For most people, I imagine the next two weeks will be pretty busy with traveling, shopping, baking, socializing, and myriad other holiday-related activities. So rather than write any new posts that may get lost in the hoopla, for the rest of the year my posts will link back to earlier ones on some of my most popular topics, with any current updates and links to other related posts that may be helpful. But don't worry—I'll be posting lots of new content in 2010, so do be sure to check back when the madness finally dies down!
I really should send the folks at Facebook a gift basket to thank them for all the traffic they've driven my way this year by virtue of their never-ending interface changes, confusing privacy settings, random bugs, and completely unwillingness to fix common user problems. Case in point: the nightmare that is trying to add a friends' posts back to your timeline after you've hidden them, whether accidentally or on purpose.
This post has the most up-to-date information I have on how to do this:
The Latest on How To Unhide Friends on Facebook
The thing that makes this even more frustrating is that they actually had a solution that seemed to work for most people earlier this year (adding them back on your Friends page)—and then they took it away!
The situation also became worse when they launched the latest home page design, where you have two different possible views: Live Feed and News Feed. For the Live Feed, Facebook added a setting to the number of people whose posts would appear on your page and set the default at 250. So if you have more friends than that, you could be missing some friends' posts even if you didn't hide them yourself. You can find a fix for this problem here:
Bug Alert: Friends Are Missing from the New Facebook Live Feed
One thing you need to pay attention to is whether you're currently on the Live Feed or News Feed view, because the Edit Options box referred to in the post isn't the same for both of them.
Now, there may also be occasions when you can see your friends' posts on your home page, but they can't see yours on theirs. That's a whole different kettle of fish and I addressed it here:
Reader Question: When Your Facebook Posts Don't Show Up on Friends' Home Pages
Note that with the recent changes to Facebook's privacy controls, the screenshots in the above post (and way to get to them) may be slightly different. But the concepts are still the same.
If you're still having trouble seeing some people's posts and none of the fixes in the posts above do the trick, please let me know so I can see if I can track down another solution.
Posted in Facebook, How To, Social Media, Updates
