Possibility: The guy’s friends and family aren’t aware of this highly debauched and explicit book he wrote, and it didn’t occur to him that people who are aware of the book could find him on Facebook, and possibly vice versa, so he freaked out and shut his profile down.
Secondary possibility: Facebook barfed and deleted his profile at a really inopportune moment.
This is an interesting theory, though it seems pretty unlikely to me. I can’t imagine he would want to hide a book that he published, himself, under his own name, from his friends and family, especially since the book has been out for almost nine years.
I have a couple of friends (not very close friends) whose profiles have sporadically disappeared from Facebook only to later reappear. It’s happened several times with one woman in particular. The first time this happened I assumed the woman had unfriended me, but then I didn’t see her on the friends lists of mutual friends either. I thought then that she must have deleted her profile, but a few days later she appeared again on my friends list. This means she can’t have UNfriended me, as re-friending me would have required sending another friends request.
Since I’m not all that close with this person I’ve never asked her what was up, but I suspect it’s some kind of glitch with Facebook. This woman has a LOT of Facebook friends, upwards of 1000, so maybe the system can’t always handle it. I guess it’s also possible she occasionally sets her profile to be more private and then changes it back, but I can’t think why she’d keep doing that again and again.
Another possibility, he was originally flattered and happy to friend you but then had second thoughts about having strangers as friends on facebook and decided to unfriend you and make it difficult for the same situation to happen again.
Looks like he left FB. If you choose one of his friends from the cached profile, and look at their friends list, he doesn’t appear.
You contact a complete stranger and the first thing you do is ask him about his religious views? Doesn’t that seem a bit forward to you? Even if his book dealt with such issues he may not want to talk about private matters with strangers. I know I wouldn’t want to.
He’s already talking about his religion with strangers by publishing the book. Any author who writes anything and allows the public to see it is taking on that responsibility. Of course, it’s his choice to not speak to anyone about it, and I don’t begrudge him that, if that is (as it seems) the case here.
Regarding Facebook if you make a comment on your wall, how do you edit it? I don’t use it very often but always wondered how to edit a comment you make on your own facebook page?
I don’t think you can edit them, but you can remove them. If you mouse over your own post, a “Remove” button should appear on the right.
I do the same thing with my facebook account. The option for showing up on being searched can be fine-tuned in the privacy setting. You can set the privacy to be only searched by friends, friends of friends, or by everyone. There’s an option at the bottom that allows you to add exceptions to the rule. This allows you the ability to modulate whether people in your network (e.g. school, city, et. al.) can view your profile. This ability can further be utilized by changing how much information is available to the public.
So, you are not necessarily blocked, just un-friended, and he ramped up his privacy settings.
But I do that mostly to hide from the in-laws
I’m not sure about Facebook etiquette and I can’t speak for Mr. Keshner, but I’ve always considered private messaging something to be used for matters that are truly private or personal.
I’m a member of several car-electronics message boards (similar in layout to the Straight Dope boards), specializing in installation of alarms and remote starters.
All past discussions are there, with plenty of useful information, for anyone who wishes to use the search feature. That’s the beauty of it: I might answer one person’s technical question (or he’ll answer mine), but the answer remains there for many others in the future.
In my opinion, private messaging is for something like “Chris, are you looking for work?” Or: “Chris, I’ll be in your city next week; let’s have coffee.”
Whenever I receive a private message with something like “Chris, what color is the starter wire in a 2006 Altima?” I don’t even answer it. The person should have put the question on the public board for all to answer, and all to see.
If I had a question for Mr. Kesher about some of his religious beliefs, or asking him to clear something up from his book, I would have put it on his “wall” or whatever the public part of his Facebook is.
That happened to me recently. A friend of mine disappeared from my FB friends and then suddenly reappeared. But he’s gone again now, and he suddenly shows up in search, but it says that the page could not be found, I may have clicked an expired link etc. So I’m not sure what it could be, unless the account was taken down. Or maybe a FB glitch.
A Facebook user can block public searching of their Facebook profile (I do):
Has the guy gotten a public Facebook for his life as an author yet? Nearly every person in the entertainment business that I am aware of has this set up. That way private stuff stays private, but you still get to reach out to your fans. And, surprisingly enough, a lot of rather famous people do respond if you talk to them.
It’s not strange - he just blocked you, that’s all. Unless I’m missing something the OP never said his profile ceased to show up on Google; he said it still shows up in Google search results, but when the OP clicks on it it now takes him to an error page. That’s exactly what happens when you block someone.
The issue with people “disappearing” from Facebook periodically is a different one; I have a few friends who’ve done that. I think it just means they’ve ramped their privacy settings up to the fullest extent, such that no one can even see them. But from what you the OP described it sounds like the classic case of blocking someone. It might not be personal; it might just have been the first time a reader found him on Facebook, and maybe that was something he hadn’t anticipated and realized he wasn’t very comfortable with. That would explain why he accepted your friend request then blocked you, to try (obviously unsuccessfully) to avoid seeming rude.
I have friends that occasionally suspend/‘delete’ their facebook pages, and something similar happens - all their comments etc will disappear (which is what prompts me to go looking), but sometimes their name and icon will still show up on your friend list or in searches, for a while at least. But when you try to click through to view their profile you can’t, it tells you something’s wrong/expired. And they are also unsearchable through google.
I’m sure it’s them ‘deleting’ their FB profile rather than blocking me, because it’s usually people I know IRL who have done it, so they tell me themselves and I hear from other people that their account is suspended.
Jezus, I can’t believe this thread is still kicking. Yes, he just blocked me. I’ve had one further exchange with him since this thread; he keeps to himself and lives a very private life. I respect his privacy.
Similar situation. On mobile I can follow name link but page disappears. The change happened today. Is it deactivated and I’m looking at cache?
Some tags are gone, some present.
Has user deleted account or blocked and changed privacy?
[real name and Facebook link redacted by moderator]
If you log out of Facebook will the profile still be blocked for you, as in on the IP level? Can you block IP’s, vs. users? [I’ve never used FB so pardon my ignorance…]
[moderating]
While anyone is welcome to post their own personal information here (as I have done), please don’t post someone else’s without their permission. I have removed the name and Facebook link from your post.
[/moderating]