The Archbishops are nearly always out of date and threatened by new technology. - Sally Church

Well, considering the 'community' use to be heavily structured around a church, this has little to do with social networks and more about people seeking connection outside a institution that they no longer feel is super-relevant. I guess you can't pass the collection plate around on Facebook :) - Johnny Worthington

Like Robert, I think the Archbishop is dead wrong. The internet is extending our community and helping us extend our connections to friends and friends-to-be through time and space. That an Archbishop is decrying social networking probably guarantees that social networking is here to stay. I bet that Archbishops were warning against the harm the printing press would wreak on learning, too, back in the day. - Jason Miller

Perhaps the point is not coming out very well: the type of community life he is referring to is not what we see today. A key word is "transient". Face to face, small community, porch society, church-bound communities of times past made it harder to "delete" someone off your "friend" list in the time it takes today to click your mouse. A lot of factors are involved here and the space... more... - Melanie Reed

It will be very easy to test the validity of what he is saying: watch what happens to the quality and concept of loyalty in the years ahead. Will it wane? will it become obsolete? He's saying he sees that now. What happens in a society when loyalty is no more? - Melanie Reed

It's funny, friends of mine I met via Twitter in San Antonio go to @ImagineChurch which incorporates Twitter and other online means to connect people. That's just one example of online community blending into Real Life connections- I can say without a doubt I've connected with my community more via online means than any other. - Robert J Taylor from iPhone

Melanie, I think I understand what you're trying to say: the Archibishop's position is more nuanced. However, social networking technology is giving us a social mobility that's not much different from that given us by cars. But it's better because it helps keep us connected to our communities, so long as those communities are online. - Jason Miller

Jason, yes, you got it. His position is nuanced on the foundational. I am particularly interested as I am a "constant" if you will in scientific terms. ;) You see, most of my relationships by necessity and through circumstance (not of my choice) have been online since I am mainly home bound. I was not always home bound. I have been able to make some rather interesting observations about how people act in regard to what they consider "friendship" when you are not mobile. - Melanie Reed

What the archbishop is also implying is that we are missing our chances for (propinquity) and are sensing the loss of affection attendant to that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... in our social media world. That "lonely in a crowd" feeling almost everyone has experienced at some point in their lives, if not more often than they would like even now. - Melanie Reed

Lindsay: What's your address. I will mail you one of these LOL - http://www.zazzle.com/hashtag... - Mike Bracco

They're just distracting to me. In a forum like FriendFeed where you can do full text searches, I'm not sure what they really do but clutter things up. Personal preference, I know, but I don't like them. I am big on regular tags though. There should be a way to tag a post without using hashtags that would also not be displayed unless you wanted to look at the tags. - Lindsay

@Mike - that's the most attractive hashtag I've ever seen. :) - Lindsay

Ugly, yet highly effective. - Jason from BuddyFeed

@Jason - are they really? How do you make sure everyone is consistent? They're no good unless everyone plays. - Lindsay

I rather like them. #affection - Gordon Herd

Right now people are abusing them because they're new... I think once the dust settles, they will be utilized properly (read: sparingly) - Bwana ☠

I hope so, Bwana! - Lindsay

I use Delicious for tagging resources I want to find again. - Peter Warnock

Yeah, they're kind of a punch in the eye, visually. And you can't eat or smoke them, which, if you're gonna throw 'hash' in the name, you should be able to consume in some non-virtual way. - ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ from iPhone

I agree. I don't think it's needed. It's ugly and distracting. I mean, we have threads. It's not like twitter where everything is a individual post and the need for tagging came about. - Rodfather

From a semantic perspective, they are powerful. How about a setting that filters the hashes from the view? - Peter Warnock

Gordon points out that a hashtag creates a link to the ff search query for that keyword. - Peter Warnock

I don't find them very attractive either. - Anne Bouey

#UGLYDUCKLINGS - Josh Haley

I #love hash #tags. And #at tags too, @bluecockatoo. - ·[▪_▪]·