Effin, a small village in the county of Limerick Ireland, finally has a place on Facebook. Why is this noteworthy? Because it's the end of a rather silly tale filled with Effin innuendo and Effin puns.
Barry Duggan of Ireland's Independent even reports — tongue firmly planted in cheek, I'm sure — that this particular "Facebook battle will go down in Effin history."
So what exactly happened?
Well, in the beginning of December 2011, a woman named Ann Marie Kennedy called attention to the fact that it was impossible to enter or select Effin in the "hometown" field of Facebook profiles.
Instead of recognizing or simply accepting the village's name, Facebook's interface suggested that perhaps users meant to enter Effingham, Illinois; New Effington, South Dakota or a number of other places.
Frustrated that she couldn't acknowledge her hometown, Kennedy attempted to reach out to Facebook in order to ask for some sort of fix, but had no success (in part due to the social network's lack of customer service contacts).
After hearing of Kennedy's tale, we also reached out to the social network. We were informed that "from time to time [Facebook is] alerted to oversights such as this in [its] mapping system," and that the company would "look to correct it to ensure places like Effin can be liked on Facebook."
In other words: Effin wasn't absent from Facebook because it might be confused with a vulgar term for sexual intercourse — as many initially assumed — but because of a technical quirk.
But now? Now that little quirk has been taken care of and the Facebook profiles of proud Effin residents — such as Kennedy — can appropriately reflect their place of residence:
It's worth noting that some people presently located outside of Ireland still appear to be unable to set Effin as their place of choice. The reason for this is unknown at the moment, though we intend to ask the folks at Facebook for an explanation.
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