Tag Archives: opinion

Twitter Spam

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Turning a fun thing into more marketing crap.

I’ve been using Twitter for about two months now. It’s part of my daily routine. Unfortunately, other people have also been using it — for their own selfish purposes.

How I Use Twitter

I start up my main Mac and Twitterific automatically appears. I use it to scroll back to see what the folks I’ve been following have been up to for the past few hours. Sometimes, their tweets include links to interesting articles on the Web. Other times, they give me ideas for articles or stories or just things to think about. And other times, they’re just plain boring. Let’s face it — we can’t all be interesting all of the time.

I tweet throughout the day while I’m working. I also have something set up somewhere (I forgot now) that automatically posts a tweet whenever I post a blog entry. That’s all automated, which is a good thing. On a good day, I can put out 5 or more entries.

I like the reassuring tweet and ping sound when a new tweet comes in on Twitterific. I work alone at my desk with only Alex the Bird (in the next room) and Jack the Dog (under my desk) for company. While Alex does plenty of talking, none of it is very meaningful. Getting tweets from people I follow is like hearing from the outside world. I may be physically alone, but there are people out there doing stuff and thinking about things and they’ve made me part of their world by tweeting. Andy’s doing his computer and hacking stuff all over the U.K. Miraz is raising her dogs while working at a desk in New Zealand, not much different from mine, 20 hours into the future. Leanne is practicing her saxophone, doing gigs, and teaching at a college. Mignon is researching and recording podcasts and getting interviewed. Mike, the good dad, is doing stuff with his kid and making plans for the next addition to his family. It’s digital but it’s live and real and it gives me company throughout the day. And, in more than a few instances, I’ve actually learned things from these people, most of whom are complete strangers to me.

I also tweet when I’m out and about. When I invested in my Treo, I also invested, for the first time ever, in a text messaging plan. I get up to 250 text messages a month. That might not seem like a lot to the folks who text to their friends and family members throughout the day, but to me, it’s a ton. So I post tweets via telephone. (I also use my Treo to post photos to my TumbleLog when I happen to see something interesting or funny.) For example, I tweeted whenever possible during my recent Alaska vacation and maybe — just maybe — I gave a few folks some ideas of what to see or do if they ever head up there.

Enter the Opportunists

If you use Twitter regularly, you’ve likely gotten e-mail messages from Twitter telling you that you have a new friend and offering a link to that “friend’s” tweets on the Twitter Web site.

At first, you might feel flattered — here’s a stranger that wants to keep track of what you’re doing. You might decide to thank him or her (or it — sometimes gender is unknown — by making him/her/it your friend.

But stop! Wait! Do your homework.

I’ve discovered that more than a few Twitter users don’t give a damn about anyone else’s tweets. All they want to do is suck other Twitter users into following their tweets. And their tweets are full of self-promotional bull or plain old advertisements.

Take, for example, PersonX. I won’t use this person’s name because, until recently, I was following her tweets and she may still follow mine. I didn’t realize it at the time, but PersonX had at least 3 Twitter accounts. It should have tipped me off when all three became my friends at the same time. Two of the accounts — I’ll call them AccountY and AccountZ — were for informational “services” posted as tweets. One, for example, provided quotes from literature. I can’t remember what the other one did — I didn’t stick with it long. PersonX’s tweets were all about how popular AccountY and AccountZ were getting. Or, if they weren’t getting popular, they were musings about why they were being ignored. It was pretty obvious that this person’s accounts were solely to promote herself and these useless services.

One particularly popular Twitter member tweets throughout the day with the latest on who he’s interviewing and what cool new product he’s been allowed to play with. Then, later in the day, he releases a bunch of @name responses to the people who have tweeted directly to him all day. Reading a dozen of these in a row — especially when you’re not following the tweets of the person he’s responding to — is a real bore. Thank heaven Twitter only allows 140 characters. I could see a person like this filling the bandwidth with one-sided personal conversations that no one else cares about.

A few other people I’ve followed in the past just tweet links to articles they’ve written or promotional material. Someone who’s curious might follow these links and, thus, waste a bunch of time reading ads. There are quite a few of these people out there. More than there should be.

All this, in my opinion, is Twitter spam.

Do Your Homework

It’s easy to prevent yourself from adding self-promotional opportunists as Twitter friends. Just do your homework in advance.

