These are a few of my favorite things

Etiquette + Old Books (only not really) + Digitization =

this blog post, about I'm not quite sure what, but which circles around all of the above

Facebook: Turning the other [Virtual] Cheek

Facebook seems to come up a lot lately in the columns....in particular for those who are just coming to it this year (or last year, or what have you...). For many of us who have been on the 'book for four or five years already, it prevents the post-college (or for the next generation, post-high school) drift from ever happening. But for my parents' peers, or even my aunt's (she's 14 years older than me), there's a huge rush of reconnecting going on. And many people have questions about how best to approach "friending" those they know they hurt or were otherwise rude to, usually with the intention of making amends. (Equally common is the issue of being friended by someone who you hoped you'd never hear from or see again). Prudence addresses this issue in her column today but, unfortunately, it's fairly clear that she herself has never used Facebook:

Dear Prudie,I am the flip-side of your letter last week from Bliss in Exile. Many years ago, when I was in high school, I did something very cruel to a friend of mine: I took her boyfriend. Now we are both married to other men. I found her on Facebook and attempted to contact her to apologize for the cruel thing I had done. She took your advice and hit "ignore." I feel terrible that I was not even given the opportunity to admit to her that what I did was wrong and try to make amends. I also feel a little angry because I think it is immature to hold a grudge or resentment for so long over something that a teenager once did to you. Now that I have been ignored by the person I would like to apologize to, should I just let it go? Or should I take another avenue to try to contact her to tell her how sorry I am?
—Blocked

Dear Blocked,
In response to Bliss in Exile, I have heard from several people who were the miscreants in high school and have successfully used Facebook to contact their victims and make amends. But the problem with simply making a friend request to someone you've hurt is that the person on the other end has no idea about your intentions. In cases such as yours, it's a better idea to use your Facebook network to get an address for your former classmate and write a letter explaining that what you did has weighed on you all these years, you are asking for forgiveness, and that you want to reconnect. Give your phone number and e-mail address and add you'd also be happy to be contacted through Facebook. If you don't hear anything, just be glad you did the right thing now, and accept that there are some people for whom high-school graduation was one of the happiest days of their lives.
—Prudie

There are two major flaws with this response--first is that when sending a friend request, you DO have the option of including a personal message to explain who you are and why you're seeking a connection with the recipient. Second is that, for people who restrict their profiles to be visible only by their friends, or at least limit the information visible to non-friends in our network (which I think, and hope, is most of us) you can't just snag someone's address off of Facebook unless they've already accepted your friendship, even then only if they've chosen to post it....my full address is not listed on my facebook profile. If you want their address, without feeling like you're creeping on them, try....smartpages.com?

Ultimately, leaving this mistakes aside, I agree with Prudence. Reaching out might be a nice gesture. But jeez, people, learn to take a hint! This happens all the time in the columns, with facebook, with email, with voicemail..."Dear Prudence, I've sent twelve emails and left 8 messages and the person has not responded. Do you think it would be inappropriate of me to show up at their house?"

Also, for this woman in particular...SHE is the one continuing to make a big deal out of what happened so long ago, not her friend. My experience with high school boyfriend drama is that, 20 years later (or, um, five) nobody cares! Stealing her boyfriend may have been the best thing she could have done for this woman, in terms of removing the wrong guy, and a disloyal friend, from the circle of people she chose to associate with. People who think they are "owed" the opportunity to make amends--especially this many years later to people who probably don't care--need to get over themselves.

Just because you CAN find someone doesn't mean you SHOULD.

Inbox Overload

I'm always surprised at how common letters like this one are:

Dear Amy: I agree with "Curious in California," who doesn't understand why people flood others with forwarded e-mail.

Every day I have to wade through jokes, alerts, political diatribes and chain letters from people who copied their entire address book.

I have ceased giving my e-mail address to some family members to avoid the inevitable deluge. I wish my husband would adopt the same practice.

He spends most evenings reading these items because he doesn't have the heart to just delete them. Consequently, we hardly ever have a conversation beyond the dinner table. — Frustrated in Oregon

I don't know....I just don't really encounter this problem anymore....or if I do, I don't notice it. Five or seven years ago, I remember getting tons of chain letters and forwards and giant animated religious and political messages....but people don't forward this stuff to me anymore. Interestingly, I think it occurs more among my parents and people their age--my peers seem to have cooled off with this kind of thing.

Or, perhaps, they've just transferred their energies for mass distribution of jokes, pictures, etc. to Facebook, MySpace, etc.. That's probably true....and I guess that's not a bad thing, because it seems easier to ignore there. In the facebook world, it's less that you're sticking others with pictures, stories, jokes and messages they don't want, and more that you're posting it to your OWN area....it's up to others to read if they want. That seems just, somehow, if only because when you post something really annoying, you have to look at it, too.

This is not to say that I get only personal emails directed specifically to me giving me information that I need/want. I delete 20+ emails a day, most of them from my school and sent to all students, containing information that doesn't apply to me, or that I simply don't have the time and energy to process.

