The facts: 4,239 Facebook users are members of N.C. State’s Student Wolfpack group page. The page is meant to keep an open line of communication between campus and students in a venue students are familiar and comfortable using.

Our opinion: While in past years student participation has declined on the page, this year students are interacting more than ever. With this new interaction is the need for change.

The page was started by 2010-2011 former Student Body President Kelly Hook to increase communication; however, the functionality of the page was limited due to Facebook’s features. Currently, the page has adapted-thanks to Facebook’s new add-ons-so students may post comments, announcements, events and a variety of other happenings on campus to a wide swath of the student body.

The Facebook page is perhaps the single greatest form of communication Student Government could have created in order to achieve its goal of connecting to the student body. However, with great innovation comes great responsibility.

2011-2012 former Student Body President Chandler Thompson explained the page’s comments were moderated to ensure “members aren’t attacking other members.” While this is a nice sentiment, Student Government should recall a little thing called freedom of speech. It is one thing to delete comments when you have an explicit policy; it is another to do it at random. One could suggest there is a bias for setting the standards for what “attacking” looks like on the page.

To rectify this, the page should have clear guidelines in the “About” section highlighting the purpose of this page and the type of comments that will be removed and why. Having these standards would give users a more general idea about what the page is and what the expectations for user behavior look like.

To further solve this issue of a biased setting of standards, Student Government should expand the moderators of this group so it is not just a single person. A novel idea suggested by current 2012-2013 Student Body President Andy Walsh: “…we should have some Student Government staff monitoring the page so answers to questions would come from Student Government as a whole…”

Not only would the response be efficient, the variety of views represented by having more moderators for the page would better represent the student body when highlighting the community standards.

Taking this one more step, Student Government could further utilize this page by requiring representatives to post a brief blurb about a topic discussed in a meeting. Rather than merely advertising for various sorority fundraisers, the page could pose questions to the student body from their elected representatives and receive instant feedback.

The possibilities are great; however, the administrators of the group must seize them in order to expand the page’s efficiency. They’re on the right track, but need to be pushed to understand where the page should end up.