Academia.edu Coding Fail
I was going to write a post called “Barack Obama Fellates the Shark, then Wonders Why It Bites Off His Lower Half,” but decided instead to go for comedy instead of pointing out that the 2014 midterms are going to make 2010 look like the peak of LibDem activism.
Academia.edu is “a place to share and follow research”; think JSTOR without the cachet of the Springer/Pearson/Addison/Blackwell/Wiley Publishing MAFIA, or maybe a low-rent, open-source NAP. So when friend of this blog and professional Health Economist Michael Halasy signed on and reached out, I figured it only made sense that I would follow his postings as well. (After all, he might actually write something. But I digress.)
So I clicked the link on the email and got this screen:
I do understand that maybe I don’t have the appropriate cookie on this machine. But look at the listing at the Connect with Facebook link.
Really, guys: I should connect with Facebook because people I know on Facebook–myself, for instance–connect with Facebook.
One has to laugh. The alternative is to think about Obama’s attempt to destroy my childrens’s lives for No Good Reason. Which someone else will blog about much more politely than I.
Obnoxious it is that a web site seeming to be dedicated to academic inter-communication should put its Facebook self out front and center. It is apparently a choice that one can pass on and simply sign up without using the Facebook connection. The problem with Facebook is that it has an aura of goofiness, a bit low brow in most applications. All those ridiculous “games” for example. But even that characteristic is a function of one’s Facebook friends. If they put junk and silliness on the wall it sticks. If their postings have some interesting and educational aspect your own page seems to take on that sense. You can choose to not receive the ravings of those “friends” who have little to say of interest to you so as to filter out the amount of junk.
THe whole “connect with Facebook so we can pester your friends” thing irritates me.
I am thinking of creating a special friendless Facebook page just to frustrate the machine.