Being Followed

This is on Twitter, I mean, not being physically stalked in the street. I and my ever-present CHUM have a range of ways to deal with the latter anyway...but that's not something I can ever discuss here!

On Twitter, I am perpetually getting new 'followers' – those who have decided to include my tweets in their own customised timeline as it's called. I usually get two or three a day: it never seems to ease off at all significantly.

These new followers seem mostly to fall into one of five categories...

1. Genuine: those who have a real reason for wishing to follow me, for who I am;
2. Commercial: those whose profile makes it clear that they're trying to sell me something, or similar;
3. Spammers: those who hope I am one of those who will automatically follow them back, so that all their spam gets into my timeline (easily checked by looking at their list of tweets: gives the game away!)
4. Hackers: those who have usually already hacked one of my regular contacts' account and that person now seems to be sending me links. These turn out to be hacking sites, easily ascertained by (again) looking at their list of tweets. One of our Police Commissioner candidates (would you believe) has fallen for this three times that I know of in recent months;
5. Political opponents: their aim is to spot something they can use against me, ideally (for them) that can act as a smear against others as well. They also use me as an access point to troll and/or otherwise pester others with whom I am in Twitter conversation. As a basic courtesy to those others, I tend to have to block the offender from access to my tweets. Put yourselves in my place and see if you can come up with an alternative: I haven't yet found one.

Nearly all of my new followers fall into one of these groups. Obviously the fourth group gets blocked as soon as I have checked what is going on (and never clicking on any provided link), the second and third category types usually un-following me after a few weeks, once they realise that I am not so gullible after all, and Iallow the fifth category ones as much as I can.

If those ones try too much manipulation, or make any personal smearing attempt at all, then they end up blocked. I might relent after a couple of weeks and give them a second chance, but any repetition and it's then a block for life. I really dislike dirty people, and that's among the dirtiest on-line behaviour of which I know. They are no loss; and it is entirely their own doing.

Perhaps they'll learn from the experience, but I doubt it...

I Can Be Intolerant Too

Occasionally I have a bout of bringing to a head all those 'connections' that have been annoying me for a while. In the case of Twitter, I go through a (generally short) session of what is known as unfollowing a few others I had been following. I have done so with three tonight.

Those I select for this procedure tend to be ones whose on-line version of verbal diarrhea – usually on one or perhaps a few subjects, continually repeated – just gets to be too much (so goodbye to AngelNeptuneStar and PolleeTickle) or obsessive on an unpleasant – to me – topic. Therefore, goodbye also to LoveThyTruth, whose obsession with the ladies and making what is supposed (by any decent person) to be private embarrassingly and perpetually public.

Interestingly, with the former, I might have developed an interest in looking into the HS2 railway business, but this experience has put me off completely and I now have next to no interest in it.

I'm really not interested in that ego trip any more than I want my Twitter timeline to be bombarded with endless tweets about HS2. Anyone competent would know how to summarise and thus ration their output in any session/day on the same topic. The rest of us know how to do it, so it isn't exactly difficult.

The bottom line is that it takes a lot for me to snap, but when I do I will not hesitate to cut offenders out of my consciousness. Perhaps if and when they learn how to handle the medium properly I could then re-follow them – but I'm not interested in doing so until and unless that happens!

Tweet of the Day – 26 May 2012

It's Eurovision Song Contest evening, and as usual I have been ignoring most of it. This tweet from one MazyDavy, though, caused me to switch it on for a couple of minutes...

"romanian entry is techno waybuloo with comedy bagpipes"

Y'know, after listening carefully to the Romanian entry, I think he has a (good) point!

Paper.lie

I have noticed for some time, as I have reported here before, my name appearing on Twitter as being a 'contributor' to on-line pseudo newspapers produced by the paper.li site. I am then credited within the linked on-line publication. It seems that all one has to do is sign up for this and it then automatically produces something that resembles a newspaper on a daily basis, and many of my followers have done so.

I see these 'dailies' mentioned every day when they are produced by for someone I follow on Twitter, and occasionally from others when I am listed as one of those (indirectly) responsible for one or more "top stories" in their edition-of-the-day. In practice, it is rare indeed that it is something I have written myself that is featured in the 'newspaper', but something I have re-tweeted and even then it's invariably from a link, as that's how the stories are garnered.

The problem is that this is in effect a lie: I did not write the material seemingly being attributed to me by association, nor does it necessarily mean I hold any views that are expressed in the linked material – I might have been pointing to it as a model example that makes a point.

For example, there are some pieces written by Lefties that are so obviously crass and ill-informed, not to mention often from a different planet, that they are amusing for the rest of us to read and a useful reminder of the warped way Lefties think. I don't tweet with the intention of having it picked up and re-used in this somewhat different way.

This example has two 'from' me of which one such extracted link I have not even visited: it merely copies to my followers a point that another was making and whose Tweet I re-tweeted – nothing more. The result at paper.li is at best misleading by having my Twitter ID (with its link) attached to it, and I can foresee similar scenarios arising that would be a lot worse than that. That just happens to be the most recent instance: there have been plenty of others.

The whole idea of these fake newspapers is no doubt flattering to the ego of someone who subscribes to them, and probably makes one feel important and significant by having these things in one's name – indeed, their site's 'sales pitch' is very much along those lines. However for those of us having our own efforts in effect misrepresented it is no fun at all. I wonder how many examples of my own have occurred but I haven't been aware of them...

The whole project is severely flawed and often misleading, also of doubtful worth as some of the ones I have seen have been nothing more than dead ends. One of 'my' own, over the weekend, led to a paywall barrier so that was all that appeared in the 'newspaper'.

If the subscriber were to have the ability to check the draft and delete or add to it before it is published, and did so every time, then perhaps there'd be very little potentially contentious and obvious dud material and attributions included. Whatever the get-out clause might be, and the excuses that can be made, in reality it is a poor facility and no-one who wishes to retain their integrity in the public perception should touch this facility with the proverbial barge-pole.