Is there such a thing as Facebook etiquette?

[bah12]

Well, to answer the question in the title, I think that etiquette evolves.  Some rules become obsolete and new ones are created to keep up with how society, technology, etc changes.
So, I do think that there is etiquette that applies to FB.  It's just not the same etiquette that applies to face to face conversations, phone calls, or anything else.

I don't think that there should be any requirement that people need to use FB consistently...in other words, choose a posting style and frequency and stick to it.  Not only that, while the poster has control over who he wants to see his posts, the beauty of it is, that you also have a choice in whether or not you want to see it.  And neither of you have to know what that choice is.

For me personally, I'm one that is infrequent in my posting style.  Sometimes it's one or two a day and other times I go months without even looking at it.  We're all different.  And I'd be far less annoyed with someone posting pictures of a renovation (which to me is actually quite interesting), than I am about all those inspirational quotes (where do people even get those?), that some people post as often as 1 per minute (or 10 at once).  Again, to each his/her own. 

As for the public/private thing.  I see it as inviting people into my house.  It's not an open door policy where anyone/everyone can come as they please.  I invite friends over.  They either accept my invitation or not (and we each get to decide when they can leave).  In my house, I'm a lot more free to say, display, and do things according to the way I want  than I am when I'm at work, out shopping, or in someone else's house (or FB wall). 

[Red1979]

To clarify, I don't think his posting is rude at all, I was mostly surprised to see him come out of the woodwork. It made me think about how we represent ourselves online.

I guess in retrospect this belongs more in the Coffee Break folder because I was mostly curious why facebook is immune to any rules of etiquette, or even any cultural norms that govern behavior - not specific to rude/not rude but more like guidelines .Like on here, it is somewhat expected that OPs will eventually read and reply to other posters in their thread, and "abandoning" a thread is somewhat frowned upon especially if a lot of people ask clarification questions. But on facebook, everyone gets a pass on posting offensive religious/political views, pictures of graphic things, etc. and everyone admits they don't like this behavior but also agrees there is no reason (etiquette based, cultural, etc.) that people shouldn't post it. It could be argued that facebook is a semi public  thing (even private pages can be screen shot) kind of like putting a bulletin board in your front yard, to use a PPs analogy. Employers look at FB pages when making hiring decisions, for example. So I'm wondering if it's really practical going forward to have FB be the wild west of netiquette, so to speak .

So your original post had nothing to do with your actual question?  I don't understand.

My original post was just the jumping off point for a broader discussion . Again if it should be moved that's fine by me.

It is interesting that some people see FB as private whereas others view it as more of a public thing, or an accurate representation of yourself vs. a creative product of sorts. These are all very different definitions of the same thing.

Who said Facebook was private?  Nothing on the internet is "private".  People are just saying you can post what you want on your own page and people are free to ignore it.  I think we've all pretty much reiterated that same concept.

[thedudeabides]

To clarify, I don't think his posting is rude at all, I was mostly surprised to see him come out of the woodwork. It made me think about how we represent ourselves online.

I guess in retrospect this belongs more in the Coffee Break folder because I was mostly curious why facebook is immune to any rules of etiquette, or even any cultural norms that govern behavior - not specific to rude/not rude but more like guidelines .Like on here, it is somewhat expected that OPs will eventually read and reply to other posters in their thread, and "abandoning" a thread is somewhat frowned upon especially if a lot of people ask clarification questions. But on facebook, everyone gets a pass on posting offensive religious/political views, pictures of graphic things, etc. and everyone admits they don't like this behavior but also agrees there is no reason (etiquette based, cultural, etc.) that people shouldn't post it. It could be argued that facebook is a semi public  thing (even private pages can be screen shot) kind of like putting a bulletin board in your front yard, to use a PPs analogy. Employers look at FB pages when making hiring decisions, for example. So I'm wondering if it's really practical going forward to have FB be the wild west of netiquette, so to speak .

So your original post had nothing to do with your actual question?  I don't understand.

My original post was just the jumping off point for a broader discussion . Again if it should be moved that's fine by me.

It is interesting that some people see FB as private whereas others view it as more of a public thing, or an accurate representation of yourself vs. a creative product of sorts. These are all very different definitions of the same thing.

Interesting.

