Shopsmith Forums

Face Book makes sense. This forum has a closed viewing group, by that I mean only those that know about it or stumble upon it can read it.
However on Facebook Shopsmith will get tons of exposure. Every time you comment on a Facebook article it will appear on your wall and everyone that has friended you will see it. Likewise if they like or share the article then it will appear on their wall and any of their friends will see it. The potential is for one comment about Shopsmith to be seen by hundreds more people than would see if if it was just on the forum.

However I do agree I do not like Facebook and try to limit anything I do on it to just my friends. And my friends are limited to very close or family only. I ignore most friend requests.

I do not post personal pictures nor do I give out any personal info, no age, no hometown, no addresses, no I am here, no plans for travel, no shopping, no family business, nothing that I can think of that could be missed used by Facebook or anyone else.

OK, here it goes... I still recall how I stupidly stayed off of the Internet in the early days because of all of the silly stories I kept reading in computer magazines and the papers about how dangerous it was. I stayed away until about 1994 and finally (and cautiously) made the leap. I soon became very angry at myself for being so silly...
I had deprived myself of vast amounts of knowledge for several years based on the tales of others instead of looking for myself. I'm really surprised that I believed those tales because I had long stayed on the leading edge of other technology such as it was in the 1960's and forward.
For many years I constantly preached to my kids:"If you want to operate a door (or any number of other things that popped to mind) you have to be smarter than a door..."
People get stung on-line, and especially on social media, because they have not made themselves "smarter than a door". The gullibility of the masses should never be under estimated.
If you like you can use a fake name, birthdate, phone number and even set up a burnable email account. Lots of potential problems eliminated. I do not do that but you can. I do not ever give my personal cell number, period. I have long had the same number but there are less than a dozen people on the planet that have it. They keep asking for it but they will never get it. Diana's cell is the house and business phone and if a valid number is needed that is the one I give out. We have operated businesses for 45 years and she is the phone voice of our enterprises and is quite good at dealing with crap calls.
Over those 45 years we spent thousands and thousands of dollars telling people where we were and who we are, it seems pointless to try to hide now.
On the other hand, it is also silly to paint a target on your back... One way to be a target is to post a bunch political crap (no matter what side) because that will make you a target of both side and all sorts of fringe extremes.
If you announce that "We will all be out of state 4 days as of next Monday"... You deserve to come home to an emptied out house, but people do it all of the time on Facebook. "Loose lips sink ships"
A few other things many don't understand...
The name is "click-bait" and absolutely tons of it is on social media. In most cases every time the creators can get you to click on their stuff they make a tiny amount of money, usually from sponsors. Much of the time it is harmless but read stuff first and think about it. Their more common tools are religion, politics, phony patriotism and pathetic pictures of animals or kids etc. They don't give a rats behind about the subject matter, just if you will click on it so they can make $$$$.
Another thing to think about is those posts where they claim to be trying to locate someone like a runaway child etc. It has been proven that in many of those cases it is someone's ex (or worse) trying to locate a child that has been moved into hiding for their protection or even someone looking for somebody in a witness protection program. Don't become their tool. Some of those that are just fairly harmless click-bait use pictures of just anybody's kids that they can find on-line. Many things are not what they seem to be. Look at dates etc. That lost kid post from 2008 probable is not going to be findable.
Be "smarter than a door"...


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Actually the Shopsmith Facebook sites are for members only and unlike the site here, you can't read the posts on it if you are not a member. All discussions on the sites are private to the group and any interaction you have on the site will not show up on your friends and families Facebook accounts unless they are members of the group, too.

One note I did read was that any issues that arise with Customer Service can be handled on their Customer Service site and will be answered daily. Here's the quote from their site:
Welcome to our official customer service Facebook page. We are excited to use this page as an additional resource for connecting with our customers, working on questions and concerns and letting everyone in on our contests, promotions, and specials.
I hope you enjoy this new option and we look forward to hearing feedback from our customers and working towards making this a great page that is a good resource for our customers.

I got on facebook quite a while back. I decided it was a waste of time etc. and had not been on there in years. I got on the SS pony briefly and have mixed reaction to it. It has promise IF indeed SS is responsive to it. I see the possibility for further time wasting however. And yes I could not keep my mouth shut there either.

Time will tell!

BuckeyeDennis wrote:I’m a Facebook holdout as well, but my concerns have more to do with the ethics of Facebook management in particular than with “social media” in general.

Have you guys ever looked at Shopsmith and other vintage-machinery listings on Facebook marketplace? I have, on my wife’s FB account, and the amount of good stuff listed there seems considerably larger than on CL these days. And with a higher percentage of real bargains ... seems to be a lot of young folks just dumping grandpa’s stuff without researching the market value.

More and more, it seems that there’s information out there that requires a Facebook account to access. Just like this new Shopsmith stuff. So a few weeks ago, I read up on how to configure FB settings for a reasonable level of privacy (until they yet again change their policies without prior notice), and decided to join. But when I actually went to pull the trigger, it turned out that I couldn’t create an account without giving them my full birthdate. Which seems like a key piece of information for identity thieves, so I bailed out. Then did a bit of research, and the official FB line is that they need this so that they can provide you with age-appropriate information, or some such BS. Birth year, maybe. Birthdate ... give me a break.

So now I’m contemplating setting up an account using bogus personal information. Anything I’m not comfortable sharing, just make it up. Any advice on that from current Facebook users?

Fyi, they don’t/can’t verify your birthdate. I used a made up one. Quite often these Facebook Shopsmith pages do refer questions to this forum. The advise given here is known to be emmensly more accuate.

ChrisNeilan wrote:... The advise given here is known to be emmensly more accuate.

I just thought I'd chime in here. I'm not a facebook user but my wife is.
I learned here about the SS facebook groups and marketplace, so using her facebook I stared checking them out.
The SS troubleshooting and tips group is nowhere near as good as this one but I'll still check it from time to time to see what's happening.
From the marketplace I did find a good deal on a 1980 mark v w/bandsaw and jointer so I bought them (I've been looking for a good deal on a bandsaw and jointer for a long time). The ads that show up are within driving distance of the facebook user.
They also have a SS digital motor conversion group that I will follow because I may what to find a neglected SS convert it with a treadmill motor just for fun. I learned from you guys (the SS forum) about attaching a treadmill motor to my SS so now I have a slow RPM SS for drilling metal.

So I don't plan on joining facebook but I will use it along with CL for finding good deals and maybe learning something from time to time.