What is the twitter ettiquet?
The Internet is bound by unspoken rules you have to learn and follow so you can play nice with all the other web kiddies out there. These rules make you “polite” and “sociable” in this free space, where in actual fact you could to anything you want. But of course you run the risk of be ignore or booted from what ever it is you are doing.
No one likes the idiot who runs around SHOUTING at everyone, or someone who won’t shut up when you are trying to play Quake. Most of the time the rules are obvious, as long as you are not being annoying or upsetting someone then its OK.
But sometimes a new technology comes along that is a little different. Something that looks a feels like it is something you know, but there is something else to it that does not make immediate sense.
Feeling Twitter
This is how I feel about Twitter. I thoroughly enjoy using it, it is sitting right there in my browser now.. just waiting for someone I know (or don’t know) to pop up and say something. I have it on my phone, in my web browser, where ever I am I need my feed.
I was sitting on a cold train station last week, and beside the usual thoughts of “damn trains” and “bloody hell its cold” was “I know I’ll twitter this” so I did, and I was rewarded with a voice of the friend coming back at me (actually telling me how he won’t takes trains any more.. thanks Sideswipe).
For the first time I am some how at the front of this new technology, as it grows at its rapid pace I have already amassed a large number of posts, a few followers and some people I follow. This is something of a novelty for me. Most people would tell you I am not the most social person, not unpleasant, but I am just as content being on my own as I am with others. So feeling the need to blog the tiny details of my life is a little odd, but I am getting used to it.
The Rules
So this brings me to the question… what are the rules of twitter? What do I have to do in order be nice other people? At first it seems obvious, find people you like and follow them. Simple! Well its not quiet like that.
What do you do if someone you don’t know starts following you? There are three types of people that will follow you:
- Spam Mongers. Easy problem to fix, ignore them and report their name as spam to @Spam
- Companies. Easy again, just let them follow you and ignore them. Twitter is for you to put stuff out, not to listen to their advertising.
- Some one normal that is just listening to what you are saying. Now this is a problem.
The random follower
So now you have someone you don’t know following you. So what do you do? Should you follow them back out of politeness, even though doing that will cause all their posts to gum up your own posts. Should you ignore them, and will that make them upset?
I have resolved not to follow anyone I don’t know, or I am not interested in. So I will look through their posts and decide. But if I don’t think I will read it, I just won’t follow it. But I have no way of knowing if that is the right thing to do. The only guidance I have is other people I follow, seeing as most of them are my friends they don’t really count.
The other, more famous people I follow have caused me a problem. I followed them because I was interested what they were up to. But then they started following me. Now what do I do? Woo hoo! I have Stephen Fry following my twitter… oh crap, my life is mundane in comparison, why on earth would he want to read what I have to say?
So a simple rule of thumb, follow people you are interested in, don’t feel obliged to follow someone just because they are following you. But check up on them from time to time, you might find something you like.
I will follow you from now until the day I day
OK great. So now you have a load of followers, and you are feeling a ton of performance pressure (thanks Stephen, that’s all I need). But very quickly you forget who these people are (lets face it most are probably not listens to your ramblings) and you carry on.
But you find your twitter full of one of these peoples posts. You have decided they are actually quiet dull, so its time to dump them. But are you allowed to do that? There’s a dump button, but that does not mean you have to press it. What if they are following you?
Again a simple rule saves the day. Don’t follow someone you are not really interested in. If they stop following you then who really cares? There is a good chance they never even read a single post.
Fin
This was supposed to be a short post on what I think of twitter, and how I am enjoying using it. Seems to have turned into quiet a lengthy post on the rules I apply to twitter. I am going to be trying to write shorter, more frequent posts, this one seems to have gotten away from me.