I don't think anyone here believes that FB is a free-for-all zone, completely outside the bounds of etiquette.  In fact, we have threads here all the time about what is and isn't rude on FB, and it frequently comes out that people feel that etiquette applies in multiple ways on there.  I see the occasional overshare that I'm pretty sure is totally rude on FB.  The real issue that people tend to disagree on is how to handle what is rude online.  Send a PM?  Defriend?  Unsubscribe?  Sit down and actually talk with the person?

In terms of posting frequency and how people use FB, I think it evolves as life affects that person, and I think it should: It is a reflection of how they choose to represent themselves online, so why should they be forced to only post in one way, for the entirety of the time they're on FB?  That's completely artificial and prevents any actual insight into their lives and personalities.

[Lynn2000]

Interesting thread. I do think FB has etiquette rules, some specific to the medium and some that would apply more broadly. But due to being a newer medium it can be hard to figure out how to compare things. For example, making a nasty comment directly to another person--either face-to-face or on that person's wall--is rude; but making a nasty comment as your status on your own wall is not rude, right? People can post what they want on their own walls, and if others don't like it, they can block/unfriend/etc. and not have to see it. What does that compare to in real life? Sometimes it's hard to figure out.

Maybe it compares to someone's decor in their own house--they seem like perfectly lovely people to you, so you accept their invitation to a cocktail party, and when you get to their house you find that their decor is really ugly/upsetting/etc. to you. Barring something seriously illegal, you don't have the right to dictate how they decorate the interior of their own home; all you can do is not go over there again.

I love FB for its ability to keep me caught up on what people are doing, without having to actually interact with those people or waste my time on subjects that bore me. Personally I wouldn't follow the link to the renovations album, because that doesn't interest me. But I would think, "Thank goodness he's just posting these on FB, where I can easily ignore them, rather than trapping us all in the den at Easter to watch a slide show!" Even in the latter case, it's the "trapping" part that's rude, not the slide show--if the slide show of renovation pictures were going on in a side room and everyone was truly free to come and go from it as they pleased, it wouldn't be rude of Uncle to set it up.

[Yvaine]

I think making a nasty status on your wall can be rude, actually--particularly if it's bigoted or if it insults a large portion of your audience. I have seen statuses that are on a nastiness par with the likes of Fred Phelps, who I would say is rude even if he's just standing there with a sign and not addressing me directly. I think we sometimes blur the line in these discussions between what's polite and what's within your constitutional rights--or within a site's terms of use--but still rude in a general etiquette sense. A person has the right to say nasty things on their own wall, but it doesn't mean it's polite, kwim? And there may well be relationship consequences for saying them. It's not as rude as saying something nasty on someone else's wall and leaving them to deal with the steaming pile, but IMO it's still rude.

But as far as how one presents oneself on Facebook, home renovations aren't even on my radar of things to cringe about. Most of the time when people discuss "how you present yourself on Facebook," it's regarding things like not posting incoherent political rants or locking down the drunk pictures before you start job searching.

[onyonryngs]

I don't think the scenario in the OP is rude at all.  And in no way is FB any type of equivalent to a phone conversation.  You have the choice to participate - if you don't want to see someone's posts, hide them from your wall.  If you don't agree with what they have to say, you can hide them or even defriend.  Common sense should dictate what is and isn't rude on FB, but to me, a post about some home renovations seems rather innocuous to get all heated up about. 

[pharmagal]

Add me to the rude list.  I posted photo's of the renovations we completed last year.  Why?  Because I was so excited about the end result and wanted to share that with my family and friends, and anyone else who may have been interested.  I wasn't put out that so and so didn't post or like, it's not everyone's cup of tea. 

I also frequently re-post things that I find interesting, though provoking or just plain funny.  Those are all subjective of course, I know I have many friends on FB who don't share my sense of humour or the same beliefs.  And sometimes I WILL say things on FB that I might not say in a public setting with certain audiences, but it's still not rude.

My page is locked down as much as I've been able to figure out, but I rarely post about work or anything that could come back to haunt me.  The internet has no such thing as privacy and I have no expectations that what I say or share won't be shared elsewhere.  I have also utilised the handy acquaintances function and screen certain people from seeing everything I post.  Maybe that's what your relative has done to you?