Environmentalism and Conservation Discussion on Facebook

January 22, 2013 5:15 PM

Environmentalism and Conservation Discussion on Facebook
Hi! I've made a Facebook Page that is meant to become a community space where folks can present and discuss issues in environmentalism and conservation. It's brand new, and I'm trying to build a nucleus of informed, friendly, intelligent (not to mention attractive and charming) folks who find the subject interesting and might want to post and comment on the topic.

The page is publicly viewable and anyone with a Facebook account is free to post and comment, so if you think that you might like to have an online space that's dedicated to the discussion of environmental topics, come on over!

I would also welcome any advice that people might have about how to grow and improve the page so that it works better and is more inviting.

Role: Creator/Moderator

posted by Scientist (3 comments total)

Hi Scientist, well done on setting up the page- looks like it's going to be an interesting forum. I'm happy to contribute now and again. I have a masters in ecology and evolution and have done work in the area of spatial ecology- so I'll post any interesting articles and nuggets that I think might be pertinent!
posted by Rufus T. Firefly at 8:10 AM on January 23

Please, please, please don't let it be filled up with cutesy memes and pictures of animals.
But honestly, what will this contribute? There are thousands of pages like this on Facebook, and people share things from them constantly.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 2:49 PM on January 23

Hey Rufus, I'd be overjoyed to have someone with an environmental science background stop by. By all means, drop in whenever you feel so moved! Got any particularly fascinating issues in your field that have been on your mind lately? I'd love to hear about 'em.

I don't intend to fill it with cutesy animal pictures, believe me. I'm a conservation biologist (OK FINE, conservation biology student) and ecosystems are what gets my engine going. At the same time, this page is part of my process of working on my outreach and communication-to-the-public skills, and so I will be talking about some of the more charismatic members of the natural world from time to time in the context of trying to draw connections between cute kitty cats and the importance of functional ecosystems and smart protected areas management. I actually did a long post about Amur Leopards today that was like that, though it seems to have generated zero interest.

So far, what people seem to want to talk about is community agriculture which I am totally fine with. There are plenty of places on the web to talk about that too, but it's a perfectly valid topic. Cute animals are valid too as long as people are able to connect them to conservation.

What I do wish is that there were a way to make user-submitted content more prominent. So far it seems like it just gets stuck in a tiny little "Recent Posts by Others" box in the top right of the timeline. I wish I could blow it up and give it equal prominence with the "official" stuff so that it could have more of a community feel. Does anyone know if this is possible?
posted by Scientist at 11:19 PM on January 23