How about some marketing?

[XeryusTC]

Have you ever heard of Do Not Track Plus (DNT+), this does exactly what you want. It hides all Like, Tweet and similar from your browser and also disables their tracking entirely. It does allow you to re-show them again though. Unfortunately DNT+ is currently only available for Chrome and FireFox IIRC but there is a similar thing called Ghostery, but that doesn't allow re-adding the buttons to a webpage dynamically, it does block a whole lot more though (if you tell it to).

[kamnet]

Or, you could just have a facebook "badge" and have that link to the fan page.

[Kogut]

A like button on the openttd website would be great as well.

Yes, this would be hugely beneficial. Also, a news item that such a thing now exists.

Please don't, or if you do, use a two-click solution to avoid the tracking mechanisms for unregistered users. Personally I don't see why OTTD should help market Facebook (works both ways after all ^^) at the cost of the privacy of the community users, so it should at least be something optional.

Yes, please keep website facebook-free.

[supermop]

...
Yes, this would be hugely beneficial. Also, a news item that such a thing now exists.

Please don't, or if you do, use a two-click solution to avoid the tracking mechanisms for unregistered users. Personally I don't see why OTTD should help market Facebook (works both ways after all ^^) at the cost of the privacy of the community users, so it should at least be something optional.

Yes, please keep website facebook-free.

I have a Facebook account, but I don't really use it. In many ways I don't like Facebook, as a company or otherwise. When I see buttons to like something on Facebook, I never click them. However - that does not mean that I begrudge websites their decision to add the button. If OpenTTD has a following of people who like to talk about the game on Facebook, I think it is fine to accommodate those users. Adding a link to a Facebook page if someone wants to add it does not do anything to impinge on the privacy or rights of any given visitor to the website. As with any other service, if you do not want to use it, do not click it, or better yet, don't get a Facebook account.

I understand the reluctance of developers to devote time to working on social media - they certainly have other things to do, and I'd rather see every man-hour of developer time possible going to fixing bugs and adding patches. I certainly understand with the idea of "well if it's really important to you, please work on it yourself, as we don't have the time for it now." for projects like OpenTTD. However, what bothers me in this thread is that as the topic has shifted from 'please use Facebook' to more of a couple users discussing how they might take effort to implement this themselves, the tone has shifted as well. While the response at first seemed to be the reasonable "we don't really need that, so please do not bother devs", once it seemed possible that someone might actually make this effort themselves, the responses seem more along the lines of "I don't like that, please don't allow him to do it".

'Protecting' a like button with multiple clicks seems to suggest that OpenTTD as a group should actively discourage people from using Facebook - that the community feels it is against the better interest of a user who likes OpenTTD and wants to share that on Facebook to let them do so. The type of sentiment in a statement that we should keep the website 'facebook-free' sounds the same as if someone were to say "I really do not like Microsoft as a company, or Microsoft products. Please stop distributing Windows binaries of OpenTTD on the website, let's keep the website Mircosoft-free". The fact that new Windows users can easily see and download OpenTTD for use on their operating system does not force OSX and Linux users to buy Windows, nor does the name of the download link drive significant brand awareness for Microsoft. The assumption that a Facebook link will compel unwilling users to sign up is even weaker.


I will not be 'liking' OpenTTD on Facebook, nor will I complain about anyone working on an OpenTTD Facebook page on their own.

Best,

[FooBar]

Adding a normal link to a facebook page is no problem.
Embedding a 'like' thingy is, as it gives facebook yet another possibility to track any visitor across the web. Personally I have these like buttons blocked in my browser, but many people don't know that facebook keeps a list of every webite with a like button that you've visited. When, how many times, for how long, etc.

[Zhall]

Just tell yogscast to cast us again, and we'll take on another 30,000 players, and my views on my youtube will spike 3k on one day.