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My Twitter accounts | |
| @ikluft | @KO6YQ | |
| What it means | my first initial and last name | my Ham Radio callsign |
| Overview | aviation, rockets, space | radio, software, technology |
| Topics |
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Likewise, I try to keep my tweets generally newsworthy. For topics with more personal details that I just want to share with friends, I take those to Facebook.
With the exception of a few friends, generally I don't follow people whose tweets get too personal, like what they're having for meals or other mundane happenings in unfamiliar cities far away (unless they're telling us about a vacation.) The most common reasons why I might not follow you are...
- You tweet too much
- It overwhelms my feed. Even if it's interesting stuff, I won't let anyone prevent me from hearing my other friends.
- TMI
- There are many articles online about this. For example, see "Twitter TMI Syndrome and How to Avoid It".
- You tweet about things I'm not interested in
- I had to deal with this too. That's why I split my own accounts between @ikluft for aerospace and @KO6YQ for tech. I heard that tweets on each topic were driving away followers of the other.
I block and report spammers. See @spam.
I know that a lot of people use Twitter like a follow-fest, expecting others to follow them in return. That's fine. Don't take it personally if I don't follow you back. I might add you to one of my lists instead. I read Twitter as a news service that I try to keep at a readable pace. On the other hand, anyone who does cycles of unfollowing and refollowing me to keep tossing a reminder in my mailbox... I just block them.
For people that I do know, we probably also want to connect on
Facebook and/or LinkedIn.
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I only connect as "friends" on Facebook with people whom I have actually met. I've become a lot pickier about who I accept as friends on Facebook as the system's reputation for privacy protection has declined.
I block most applications on Facebook. If you send me a quiz, I'll probably block the application and unfriend you. Facebook isn't important enough to mess with that.
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So like with Facebook, if I don't respond to a connection request, we probably haven't met. Don't take it personally - it's just how I use the system. Send an e-mail and introduce yourself if you want. I enjoy meeting people with common interests.
For most of us it goes without saying that we still use e-mail. It's hard to say whether the Internet will evolve to a point where that ends. More likely e-mail will evolve at some level to follow the Internet's trends. Only another internationally-recognized and widely-deployed communications standard could ever replace it, not just any single-company web site.
I ported the first full-featured mail server software to Linux in 1992, and maintained it for some years for the Debian and Slackware distributions of Linux to get them started with it. So I was the first administrator of a Linux e-mail server. And my e-mail site at home, which pre-dates commercial ISPs, is the longest-running Linux e-mail site in the world because it was first.
Of course, I maintain my own web site on Kluft.com. So for me the social networks are useful tools to keep in touch with friends. But I already have the resrources to post information or photos online.
I used to participate as an editor at Wikipedia - that's social media but not a social network. Eventually I followed the droves who are giving up on participating in Wikipedia because of the rampant incivility. Dysfunctional social media erodes its own foundation. Wikipedia has an article about a 1970's paper which describes the element of Human nature which is turning into its own downfall, "The Tyranny of Structurelessness". Organizations which call themselves unstructured do have structure - but they default to letting the last bully standing have the last word. That's rarely good for recruiting volunteers.
I also maintain many wiki web sites that use the TWiki software - and I do some software engineering contract work for TWiki.Net.
As the Internet social landscape changes, I'll probably use some other systems. We could even set up some smaller-scale local social network projects at the South Bay Community Network, of which I'm one of the founders and currently an officer of the non-profit corporation.
Created by Oatmeal |