Last week, British social etiquette advisor Debrett’s issued five “golden rules” for using Facebook. Here are their rules:
1. You don’t have to make friends with people you don’t know. Think before you poke.
2. Wait 24 hours before accepting or removing someone as a friend. The delay will help you gather your thoughts.
3. Birthdays, engagements and weddings are not “virtual” events. Always send cards or phone friends when there is an important event.
4. Think before posting a friend’s photo what you would feel like if it was you.
5. Think carefully about your profile picture. Would you want it to be appearing in your local newspaper?
And, now I present MY rules for Facebook:
Applications. No more than 15 applications! And if you add one, don’t invite every single person on your friends list. I don’t don’t give a sh!t what type of cat I am. The reason MySpace died is partly because there was so much junk on people’s pages that it took forever to load.
Profile Pics. No shirtless pics. Automatic douche. Unless it’s unflattering and/or ironic. If you’re in a couple, this doesn’t mean your profile is shared…you’re still individuals. Profile pics as a couple: ultra-lame. Celebrate your independance! Also, as with any picture, flashing any kind of hand sign (devil horns, the finger, etc.) is tres lame.Â
Status Updates. No more than 3 a day. Max! Too many people change them on a second-to-second basis. “Emma is eating candy corn.” 3 minutes later: “Emma enjoyed the candy corn.” 10 minutes later: “Emma feels sick to her stomach.” Also, if you have a gripe with one specific person…email them or write on their specific wall. “Caitlin thinks you are a total bitch” makes no sense to anybody but one person on your friends list. Grammar counts. No “is is.” No “is wants to hang out tonight.”
Tagging. Use your discretion when tagging. If I look terrible in a pic (most of the time) leave the tagging up to me.
Poking. If someone doesn’t return your poke, if you have to try again, wait a week. Poking is like flirting. I always find it a little strange getting poked by guy friends.
That’s it for now, but let’s make this list fluid. Disagree? Post your comments. Add your rules in the comments. Here’s some audio:
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June 16th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Kudos, your rules are good! here’s a few of my own
MY RULES:
Take a hint: If i reject a specific invite to a group, application, event, etc. once, it’s for a reason. Don’t think that if you invite me 100 times it’s going to me make me all that eager to accept your invitation.
Acquaintances should remain as such: Don’t post comments on peoples walls and pictures as if you’re their friends unless you really are. If you want to be more than an acquaintance, and would like to be their friend or get to know them better. Message them or have an actual conversation with them. Constant random pokes, and comments isn’t always effective.
Stalking is still stalking, even on Facebook: If you live vicariously through facebook and use it to know where so and so worksm lives, parties and what their plans are for the next two months, you have a problem. ESPECIALLY, if they’re not even on your friends list!
Group messaging: is awkward, especially when my reply get’s sent to people I don’t know.
I can go on.. but whatever,
knowing when enough typing / ranting is enough is also a good rule.
Josh says: Spot on with the group e-mails. Major pet peeve. I can’t figure out how to get out of the reply loop.
June 16th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
I just have one… If you’re going to cheat on your boyfriend, don’t be stupid enough to post the pictures of you and your new love together for the world to see and then claim that “there’s nothing there”…
Josh says: ouch!
June 16th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Oh man, there’s nothing more irritating than someone changing their status 27529573892 times a day. And I don’t get why so many people haven’t clued into the fact that facebook changed the “is” in the status into being an option. There’s no excuse to have a grammatically incorrect status.
And this may be a little nit picky, but I can’t understand why people will allow 847292 applications litter up their profile to the point where you have to scroll down for hours to get to their wall. At least have the decency to arrange your profile so your wall is not 100 miles from your profile picture.
June 16th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Also, please don’t use the wall for private conversations! If you want to say “hey” use my wall. If you want to have a huge private conversation, message me!
For example:
“Yo, Reluctant, can’t wait to party with you after service on Friday!!! We are totally going to hook up a hose to the Jaggerkeg!”
is totally appropriate for posting on my wall.
Whereas,
“Hey, Reluctant, what was up with you shanking my boyfriend with your paring knife? Oh, I know you claim he stuck his tongue in your ear, but he swears that he didn’t. Sarah says you’re just a crazy stalker b***h and I KNOW that JimBob wouldn’t ever cheat on me again after I caught him in the walk-in with the prep cook, so whats up with the hatin?? You want my man, don’t you??”…
is probably best left for private messaging.
