime of the century, but as this has nothing to do with the theft of peoples’ garbage, I highly doubt it. I did the only thing I could really think of: sent an e-mail to the Office of the President. While the profile wasn’t defamatory to Dr. Ribeau, I thought they should be aware of it. After all, I doubt there are many people in the upper echelons of the any university who use Facebook (or MySpace, orkut, etc) with any regularity, and only know what they have heard from others or seen over the shoulders of students and young professionals that may work for them. And who am I to say that Mr. O’Neill isn’t making the profile for Dr. Ribeau, and would cause more problems by reporting the profile as fake? I doubt this is the case, but the Office of the President can look into it and do what they will.

My other comment on Facebook is a group near and dear to my heart: RCC Sucks-their taking all of the bandwith away from students. It’s not that I have a problem with a Facebook group that is opposed to networking policies of the university, it’s just more that I don’t expect much to come from this group. We’ve been telling students a phrase constantly over the last couple years about what they can do to work on getting the policies changed.

We would encourage you to take any concerns or suggested changes in policies to student government organizations such as the Undergraduate Student Government, or Resident Student Association.

Has anything happened as a result of this? The answer is a simple no, and I think that is the part that is frustrating. I’d like to think that the Facebook group will change this, but at the moment, I truly doubt it, despite the description that they have.

all students need to complain so we can get bandwidth back.

lets make this a group effort

us gamers need our internet to be fast

lol i spelled bandwidth wrong in the group name. o well

Yep, they did misspell bandwidth, used the wrong spelling of “they’re”, and haven’t heard of capitalization or punctuation. That, as a member of University, makes me feel that the institution has failed. Can you expect anything from a group that the creator fails to communicate in the mutually agreed upon language, that is, English?

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Three of our staff joined the group and posted unofficial messages on the group’s wall, as well as did one of our alumni. What happened to their comments, which offered helpful information about RCC, the network, and what they can do, or the post someone (not an employee) made commenting on their spelling? Dust in the wind. But do not worry, the comments about the sexual orientation of RCC are still there, in case you were wondering.

I’m not saying I’m not sympathetic to their issue. How does one protect a network that is for a business (BGSU) but still have it usable as a network in a home (the residence halls)? That is one hell of a gray area, and difficult to manage. Then again, from a professional standpoint, that is what makes universities an interesting place to work.