Facebook and the timeline - is this now the "gold standard" (work, click)

[robertpolyglot]

This morning, I went onto Facebook and it showed my profile in a "tour" of Timeline form. I never opted for timeline. It's "messy," and I don't like it. Personal taste.

Is the more traditional old profile system available? Is it being done away with? What do I need to do to get it back?

[Bo]

Old format is going away and you can't get it back. I'm still clinging to my original format, too.

[robertpolyglot]

Originally Posted by Bo

Old format is going away and you can't get it back. I'm still clinging to my original format, too.

I woke up one morning a couple of days ago and found out my Timeline was going to be launched in a week. I, too, scrambled to toggle back to my old profile. The ONLY good thing about Timeline is that you can put up a (scenic) profile photo of whatever you want in addition to a picture of yourself.

[SomethingShiney]

I accidentally clicked the "try timeline" button and found I couldn't go back to the old profile.

I hate the timeline. I really don't like the fact that my posts/activities/relationship changes/job changes were suddenly available on a timeline. It is WAY more information than I want to share presented in a much too intimate way. I don't mind having my employers listed or my relationship status listed, but when Facebook poured these events into the timeline format, it can be a quite revealing look at someone's life. I was creeped out. I wish you could say stop the timeline at one year (or whatever). Or don't let anyone but me (or my family) see my posts older than than six months or some such thing.

I LIKED that you could find people based on where they used to work or go to school. That "use case" of a job history is vastly different from the use case of being able to spend hours researching you by reviewing types of pictures, posts, status updates, and likes intermingled with job history or relationship history. Someone could have a field day psychoanalyzing people's posts as they correlate with job / relationship changes. That's NOT a big deal for me with my very close friends and family, but not something that I want to have visible to aquantainces, friends of friends, or the general public (potential employers, etc).

I wouldn't mind being able to set up something like "public search by employment history" to allow people to find me, but NOT allow people to see any employment history on timeline. Also, I don't mind my current relationship status to be seen, but don't want to have that show up on my timeline. Not that I'm a likely candidate for stalking, but I do know that people who obsess over others would be super-excited by the ability to see every single detail of their target's personal life displayed in a nicely formatted, browsable timeline.

In fact, the timeline view is an invitation for someone to browse to their heart's content over minutia in someone else's life. If, for example, you keep an ex on your friend's list for whatever reason, your ex will be able to cruise down memory lane in your timeline. A jealous ex or current partner will be able to see your life laid out in a simple, easy to access, format and drive themselves nuts reliving past memories, or trying to reconstruct when your posts changed, deduce when you met other people, agonize in excruciating detail over nuances of your posts trying to figure out just what it was that caused a relationship to go south. That just creeps me out, and the timeline is a tangible reason to block an ex from your friend's list.

As a result of timeline I have

* Hidden my job history
* Hidden my relationship status for everyone by close friends
* Changed my default post visibility to "friends not acquaintances"
* Categorized my friends in to family, close friends, and acquaintances.[/b]
* Stopped posting ANYTHING to "world"
* Changed all past post visibility to "friends"
* Stopped posting status updates regularly
* Stopped posting photos regularly
* Moved my "professional" contacts out of Facebook to Linkedin
* Been very selective on posts that I expose to "friends of friends"

This was not particularly hard to do, but the fact that I felt it was needed was an indication that the "share all" attitude for Facebook was really something I'm not so much interested in.

If Facebook continues to make more and more stuff visible to more people, or add any more "sharing" features that are harder to opt out of, I may opt out of Facebook entirely.

For the average nontechnical Facebook user, it's very likely that they are revealing much more about themselves to very casual acquaintances than they would.

I understand that the Facebook revenue stream COUNTS on having your friends and friends of friends hang around and "like" and "share" things, some things being hooked up to advertisers and corporate interests. Facebook is NOT incented to maintain privacy.

I understand the value of social media. The "here and now" click stream of daily life is very useful. I've had TONS of good things happen via Facebook; job contacts, technical help, etc. I just don't think that the daily clickstream has a long-term place in such a public forum, intermingled with accurate logging of your job and relationship history.

[lcole07]

I been using this Timeline Remove - Download It works with no problems.

[Skunk Workz]

Originally Posted by lcole07

I been using this Timeline Remove - Download It works with no problems.

That only changes what you see, not what everyone else sees. Everyone else that goes to your Facebook page will still see your timeline.

[ZhugeLiang]

Timeline has been successful in getting me to be a full time Google+ user.

[pythonis]

i removed my timeline.

[pythonis]

Originally Posted by Skunk Workz

That only changes what you see, not what everyone else sees. Everyone else that goes to your Facebook page will still see your timeline.

both of you have to use it. if you use it then others who use it wont see your timeline and vice versa

[kazyn]

How many languages do you speak?