How? Simple. When you get an e-mail message telling you that PersonY has added you as a friend, click the link in the message that displays the person’s most recent tweets. (This will be something like http://twitter.com/username.) Read them. Decide whether this kind of content is something that interests you. If it’s not, ignore him. If it is, add him as a friend.

Removing a Friend

About Me on TwitterIt sounds cruel, but if someone you’ve added as a friend turns out to be someone who posts a lot of crap that you’re not interested in, it’s easy to remove their Tweets from what you see.

There are a few ways to do this. One way is to go to your Twitter home page (http://twitter.com/yourname/) and click the Friends link in the About box on the right side of the page.

This will list all of your friends:

Image

For each friend, you should see at least two links beneath the Friend’s name:

  • Leave username basically ignores the friend for a while by not displaying his links for you.
  • Remove username removes the friend from your list of friends. I’m ruthless, so this is the one I usually pick.

To my knowledge, the friend does not receive an e-mail message saying that you have left or removed him. So you don’t have to worry about insulting him or him bugging you about it.

Oh, and if a Twitter member is obviously using Twitter solely for spam-like communications, do us all a favor and report him. The Twitter team offers a form for assistance; you can use the same form to report a Twitter member’s unacceptable behavior.

I Still Like Twitter, Despite Any Shortcomings

I still like Twitter. It makes me feel as if I’m part of a community, even while I’m sitting alone all day in my office. I’m just very picky about who I follow — I have only 33 Twitter friends as I write this — and I’m quick to turn off the Tweets of the people too quick to promote themselves or their products.

And I think that’s vital for any serious Twitter user.

Vox "Blogger" Copies and Pastes

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Another blatant case of copyright infringement.

I use Google Alerts to find articles that might interest me. Today, while going through a list of articles that came in earlier in the week, I found an article titled “Mac OS X Vs Windows Vista.” I clicked the link and was taken to a page on Vox, yet another blog-based social networking site. The blog entry began with the following brief introduction:

Doing my daily read of the news papers today and I came across a story asking which is the better OS, Windows Vista or Apple’s OS X. me I’m a mac users so I already know which is the better OS lol. Anyhow I’m sure you don’t want to read my one sided thoughts lol.

What followed that was a sloppy paraphrasing of the entire text of an article called “Vista versus Mac OS X” on Blogger.com. The Vox “author” had obviously copied and pasted the entire piece into the Vox-hosted blog, then edited selected sentences and added paragraph breaks to come up with a lengthy summary.

For example, the original says this:

On features alone it’s easy to conclude that Vista and Mac OS X are now on par but this overlooks two important elements. Firstly, the feel of both products is very different. In my opinion Mac OS X is unobtrusive and its interface intuitive and clean. Vista on the other hand makes you work for it. Take for example another new feature for Vista called User Account Control (UAC). UAC presents an intrusive dialogue box that warns you whenever you try to make a system wide change or install a new application. This will annoy most users however and you can just switch it off. But doing so overrides all of the new security measures Microsoft have built into Vista and makes the threat of infection from viruses or malware more likely. In contrast Mac OS X generally still remains virus and malware free.

And the Vox copy says this:

ON FEATURES alone it is easy to conclude that Vista and Mac OSX are on par, but this overlooks two important elements.

First, the feel of both products is different.

In my opinion Mac OSX is unobtrusive and its interface intuitive and clean. Vista, on the other hand, makes you work for it.

Take, for example, another new feature for Vista called User Account Control (UAC).

This presents an intrusive dialogue box that warns you whenever you try to make a system-wide change or install a new application.

This will annoy most users, however, and you can just switch it off. But doing so overrides all of the new security measures Microsoft has built into Vista and makes the threat of infection from viruses or malware more likely.

In contrast, Mac OSX generally still remains virus and malware free.

This is just one example. The entire piece was used this way.

Yes, the Vox blogger did link back to the original article. But why bother going there? All of the important points were already available on Vox.

And yes, the Vox blogger did include the name of the original post’s author. But did he have permission to use the entire article? I seriously doubt it. Was this “fair use”? I don’t think so.

As a writer, copyright infringement pisses me off to no end. A writer takes time to think about and compose an original, well-thought-out work. Who knows? It may have taken the article’s author hours to write the piece. How long did it take this lazy blogger to copy and paste its text into his blog? 15 seconds?

