I see this as a classic example of new media supplanting old. I have used, and do use, and very much appreciate the DISBoards. I expect to continue using it, and referring to it.
At the same time, I'm also a member of a secret fb group related to an up-coming cruise, so I see, and experience, both sides of this debate.
DISBoards is great for general queries, discussion about
DCL policies, and other things that relate to Disney that are not personal. However, with the steadily rising incidence and threats emerging from spam, phishing, and scams, it is becoming increasingly risky to divulge personal information in an open forum like the DISBoards.
OTOH, the fb group to which I belong has a gatekeeper, who is the woman who organized the fb group. She has screened and barred people who have tried to get in who weren't going on the cruise, and who (probably) wanted to use the group to promote something they were selling, troll the members, or use members' personal information to scam them in some way. Because it is a more secure forum, people feel safe, and there has been a lot of personal give-and-take, and a lot of shared confidences, including names and photos, about themselves, their homes, and their families. This probably would not have happened to this extent on the DISBoards because of its open nature.
Unfortunately, this comes at a cost. People who are not on facebook, like my DW, resent that they are being excluded from the cruise meet. It's also possible that a fb group incorrectly excludes people who are legitimate cruisers, or has a gatekeeper who is dictatorial and controlling, and excludes people he or she doesn't like for whatever reason. Since all of these forums are operated by people, there will always be mistakes in judgment.
As a number of PP's have commented, this horse has bolted. I suspect that all that this policy will do is to drive people further into the arms of facebook, relegating DISBoards to a declining relevancy. What the DISBoard policy is seeking to do, IMHO, is to turn back the clock and make facebook go away. That won't happen, no matter what policy DISBoard pursues, and may cause the kind of splintering of cruise meets already discussed.
I suspect that if DISBoards wants to continue to be the pre-eminent forum for cruise or any other kind of meets, it needs to change to become more like facebook, with greater privacy controls, and opportunities to create closed groups.
This is only my opinion, and it is quite possible I'm wrong, but this is the kind of thing I study professionally. Media accrete, they don't disappear. So radio didn't die when TV appeared. And movies didn't die out when VCRs appeared. But they did have to change their business plans, and so will DISBoards.
DISBoards can't go back to the way things were 3-5 years ago. facebook is here to stay, and so are fb cruise meets. Instead, DISBoards should think about using some kind of ju-jitsu, co-opting fb groups and incorporating them into a DISBoards superstructure. This would make both DISBoards and fb more valuable.
Until something like that happens, I suspect that we're likely to experience the kind of "are you with us or against us" mentality that is becoming so prevalent. We will have "cruise meets should
only be on DISBoards" people raging against the "cruise meets should be
organized through the DISBoards, but
meet on fb" crowd, and vice-versa. That would be unfortunate.
I find both media DISBoards
and facebook to be valuable, and will continue to use both.
