Shalom! Welcome! Come on in, make yourself at home, have a browse. I'd be interested to hear your comments. And please do come again!

Oct 18, '07 12:19 PM
for everyone

Some people have asked me why I use Multiply - what's the point when you can use email?

One major difference between Multiply and email is that what I post here can be seen by people who don't necessarily know me.

But for those who do know me, this is where you can read things that I wouldn't dream of sending you by email as I wouldn't dare to presume that you would all want to read them. I would not send an email to everyone I know telling them about the latest idea to hit me when I was having a shower, or about my car not starting one day, or about my hunt for beef sausages in the supermarket. So this is where I can post all these things and leave them there so that whoever wants to, when it suits them, can have a look. But just like with a newspaper or magazine, you are free to read the bits you like and ignore the bits you choose to ignore.

I also like the way group discussions can easily develop here. And I like the way I can define access rights for each posting, so that some things can be visible to everyone, some can be accessible only to people who know me, whilst I can even define some items as for family only, or for a few individuals.

When Gerry invited me to join Multiply a few months ago, I thought: oh well, okay, but what's it for? But very soon I started to see what I can do with it, and a few months down the line I can hardly imagine life without Multiply. (Thank you, Gerry!)

So what am I saying? You don't have to be like me, you don't have to start posting stuff, many people don't - many just join so that they can look at what their friends/relatives post here and add the odd reply. It costs nothing to join - the payment, as with all these free websites, is your consent to the appearance of adverts on your computer screen - and there is a huge amount of flexibility here, so you can decide how much of your profile is visible to the rest of the world, and you can say whether or not you want email notifications about postings. I started off with email notifications and quickly decided to go without, as it got a bit tiresome to get an email telling me that Richard sneezed... (Sorry, Richard!) [Actually, since writing this I've gone back to using email alerts, as I find it so much easier to glance through the emails and choose what I want to pause and read. If you choose to do that, I highly recommend that you log onto the website before reading the emails, as that way we get to know that you've read what we posted - a bit more encouraging! ed. 8 Jan 08]

[Ignore this bit - see my reply - this has now been done. 8 Feb 08] One thing I'm waiting for them to change is this: I would love them to set up a separate category of people you don't really know but have bumped into online and would like to keep in touch with. When I first saw the Online Buddies category I thought that's what it was for. But when you post something you can't specify access for Friends but not for Online Buddies, which is why I have to keep saying No to people I don't know who invite me to be their Contact. Which is a shame really, as it could be a nice way of getting to know people. [Ignore this bit - see my reply - this has now been done. 8 Feb 08]

But apart from that - I think it's great.

End of sales pitch for now

Tags: multiply

Prev: Looks like I might have something in common with King Solomon...
Next: Living in England Part III: Sunshine doesn't necessarily equal warmth

reply share

25 CommentsChronological Reverse Threaded

Comment deleted at the request of the thread owner.

meirav wrote on Feb 8, edited on Feb 8

Wow! At long last my wish has been granted. We now have Online Buddies as a separate level within Contacts, so when you post something you can choose if you want to include them or not. You can also go into your account settings and change the "who can see my email address" etc setting to exclude Online Buddies. Which means we are now free to link up with someone under this category without worrying about too much exposure. Well done Multiply!

P.S. If you're going to take advantage of this new option, you will also need to go into each of your existing postings that you want to keep private and change the access settings to exclude online buddies. And in addition to the Account Settings, you also need to go into your profile and change the settings in there. Still, I reckon it's worth it!

snowburst wrote on Mar 20

Ok, I was really confused by the dates you posted on your edit. I thought, "It's not August yet. Maybe she put the wrong year." Then I remembered that the update just occurred shortly after I joined Multiply. So I was even more confused until I remembered that - oh, right - I'm American, which means we do things a bit backwards from the rest of the world (like calling a game that mostly involves passing and carrying "football"). When my son asked the other day why we don't use the metric system like everyone else, I said, "because we don't know how to count by tens."

meirav wrote on Mar 20

:-)

Comment deleted at the request of the author.

qhyyim wrote on Mar 31

it's a universal forum,
read anywhere you can connect to the internet --
writers would do well to spell any date in a universally-readable format

( e.g. 2008.Feb.8 )

meirav wrote on Mar 31

Yes, of course you're right, I hadn't thought about that. Have now edited the dates to a clearer format. I knew about the American way of presenting dates, but living in England it's easy to forget and just write the way you're used to.

I must write dates in a way that's clear to Americans too. I must write dates in a way that's clear to Americans too. I must write dates in a way that's clear to Americans too. I must write dates in a way that's clear to Americans too. I must write dates in a way that's clear to Americans too. I must write dates in a way that's clear to Americans too. I must write dates in a way that's clear to Americans too. I must write dates in a way that's clear to Americans too. I must write dates in a way that's clear to Americans too. ..... Is that enough, teacher? Can I go home now? :-)

snowburst wrote on Mar 31

LOL

Sorry. I wasn't asking you to change. It would be nice if we Americans would broaden our minds a bit. We could start by not calling the Superbowl winners the "World Football Champions."

