Facebook integration

When thinking about promoting Geohashing I thought that it would be really nice if an expedition page would have a link to share the expedition with two clicks. I played with this and in theory this shouldn't be that hard to implementand is more of a question of placement:

Share this expedition on facebook!

which in nowiki looks like

[http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u={{SERVER}}{{localurl:{{PAGENAMEE}}}} Share this expedition on facebook!]

The problem is that facebook either takes the contents of a meta tag called "description" as the description or the first paragraph that's long enough to look like a good description. This leads to interesting descriptions which you can't really post without editing the description again which in turn defeats the one-click-done purpose I have in mind. Examples with the auto-descriptions picked up by facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing/2011-03-21_50_10

Awww rubbish, didn't see the expedition page until it was too late. Will try to reach the hash tonight 
after work to get the consecutive*4. Will probably be the last in the row though as the one tomorrow is 
too far out :(

http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing/2011-03-20_49_8

The point is only about about 5 km west of Heidelberg, so it should be easy to walk there. For most of 
the way, I'll just have to follow a street that I've already used during other expeditions (here, and here). 
I won't miss that chance to add another walk geohash to my collection. --ilpadre 11:33, 

There could be several things to improve this:

• Introduce a wiki-wide meta tag with a short description of geohashing, so that there's a sensible description by default for any link posted from the geohashing wiki. Obviously an admin would have to help with that.
• Change the template for expeditions to have a "Summary" section first with an explanation that it has to be at least X characters/words long for it to be used by e.g. facebook. People can still ignore the section if they want to.
• At least put a comment in the template explaining that the first paragraph might be used as a description. At the moment the "Location" section is first, so that would have to contain at least X characters/words

And apart from that: would anyone strongly disagree if we include a link like the above in the expedition template? I'm thinking of including it with the map on the right, below the links to Google, AG, etc. Of course there are more sophisticated methods of "integrating" this but you got to start people thinking ...

- Mampfred 13:35, 22 March 2011 (EDT)

(Sorry if this proposal would be better off somewhere else ... where then?)

>would anyone strongly disagree if we include a link like the above in the expedition template?

Yes, I would. I personally hate facebook for promoting the idea of a single, permanent and real user identity, which I think is the worst thing that could ever happen to the internet, which is why I avoid facebook whereever possible. Of course this is just my opinion and I don't mind some optional link, but I would not want ir forced on any of my expedition reports. Koepfel _talk 18:27, 22 March 2011 (EDT)

I like seeing ideas for promoting the game. I don't think anyone objects to having more geohashers. That said, I too am one of those people without a facebook account. As long as there's no chance that I'd miss out on something because it was on facebook and not the wiki, then go for it. --Juventas 23:33, 22 March 2011 (EDT)

I support the link. -- relet 18:38, 26 March 2011 (EDT)

I support. - Greenslime 19:36, 11 April 2011 (EDT)

I dislike Facebook (for all the really good reasons Koepfel mentioned), but I'd support an optional template with such a link, that people could add to expedition reports if they wished. And I strongly support having a general "description" tag added to all pages. JesseW 04:42, 8 May 2012 (EDT)

We might also add an option to share pages with one of the multi-service sharing thingies -- I don't remember the name of them... JesseW 04:42, 8 May 2012 (EDT)

I also support a generic share button with one of the multisharers rather than just facebook. -- relet 10:10, 8 May 2012 (EDT)