# Why use Discourse over Linkedin, Google, or Facebook Groups?

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-use-discourse-over-linkedin-google-or-facebook-groups/10171
**Category:** Community Building
**Created:** [2013年十月2日 20:07 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-use-discourse-over-linkedin-google-or-facebook-groups/10171 "2013-10-02T20:07:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 16

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### Author: ![Greg\_Swallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7ea924/32.png) [@Greg\_Swallow](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Greg_Swallow)
#### Post date: [2014年五月31日 05:12 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-use-discourse-over-linkedin-google-or-facebook-groups/10171/16 "2014-05-31T05:12:17Z")

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I think if someone is trying to decide if they want to use a Facebook group for example or discourse, one feature you could say Facebook has is that everyone is using their real name (well most people).

I signed in to discourse with Facebook, but there is no indication I did. I’m sure not all discourse forums would want this, but for some communities it might be a bit of a built in reputation system if discourse would verify somehow that you logged in with a certain Facebook account, or Google+ account. For a community with a buy and sell section for example I can see how this would be good. For example, I’m in a couple Facebook groups exclusively that are buy and sell type of groups, but there is no way that those groups can be effective discussion groups too, as there are 1000+ members and it is just full of posts of items for sale, no real way to have categories. But there is a sort of built in trust system there, making Facebook attractive for groups like that.

I searched and part of this has been asked for, having the Google+ or Facebook profile pic become their avatar - [Retrieve avatar automatically from Google/Facebook/X](https://meta.discourse.org/t/google-avatar-not-associating/11879)

I would even go further and have an indication in the person’s discourse profile, like a link to their Facebook account and some sort of “Verified” checkmark like the blue checkmark some twitter accounts have. Maybe you could even verify your Facebook, Google+ and Twitter if you wanted to. Anyone like that idea?

edit - Here’s some info on how to format an icon or ‘badge’ link to a profile:  
facebook profile badges: [https://www.facebook.com/badges/](https://www.facebook.com/badges/)  
and google+ badges: [Google+ API Shutdown &nbsp;|&nbsp; Google+ Platform &nbsp;|&nbsp; Google for Developers](https://developers.google.com/+/web/badge/)

edit - the multiple logins to one discourse has been asked for too - [https://meta.discourse.org/t/allow-authentication-via-multiple-services-on-one-account/6242](https://meta.discourse.org/t/allow-authentication-via-multiple-services-on-one-account/6242) - just doesn’t seem to mention displaying in your profile that you have authenticated with multiple accounts, which I guess wasn’t the intention of that topic.

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