The St Neots profile is an organisation? Call the Facebook police!

What a day! But normal service is slowly being restored. 

The Facebook profile linked to this blog underwent a necessary transformation today from an ‘individual’ type profile to a ‘place/organisation’ page in order to comply with Facebook terms and conditions. So what happened?

I created the St Neots Facebook page a few years ago for another website that I was contributing to. However,  it was never used and I don’t think the ‘friend’ count rose far above 100. Fast forward a couple of years and I decided to link this blog to the Facebook profile. Suddenly, it sprang to life and, before I knew it, the Facebook ‘friend’ list  rose to 1,300 and was climbing until…..

I received a nasty message from somebody (yes, you know who you are) saying she thought the St Neots profile was just a vehicle  promoting Burlesque and had nothing to do with the town of St Neots. I explained (in my nicest professional tone) that the feature on Burlesque (which happens to take place in St Neots) wasn’t any different to some of the other articles or indeed adverts that have appeared on the St Neots wall but the answer obviously didn’t satisfy her because she then chose to continue her argument by commenting on the St Neots wall.

Knowing that the conversation was feeding into everybody’s news stream and not wanting them to be bombarded by the endless wall entries, I deleted her comment and continued the  conversation via direct messages. However, she didn’t take her deletion kindly and proceeded to send me more direct messages vocalising her displeasure. In one of them she suggested that I consult Facebook’s terms of use  as I was clearly in direct violation of them.

I took up her suggestion and did the appropriate research. Sure enough, Facebook terms state that you have to be a person/individual to create a conventional profile on Facebook. If you are an ‘organisation’ (St Neots, an organisation?) then you need to create the appropriate ‘page’.

Armed with this information, I knew  it would be a matter of time before this ugly head would make another appearance so I decided to look into the process of converting the St Neots profile. However,  before I had the chance to download all of the posts and associated information (suggested before the conversion process), I received a WARNING from Facebook telling me that I had been reported as an ‘organisation’ user!  You can imagine my horror: me? An ORGANISATION ‘USER’?  Whatever next?

So, I decided to bite the bullet and go through the conversion process which, not surprisingly, failed at first.

The net effect of this process is that you’re no longer a ‘friend’ of the St Neots page but a ‘fan’ which means that you can see everything posted to the St Neots wall but the St Neots wall can’t see everything that’s happening on yours.  Which is good, isn’t it?  All’s well again in St Neots land. Apart from the fact that there are now technical difficulties that are preventing the St Neots page from actually being found by anybody! So the battle for normality continues. Meanwhile, I’ll still be working hard to compile and write posts that you will find of interest and, of course, serve the community by posting announcements to the wall that the ‘fanbase’ might find of  interest.

But try as I may, we must all be minded by the simple fact that “you can’t please everybody every time.”

So, it’s down to you, trusty readers/fans. CLICK LIKE and SUGGEST the St Neots page to your nearest and dearest and even a few strangers. 😉   The more people click LIKE and become a fan, the more popular the page will be.

We’re aiming for a 1,500 strong community before the end of  June and I’ve got  some presents for some lucky followers who help in achieving that goal!  🙂 But more about that later.

In closing, thanks for your support and special thanks goes out to the lady with the red hair for taking time out of what must have been a very busy day to write to me and share a piece of valuable information. You may want to contact Huntingdon and several other places I found during my research. I think they too would benefit from your wisdom.

T