It's tempting for me to say to these folks who get so fed up with pointless emails that it's just like junk mail! You don't have to read it. A response is not expected (why DO people want the same poem they just sent you to be sent back to them, anyway?). It's not personal--but that's probably hard to grasp when the email comes in from your brother, aunt, cousin, or colleague because it clearly SEEMS personal.

It just makes me a little crazy that these people write in as if they are the only ones dealing with this situation. To me it seems comparable to saying "Every time I commute to my job during rush hour, traffic is terrible! This is so annoying! How do you recommend that I tell others not to use the road during my time? What can I do?"

Information overload is annoying, but everyone is dealing with it....so just....deal. Start to pay attention to who sends you funny stuff and who sends you annoying stuff and read or delete accordingly. Or block certain addresses from your inbox. Or go through all new messages and delete anything with a [Fwd] in front of it before you even start reading. Or ask your friend to remove you from her list. Or respond with really rude, angry messages to the people who send you junk. There are as many ways to deal with annoying emails as there are people. This is just a part of life now. The information superhighway is as crowded as I-90....so find a way to avoid it, accept it, or alter it.

Update on Linkage

I have received the following helpful response re: my concern about the unlinked advice colums:

Dear Ms. Welzenbach,

Thank you for contacting the Chicago Tribune. We appreciate your
interest and readership.

Thank you for bringing to our attention. We apologize for any
inconvenience we may have caused you. We will forward your message on to
the Manager of Projects and Quality of Chicago Tribune Interactive. We
appreciate your feedback.

Please keep in mind that you have the option of enrolling in the Chicago
Tribune Electronic Edition, an online replica of our newspaper, this
alternative is available seven (7) days a week, easy to access,
environmentally friendly, and searchable for only $2.50 per week. To
sign up for the Electronic Edition please visit the link below:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/e-Edition

Another weekday option is to visit www.chicagotribune.com for breaking
news, video, weather and business updates.

Please contact us at consumerservices@tribune.com if you have any
additional comments or questions.

Thank you and have a great day!

Sincerely,

Interactive Services Team/w061
Chicago Tribune
1-800-Tribune
consumerservices@tribune.com

The Bare Necessities....

I just sent the following to the Chicago Tribune online customer service folks. The columns have been de-linked from the homepage AGAIN. This happens every once in awhile and is usually fixed within a couple of days, but that hasn't been the case this time.


Dear Tribune (Again),

The economy is falling down around our ears. Paul Newman is dead. The world is a scary and confusing place. The least you can do is keep the advice columns linked from your homepage (Please! Please! Please!) and keep Dear Abby up to date (Please! Please! Please!).

You should know that it's the advice columns that bring me to the trib at all --only after reading them do I read the rest of the news. That being said, if I can't get Abby (TODAY'S Abby, please) from you, I"ll go elsewhere.

It's not like you've filled the space with anything else...there's a big empty hole at the bottom of the page where the advice column links used to be.

Thanks,

Longtime Reader

Get the Picture Update

OK....I just revisited chicagotribune.com and was gratified to see that in their latest top story, an actual photograph was used....

But I was distressed to learn that the Tribune now links to youtube, just for fun. A new feature called "The Lighter Side," or, "comedy we didn't write ourselves."

It's like...the trib is now its own facebook page...or something?

Get the Picture? Hm....maybe not.

Every morning, before I rise from my cozy bed, I drag my laptop close for a snuggle and click my way to http://www.chicagotribune.com. Here, I spend most of my time reading the advice (naturally), and then devote a few minutes to skimming headlines and browsing reader comments (making the odd contribution myself). It is vital that I start my day strong in the knowledge that I am up to date on important developments in the Drew Peterson investigation, and that I have seen all the latest baby animal photos from zoos around the world.

The Trib has done well with its online presence over the years, taking advantage of tools like commenting, videos, reader contributions of photos and stories. You could tell they'd made the full transition from a web-i-fied print publication to a truly interactive digital news resource when they changed their logo from the traditional

to their current, sans-serif, facebook-blue banner:

But there is one aspect of the allonewordlightbluelowercasechicagotribune.com that I must dispute, and that is the gradual decrease of photography on the home page. It is increasingly common for the paper's daily front page graphic to be a screen shot, map, or diagram, rather than an arresting action shot of something major going on.

Today's front page features an interactive Google map of the locations of stoplight police cameras throughout the Chicagoland area. OK, OK, three cheers for javascript, etc. It's nifty that my newspaper will now help me more carefully evade the police in my own hometown. But it's a lame image. What about a view from one of these cameras down at traffic? Or police reviewing the images? Or a violator in court, disputing the photographic evidence captured at one of these cameras? Or even a picture of a professional showing us what the camera looks like? Come on, Trib! Put your shoulder into it!

(http://www.chicagotribune.com/ 8/18/2008)

I no longer live in Illinois and my parents cancelled their subscription, so I don't see the newspaper in print--ever. This is probably the case for many readers scattered around the world. Hey, Trib, we have no idea if the web home page corresponds to your physical front page, but I have to say....I hope not.