Obviously, I reported it to Vox. And I reported it to the author of the original piece. And then I left a comment for the blogger to think about.

Maybe (lol) he just doesn’t know any better (lol). Maybe (lol) Vox will set things right and teach him a little lesson about copyrights (lol).

It’ll probably put him out of business. As the sample of his writing shown at the beginning of this entry indicates, he obviously doesn’t know how to write anything worth reading.

By the way, the original article, by Danny Gorog, is pretty good. If you’re interested in these matters, I highly recommend it. You can find it here.

May 28 Update: The copy-and-paste blogger has deleted the comment I left on his offending blog post. If he cared about writers rights, he would have deleted the entire post. I’m curious to see what Vox will do about this. Probably nothing.

Blogging Courtesy

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Why I think people should use some common courtesy on the Web.

Maybe I’m old fashioned or naive, but when I visit someone’s blog and read what they have to say, I would never consider posting a nasty comment that belittles or insults the author or another commenter.

But apparently, I’m among the minority. People will say anything they like in the comments, no matter how rude or crude it is. They use foul language, they insult the author of a post in no uncertain terms, they do their best to make it clear to other readers just how stupid they think the post’s author or another commenter is. I believe they do this for kicks and to make themselves seem more important. But what they really do is show how little self control and maturity they have.

Your Blog is Your Living Room

Here’s how I see it: A person’s blog is like their living room. By putting it on the Web, they’re opening the door for visitors. They share their opinions in their blog posts. They open comments to get feedback from visitors, to start discussions about the topic. Visitors can come and go as they please, they can participate in discussions by posting comments, they can share their insight to add value and help others learn or see another point of view.

I would no sooner post an insulting comment or perpetuate a heated argument in a blog than insult my host in his home.

If I read something in a blog that I don’t agree with and I want to comment to present my point of view, I’ll word my comment carefully as not to be insulting. This is how mature, educated people start discussions, the way ideas are shared in a friendly, non-offensive environment. This is how we learn from each other.

(A perfect example on this blog is the incredible string of informative comments for the post “Podcast Playlists No Longer Play Continuously.” I posted my solution to a problem and dozens of other people came forward with their comments and solutions. We all learned from this.)

If I find something in a blog so offensive that it makes me angry, I will simply stop reading that blog. Let’s face it: there are millions of blogs out there. Why should I waste my time reading the ones I don’t learn from or enjoy?

Bloggers Have a Responsibility

Bloggers, of course, have a responsibility. Allowing rude, insulting, and offensive comments to remain on their blog only invites more of the same. It’s like allowing the riffraff of the Web to take over your living room.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about at least one female blogger being threatened on her blog, in other blogs, and by e-mail. The threats are nasty and explicit, and to an intelligent person, would seem to be the work of deranged minds. They’re certainly not funny and, if taken seriously by the authorities, would probably lead to arrests.

My question is: how could a blogger consider himself responsible to the blogging community by allowing such comments to appear and remain on his blog?

The comment feature allows moderation. It makes it possible to clear offensive comments from a blog — like wiping dog crap off the carpet in your living room.

You might call this censorship. I don’t. I call it keeping things under control, respecting your fellow bloggers and visitors, taking responsibility for what goes on in your living room.

I Keep My Living Room Clean

I’ve had offensive comments appear on this blog. Some have been directed at me, others have been directed at other commenters. The comments were removed as soon as I saw them — normally within a few minutes of being posted.

But it bothers me that they appeared in the first place. That people can’t embrace the value of the blogging community and participate in discussions as mature and responsible adults. That they spend more energy typing in verbal abuse than actually thinking about what they’ve read and how it might apply to their lives — or not. That they’re willing to waste more time typing in a nasty comment than just moving on to a Web site that’s more in line with their own personal taste.

One thing’s for sure; their efforts will always be wasted here.

Site Comment Policy

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I need to make a few things clear(er).

June 30, 2014 Update
I’ve finally gotten around to writing up the site comment policy on a regular page (rather than post) on this site. You can find it here: Comment Policy.

Although I discuss my comment policy briefly on the Contact Me page of this site, allow me to expand on what’s there in this post.