Just a little pet peeve of mine.

I do data entry, and a big beef with my supervisor is that, since we are supposed to key the "proper country name" as found in an ISO database for the Place of Birth field, but if an applicant writes Northern Ireland in the POB, I cannot key United Kingdom, but have to key Ireland.

It doesn't even matter that I showed her PROOF that the full name of the UK is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

meirav wrote on Mar 31

Oh dear, that is unbelievable! Do they have such a thing as an atlas in the US? :-) Northern Ireland is very definitely part of the UK and not part of the Republic of Ireland. You have my sympathy for having to work for such people.

But I think the mind-broadening thing is universal, not just American. The Brits are very good at assuming that their way is the only correct way of doing things, I have come across some very nice people here who are still able to talk about people in other countries in terms of: how strange, why do they have to do it in such a strange way? (strange = not like we do it) I remember a girl I worked with in an accountants' office in London, one day she had to phone a client in Turkey and when having to give her name on the phone she was so totally surprised to be asked to spell it out, her tone of voice when doing so was very impatient, like talking to an imbecile, and then she put the phone down and moaned about these idiots who don't even know how to spell such a simple name. I told her I'd never come across her name before I came to England, and I got one of those looks that are reserved for "stupid foreigners"...

Having said all that, I'm conscious that I as an Israeli living in England look at their "strange" ways through Israeli eyes and that there are some areas of life where I'm absolutely convinced that our ways are the best and I can't see why the English can't do things our way... (though there are some areas where I prefer their ways!)

snowburst wrote on Mar 31

meirav said

(though there are some areas where I prefer their ways!)

Surely you don't mean things like kidney pie!

qhyyim wrote on Apr 2, edited on Apr 2

and if they write Tibet -- or Taiwan -- does your employer require you to translate it as "China" ??

snowburst wrote on Apr 2

Tibet, yes. Taiwan, Macao, and Hong Kong, no. But North and South Korea are considered the same country in our database - just Korea. They consider Scotland and Wales as United Kingdom, but England is just England. As you can see, this peeve is already on a roll and doesn't need any more encouragement.

meirav wrote on Apr 2

Oh my goodness, Leigh Ann, how do you cope?!!!

snowburst wrote on Apr 2

LOL I write a blog! ;) You should see my "Places You Won't Find in Wisconsin" post in honor of all the keyers who think Jamaica, Barbados, and Aruba are in WI because the applicant wrote W.I. for West Indies.

meirav wrote on Apr 2

Oh, that's brilliant! I must go look up that post of yours.

snowburst wrote on Apr 2

I think it was in October of last year. You'll be able to see it, but it's for contacts only because it's work related. Still, it's literally just a list of countries to be found in the Caribbean, any of which our keyers will key Wisconsin's abbreviation if they see that W.I. afterwards. One of several things I do at work is audit the other keyers' work, so I get to correct all these lovely little mishaps.

One of my contacts lives in Wisconsin, so when she commented on this on Yahoo, she said, "If the Bahamas were in Wisconsin, I'd be the first in line to go there!"

meirav wrote on Apr 2

:-)

qhyyim wrote on May 5

( just to keep it all together ) re Ireland:

elsewhere, snowburst wrote on May 2 --

we are now allowed to key Northern Ireland as United Kingdom (DOS straightened my supervisor out).

But there's a glitch that I don't dare tell my supervisor -- she forgot to mention that Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland are two different things, where the latter should still be keyed as Ireland. Whoops.

snowburst wrote on May 5

qhyyim said

elsewhere, snowburst wrote on May 2 --

we are now allowed to key Northern Ireland as United Kingdom

LOL I'm amazed you remembered where I first wrote about that.

qhyyim wrote on May 5

may have been our first meeting?

snowburst wrote on May 5

Why, I do believe it was. And under a post about why to choose Multiply. How apropos.

meirav wrote on May 5

I'm not at all surprised that Haim remembered. This is one of the things he's good at - he seems to have some sort of internal archive in his brain, with excellent retrieval facilities. (Sadly this trait doesn't seem to run in the family!)

qhyyim wrote on May 11

and in case he doesn't quite recall,
the Multiply "Search Content" will do the trick

( as long as he does remember some relevant key-words )

snowburst wrote on May 11

qhyyim said

the Multiply "Search Content" will do the trick

LOL works for me!

audio reply video reply

Add a Comment

meirav

Do you know Meirav?

Who is on Multiply?

Want to learn more?

Already a Member?

Shalom! Welcome! Come on in, make yourself at home, have a browse. I'd be interested to hear your comments. And please do come again!