An interesting article in the Whig-Standard (now possibly with less immediate linkrot) on the interplay between Facebook and the upcoming annual party that gets out of hand called Queen's Homecoming:

That young people turn so naturally to the Internet to plan their weekend activities in advance and to meet up with others comes as no surprise to Mark Federman, a University of Toronto researcher who studies the effects of technology on society and is a former chief strategist for the McLuhan program there. "In order to have this wild, crazy debauchery you need a crowd because wild, crazy debauchery with just three guys doesn't work," he said yesterday. "So if you're planning a bacchanal, it makes perfect sense to a generation socialized in this environment to do this ... These young people have never lived in a world where the Internet has not been there."

Art Cockfield, a law professor at Queen's University and a Facebook member himself, says that not only are young people willing to post personal details and comments to such a site, but they are equally unaware of the hazards of doing so. The police are aware of Facebook and someone who posts under their real name about how much they look forward to drinking and perhaps overturning another car at Homecoming should not be terribly surprised if their comments are read back to them in court if they are later arrested and try to plead that it was a spur-of-the-moment thing.

These things are not new. In 1981 someone slipped (...surely I have written this story before...) the Vice-Principle in Truro NS a note for afternoon announcements (...I must have said this one before...) to be read over the PA system: "The girl's volleyball team will hold tryouts at Black Rock tonight at 8 pm. Bring your own ball." Black Rock was a sand pit at the edge of town and when we got there, standing off to the side on a high point watching the hundreds of kid getting ugly, fires being lit, even a car rolling - it was like Mordor down there. Sensibly we got out of there. Halifax, by comparison, in the latter end of the 80s after undergrad had what was called a Mardi Gras but it was held in October with thousands on the streets dressed up in costumes, fully full of Keith's and that other beery delight...not it was just Keith's...and no real trouble. I went as rather well done junkmail when Wally was a kitchen nook - with an actual working toaster and real toast!

Point? I dunno. It was easier to get a message passed without the police hearing before the digital era and it was a hell of a lot more fun at Mardi Gras when the plan was just to have drunken fun.