Comments Overview

This site allows comments on blog posts (often referred to as “articles” here). To enter a comment, fill in the comment form at the bottom of the post. If the form doesn’t appear, click the Comment link at the bottom of the post to display it. Registration is not required.

The name, e-mail, and comment fields of the form are required. If any are left blank or if the e-mail field is an obvious fake, the comment will be deleted.

First names only or handles are fine for the Name field, as long as they don’t use words that are in poor taste.

If you enter a company name or Web site name in the Name field, there’s a pretty good chance your comment will be deleted as spam.

Speaking of spam, if your comment was posted solely to advertise a product, service, or Web site, it’s likely to be deleted as spam. I have zero tolerance for spam or spam-like postings.

All Comments are Moderated

Because of the problem with comment spam on frequently-visited blogs, this site uses two types of comment moderation:

  • Automatic moderation through the use of spam prevention software. I use two different spam prevention software packages. One can automatically determine whether a site “visitor” is really a spambot and prevent it from posting a comment. It’s about 75% effective and generally catches 5,000 to 10,000 individual spambot accesses each week. The other spam prevention package uses established algorithms to identify messages that are likely to be spam. It holds these messages in a special moderation queue for me to review. But since there are usually 50 to 200 of these messages a day, I normally just delete them without an in-depth review. The best way to stay out of this spam bucket is to minimize links within your comment.
  • Manual moderation through the review of comments that have not automatically been identified as spam. If a comment makes it through the first two lines of defense, it’s put in a moderation queue. I read the comment and determine whether it’s appropriate for this site. If it’s not, I delete it. If it is, I approve it. If it’s spam, I mark it as such to help “train” my spam detection software. If you post a spam message on this site just once, I’m not likely to see any of your future comments, since they’ll automatically go in the spam bucket.

Please don’t expect your comment, no matter how appropriate, to appear immediately or even within a day or two. I’m a busy person and try to moderate comments daily, but that doesn’t always happen. Don’t post the same comment repeatedly; I’ll just have to delete the extras.

I’m always interested in reading the opinions of others, as long as they’re presented in a reasonable and friendly way. Rudely bashing me or other commenters is a good way to get your comment deleted — or, worse yet, marked as spam so I never see one of your comments again. I’ll allow comments with differences of opinion if those differences are presented in the spirit of friendly debate.

I also reserve the right to edit comments. I don’t modify content, but I might delete something I think is offensive or overly commercial if the rest of the comment is something other readers might benefit from.

I do want to remind all visitors that I am responsible for this site’s content — including comments. I simply won’t let the site be used for anything other than a place to share information and ideas. The site maintains a PG-13 rating in both content and language.

If you believe I’ve deleted your comment because I didn’t think it was appropriate, you will be wasting your time if you attempt to repost it or e-mail me about it. Your comment will not appear and I will ignore your e-mail. It takes only seconds to delete either one, so you’re not wasting my time at all. There are a lot of small minded, nasty people out there and I’m not about to waste my time dealing with any of them.

And That’s How It Is

While I realize that this policy might be harsher than the policies in place on other sites, this isn’t one of those sites. It’s my site. You’re my guest, and I don’t expect my guests to abuse my hospitality. If you have a problem with this policy, then you have a problem with me and my site and I don’t expect you to waste your time here.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Your comments are appreciated — really! You know where to put them.

Twitter / johnedwards

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A Web 2.0 campaign.

It’s really out of control. All the candidates interested in appealing to younger, hipper voters have begun using Web 2.0 technology to reach the masses.

John Edwards is doing it with Twitter.

Twitter — in case you don’t know — is a relatively new Web service that’s like a huge chat room. You enter your comment about what you’re doing at that very moment and it appears in a public timeline, which is automatically refreshed every 2 minutes. The result: an almost live list of what twitterers all over the world are doing.

John Edwards has a twitter account, and although he doesn’t bore us with regular reports of what he’s eating and thinking and watching on television every five minutes (like many other twitters do), it isn’t exactly interesting reading. (Actually, none of it is.) But he’s got over 1,000 “friends” on Twitter who watch his twitting — is that the right word? — and they might just vote for him.

Any thoughts on Twitter? I’d like to read them. Use the comments link.

I’d also like to read opinions about other political candidates and their Web 2.0 efforts.

And if you’d like to read the drivel I’m adding to Twitter, you can find it here.