Got Snaggers?

One of the questions I get asked most frequently is "How do you deal with people who use the snag bar?".

Are you being snagged?  If you don't like it, solve it!

Well....it depends, and it's purely subjective.  Some 'Insane Snag Bar Users' (people who really tend to overdo the whole snagging thing - we pretty much know who they are) are also nice people, and you may want to keep them on your list because they're entertaining or informative.  Of course, the easiest way to deal with anyone who you feel is abusing your game feed is to simply remove them from your friends' list.  Problem solved.

A more creative way to keep them on your Facebook Friends List (but to block them from game posts you feel they may be snagging) is through the use of Facebook Lists and Custom Security on individual posts.

In order to do this, you first need to create a list of people from whom you'd like to block your game posts.



In the upper right corner of your Facebook home page, click on Account, Edit Friends.

This will bring up a screen similar to this one:

Please note:  These are all AWESOME people that would never, ever abuse the game feed,
and they appear here only for the purpose of illustrating how to create a list in Facebook.

Be sure that you click the option on the upper left hand side so it says 'All Friends', so you know you're working with everyone on your Facebook Friends list.  Then, click the button that says 'Create a list'.

This brings up the following dialog box:

Please note:  These are all AWESOME people that would never, ever abuse the game feed,
and they appear here only for the purpose of illustrating how to create a list in Facebook.

Name your list appropriately (upper left box).  In this case, I have called this list FVBlock, because I want to block them from my FarmVille posts.  Once you have named the list, click on the people you want to add to that list, and click on 'Create List'.

Please note:  These are all AWESOME people that would never, ever abuse the game feed,
and they appear here only for the purpose of illustrating how to create a list in Facebook.

Congratulations!  You've created a list in Facebook.  These 4 folks are the ones I'll block from my FarmVille posts in a minute...because I'm certain they're getting all my good stuff! (kidding, kidding)

You can create lists for many things, including lists to determine who is able to contact you via online chat.  I'm sure you can imagine what my computer would do if I appeared online to all 5,000 Facebook friends in chat, so I have a list of folks to whom I appear online (mostly the Management Team over at Sharing Foals and Calves), and to everyone else...sorry.  No chat.

Now, in order to ensure your posts are not visible to this 'list', you need to make one more change.

From your main Facebook page, go to Account, Privacy Settings, and click on 'Customize' as seen here:

When you click 'Customize', it will bring up a dialog box showing various settings:

We want to change 'Posts by me'.  Be careful, because this DOES change your default settings.  EVERYTHING you post will be governed by how you set this up...but for most it's easier than changing every single individual post you make on Facebook (we'll show how to do that later).  Click the setting, and you'll get this dialog box:

Choose 'Customize'. That brings up this box:

 

This dialog box governs two concepts:  Who can see this, and who cannot see it.

You'll want to 'Make this visible to' Friends Only', unless you want one of the other, not recommended, options.  Only Facebook Friends can collect your game stuff anyway, so there's no point in making it available to others right now.

On the bottom section, you'll want to type the name of your 'FVBLOCK' list (that we created earlier) into this section titled 'Hide this from'.  This will prevent members of the FVBLOCK List from seeing your posts, by default.  It doesn't remove them from your friends list, your neighbors bar, or prevent you from seeing their posts, but they will not be able to see yours, by default.  Consequently, there will be no snagging your posts anymore by people on this list.  Easy, no?

When you've successfully changed this, your default security on posts will look something like this:

That's it.  You're done.  Now all you need to do is to go back and tweak who should be on your 'FVBLOCK' list, and unless you change security on a post-by-post basis, they'll never see what you post.

Sometimes, it's beneficial to change this on the fly, or to 'segregate' a certain post or two to only a certain few folks. When you go to make a post in Facebook, you have the ability to alter the security on individual posts so that only certain segments of your friends' list can see the post.  

For example, if you have a Facebook Friends list called 'Personal_', you can broadcast a message to that list that you might not want everyone on your friends list knowing. (notice the underscore at the end - 'Personal' seems to be a 'reserved list' in Facebook)

To do this, you would type in (or create in the game) your post as usual, and then click on the little 'lock' icon before you click on 'Share' and select 'Customize' (since we don't want everyone seeing this):

Then, a dialog box comes up to let you customize the post's security:

In this example, we're going to 'Make this visible to' Specific People..., and then enter the name of the list, "Personal_".  Note how this looks, with the shading and the "X" (deletes your selection when clicked).  This lets you know you got it right.  You can also add names of people in this box, just start typing and they should start showing up for you to select them.  Unless you want to change your default setting (and undo all the hard work we did a few minutes ago), leave that box unchecked.  Just click on Save Setting, and then 'Share' your post.  Only those you've designated will be able to see what you posted.

It's a REALLY good idea to practice this once or twice with a friend before trying it 'live'.  I've seen a LOT of posts where people THINK they are posting to only a few people, but....no.  

The use of Lists in Facebook can facilitate many things.  Some people keep lists for those smaller farmers who may need certain things and post to that list only.  Some people keep a spouse or employer on a 'block' list to prevent them from seeing all the time they're playing online.  The sky's the limit!

Happy Farming!

Farmer Brown