Think before you ink, man.
June 16th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Hey! I had actually made up my own etiquette rules some weeks ago!
1) If you took 2100 pictures on a recent trip, please refrain from posting all of them in a series of 35 albums*. The 60-photos-per-album limit is not The Man’s way of keeping you down. It’s a reasonable amount of photos to keep your viewer’s attention while encouraging you to only post the most interesting photos.
If you’re uninterested in sorting through your pictures to delete the duplicates and fuzzy ones, do you think someone else will want to see the same panda in the same position 5 times?
Thinning down photos not only keeps the viewer’s attention, and saves their time, it makes you look like a better photographer. Professionals take bad photos too, but they use discernment in which ones they share. Consider what would impress you more…5 duplicate photos of a panda with varying blurriness, or one really great photo of a panda?
2) If you have been invited to a friend’s event and can’t come, or just don’t want to, be a grown-up and reply with a no. You’re not saving anyone’s feelings by ignoring the request. You’re adding insult to injury by assuming they won’t notice you haven’t replied. Almost everyone is on Facebook all the time, so there is no pretending you didn’t see the invitation on time.
3) Don’t invite everyone on your list to every application, especially if you’re doing it to get points or money! Fortunately, that can be blocked now.
4) If you are going to swipe photos from someone else’s album for your own Facebook album, even if it’s from an event you hosted, it’s polite to ask.
*Yes… they really did.
Josh says: I’ve seen a random blurry photo of nothing in particular once or twice
June 16th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
I just have one…never drink and facebook….bad idea!
June 17th, 2008 at 1:45 am
I just wanted to say thank you facebook for allowing my ex’s girlfriend and I to have the opportunity to get to know each other while we were both seeing him at the same time (unbeknownst to either of us).
If you’re going to be a huge douche and double dip then make sure you don’t make the evidence public.
Also, if you aren’t willing to let someone see your full profile, then you shouldn’t have added them as a friend in the first place. I’m pretty sure the site was created so that you could display your life to those who matter to you.
June 17th, 2008 at 8:00 am
RE: Oops
haha they call that “faceboozing”
when you get drunk and post on facebook, only to regret it later on when you’re sober.
and another thing, if I don’t have that stupid buy a friend application (which i don’t) stop buying me and selling me.
I feel like I’m victim to the sex trade or something.
i’ve been purchased as a pet more times than necessary.
I also agree with that “select the best pictures and don’t post 35 albums of the same crap” rule, especially for concert photos.
“this is the dark unlit stage” x 10
“blurry shot of spotlights” x 5
“blurry shot of band” x 15
“one clear shot where lead singer looks constipated” x 25
“whole band with red eye” x 13
“crappy shaky video with distorted sound that sounds like I dropped my cell phone in the subway” x 5
not cool.
June 17th, 2008 at 8:56 am
I super hate those people who write something dirty on my wall…ok I like that, but when I reply with something dirty back, they delete it and send me a nasty “my mom, little sister, and priest are on my friends list so dont post that stuff” wellll fuuuuuck you! dont post something on my wall if you dont want me to reply to it, how about that?
June 17th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Just to dive a bit further into the whole “updating your status way to much” rule… Well it’s true that no one cares that you are eating the new Dorito’s double-flavoured chips at 4:13, or that you prefer the hot wing flavour to the blue cheese flavour at 4:14, it’s absolutely ridiculous that you insist on keeping me posted on all this useless garbage FROM YOUR CELL PHONE. This means that wherever you were you went out of your way to take out your phone, connect to the internet, type in the facebook url, your e-mail, your password, and your 30 word status update using your phone keypad (which is a painstakingly slow and awkward process unless you have a QWERTY). All of this to inform the roughly 10-30 people that MAY or MAY NOT be online at the time that you ate some chips, somehow completely oblivious to the fact that no one cares.
June 17th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Love love love your new rules. I just have one.
Dont make your status something nobody can figure out, just so they will message you to find out what your talking about, if you want people to feel sorry for you, i suggest making your status “Samantha is feeling sorry for herself”
June 18th, 2008 at 8:52 am
Hahaha you actually made me laugh today… thanks… Rules are good… very good.