Parental Discretion is Advised

[ornoth]

Parents love posting things about their children. Others might incessantly post about their pets, or jobs, or recipes, knitting patterns, or bike rides. Although this post is primarily addressed toward parents, if you post really frequently about any topic, it applies equally to you.

And this isn’t directed at one person. In the past year it seems like everyone on my friends list has bred, and the resulting deluge of oversharing is why I feel the need to post this reminder.

The basic message is this: people friended you on Facebook because they are interested in *you*, not necessarily your progeny or your primary interests. For some people, their interest in you might extend to your children/interests, but for others it will not.

Since most people don’t want their news feed cluttered with stuff they’re not interested in, a thoughtful person would only share your baby pictures with the people who care to see them, and not with those who don’t.

I don’t bring this up solely to cater to my own ideosyncracies. While I’ll openly admit that I despise children and would love to see fewer of them in my news feed, the rabid popularity of services like unbaby.me prove that I’m definitely not alone.

And let’s be honest: a lot of people abuse their “proud parent” allowance. The rest of us don’t need daily (or even weekly) visual proof of your capacity to procreate.

If you post very frequently about your kids (or your job, your dog, or your bike rides), please offer your readers the ability to opt-out of posts about that topic. That’s simple courtesy.

The good news is that setting it up is really easy. On Facebook, all you need to do is create a “list” of the people who don’t want your baby posts. Then when you post a baby story, set the privacy on the post to exclude that list.

I use this facility all the time; it’s simple to do, easy to remember, and it works great!

To create the list and put people on it:

1. Hover over my name and wait for the popup box
2. Click on the “Friends” button
3. Click on “Add to another list”
4. Click on “New List” and name it “No babies please!”
5. Use the same general procedure to add additional people to the list

Then, to post something that those people won’t see:

1. Compose your status message but don’t hit “Post” yet
2. Click on the posting privacy button (it’ll probably say Public or Friends)
3. Select “Custom”
4. See the “Don’t share this with…” section? Enter your exclusion list’s name here, and Save
5. Then click that “Post” button

 

The only thing you need to be careful of is that the privacy setting is “sticky”, so the next time you want to post a story that isn’t about your baby, you need to change the posting privacy setting back to what it was before.

And of course you should post an announcement to let people know that you have an opt-out list.

But if someone asks to be put on your list, please never take it as an insult. Remember that it’s not that we dislike you; if you’re still on my friends list after several “friend purges”, you’re definitely someone I care about and want to hear from. I’m genuinely very interested in you and your life; just not your children.

As for myself, although I have a number of interests that I engage in regularly (meditation, cycling, cats, etc.), I try not to post about any one topic very frequently. But if someone does feel that they’d like to be on an exclusion list for any topic that I regularly post about, please let me know.

I want to share posts you will find interesting and valuable, not ones you’ll consider tedious and annoying. I hope you feel similarly.

Thanks!