Prokofy's dashboard

Oh, and worse, it puts people in the blacklist spam bin if they have lots of people they are following, but only a few followers. Geez, you're going to ban some A-listers with that technique ROFL. Like @techcrunch.

Ugh, that's disgusting, and typical of the geeky smarmyness to invent a smug and arrogant little oppressive tool like that, killfile for Twitter. Ugh! Go away! There aren't just 'spammers" on that list but "people who are obnoxious" in your highly subjective opinion. Ugh!

The beauty of social media, GeekMommy, is that you, a nobody, a nothing, just by getting on the A-listers list, like @QueenofSpain, can live vicariously and bask in the richness of A-listness. Ain't it grand? Twitter is as good as Second Life in that record.

I'm not controlling discourse; you are. I'm not advocating that anybody be muted, banned, expelled, or that any censorial tools be added. You are. Difference.

Your behaviour on Twitter constitutes a social graph of sorts. I'm the last one to want to pin anybody to the wall of their social graph -- I hate the very concept of the marketing social graph, but here, it's a useful way to show how you are -- look at yourself, gabbing all day lol.

On this issue, you are right in with the e-mommies. If you have other things you agree with me on, that's great, but you're behaving oppressively now. Don't do that.

You fall into that geeky fallacy -- as Geek Mommy, not surprisingly -- that anyone who forcefully expresses their opinion and sticks to it in the face of the horrid Lord-of-the-Flies social pressure of social media is "forcing their opinion" themselves. Do you realize how common this is, how frequent geeky types with your culture try to force this fallacious idea on other people?! It's awful!. It's like a curious inside-out of what in fact those horrid types themselves do.

If I were "forcing my opinion," I'd be calling on the mods to expel, censor, stop track. But...I'm not. I'm telling everyone to leave Twitter alone, leave it free. That's my right; indeed, my duty as a person of conscience. Your trying to falsely construe that as "trying to control others" discredits you readily. – Prokofy, on May 05, 2008 01:52

Sorry, but you do not speak for me, such as to bark "We, the Twitter Community" at the owners. You are not elected nor appointed. You are not the arbiter of taste or TOS enforcement -- and thank God for it!

Again, if free speech on a service like this troubles you, go back to YMs. – Prokofy, on May 05, 2008 01:47

This @panopticons, and somebody else named @shitlist have both retweeted or copied my comments and put them out so that they show up when I read my vanity feed.

I chose not to be bothered by such behaviour since it's just not important to me: keeping Twitter FREE is more important.

I wouldn't *have* to be abused by this nit in order to take part in what is a *broader discussion about the ramifications of the tools* and a *larger issue of the freedoms of Twitter.*

Sorry, but you don't get to dumb down this issue just to your little case, and your little huffing and puffing about a situation in part of your own making at this point.

And apparently you cannot block other people freely posting here, thank God, it's not one of those MMORPG type forums with the fangirlz and GMs muting and blocking the view of people. Just scroll. Scroll is yo ur best friend, if you find yourself having a spasm of intolerance.

Again "trolls" is an artifact of geeky Well and MMORPG culture and it has no place in a liberal democratic discourse such as this one. – Prokofy, on May 05, 2008 01:45

motownmutt, that's typical TOS language, and frankly, this sort of language will start changing as social media has to serve more and more as *the* media and as *the social space*.

Your notion of what is abusive is rather overbroad, as it combines real serious incitement of violence and RL intrusion or actual factual demonstrable libel with just somebody who's a nit on Twitter.

I don't think you get to abitrate this -- we've established that. And I'd urge the owners to keep as specific and factual and impartial a notion of this as is possible -- given that the language itself is overbroad.

It's not that this creep is "rendering tracking tools useless". He isn't affecting any command or doing any hacking. It's a kind of social hack at best, that plays right into the vanity-feed problem. So the social workaround is to...care less about your vanity feed, and...scroll faster past stuff you don't like.

Re: "We protect freedom of speech up to a point, but all politics aside, when what appears to be an unstable person starts acting abusive and intimidating to what appears to be a person minding their own business, I, for one, sit up and take notice."

Uh... who is "we"? I'm not part of your "we". And you are not a "we" that controls this board. You can't decide by remote Internet whether someone is sane or not, especially given people's propensity for spoofing and charading and pulling stunts.

And portraying this person as "minding their own business" isn't accurate -- they are trying to agitate, fight, annoy this person back. So their response is predictable.

I wonder how many people in this thread understand the meaning of the word "Panopticon" historically.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon

1) Mosqueda is not the only arbitrer of what our troops feel, nor the arbiter of what emoms are -- I, for one, am totally turned off by the emoms I have seen here b) it is about vanity feeds, 01000101, because you can only see this guy if you WISH TO and that means IF YOU TRACK YOURSELF. Don't use vanity feed track if you don't want this. I have no motivation or reason to "argue for the sake of arguing". I'm concerned about the overall openness of Twitter. The idea that somebody who doesn't agree with you is "off-topic noise" and "bloody-minded" is just plain weird. I wouldn't say that about you. I simply think you have too narrow a take on this subject and need to zoom out more. – Prokofy, on May 05, 2008 00:32

Sounds like he just likes to spout idiotic insecure fake-bully stuff. He's not face-to-face. You're on the Internet. You're home, and you're safe. He's just an idiot. You can't take such abuse so seriously that you restrain-order all of Twitter expression just to satisfy your little dictatorial wishes. – Prokofy, on May 05, 2008 00:18

doug, the issue isn't them just showing up in your regular feed, it's about showing up when you use the track function, which is when you have a vanity-feed, using track to see what others are saying about you, what they are writing using the @sign. – Prokofy, on May 05, 2008 00:17

No, because Twitter isn't a crowded theater where yelling "fire" has any consequences, it's the Internet. Queenofspain is certainly highly manipulative and controlling. Of course calling anyone a "Nazi" is a quick trip to Godwinism and doesn't build the case. On the other hand, your freaking about this and using it as an example of "abuse" is tenuous, at best. – Prokofy, on May 05, 2008 00:10

Oh, I totally understand the concept of violent freaks making a space not democratic. That's why on my own blog, I make sure commenters only use RL names or SL names that are recognizable.

But feeling "unsafe"? That's a stretch. If you have put your RL info on your website and linked it to Twitter, you will have to realize you are not safe in some real absolute sense. You will be noticed; anyone could in theory stalk you. Don't follow your vanity feed so assiduously, it will then make you freak out less. – Prokofy, on May 05, 2008 00:08

You're incapable of reason, apparently, and can only argue from some highly-subjective specifics of your little situation -- and that frankly, I fear far more than some insecure loser on the Internet wagging around some "fear" stick. He's ridiculous because it's obvious his methods are wrong. You're more of a problem because your insularity isn't as visible as a problem.

I am not a troll, and I reject the idea that anybody who disagrees with you, or doesn't stay on topic as you believe it should be done, or as some little posse of your gal pals think it should be done. This sort of insularity and small-mindedness is really more of a problem to the republic of Twitter than the occasional obvious Internet loon, precisely because you may get legs with this kind of small mindedness.

You can't call to mute/censor out people in a normal democratic debate, it's ridiculous. Don't do it. it's not necessary. And again, if this Internet freak is bothering you, *stop reading your vanity feed*. – Prokofy, on May 05, 2008 00:06

You're incapable of reason, apparently, and can only argue from some highly-subjective specifics of your little situation -- and that frankly, I fear far more than some insecure loser on the Internet wagging around some "fear" stick. He's ridiculous because it's obvious his methods are wrong. You're more of a problem because your insularity isn't as visible as a problem.

I am not a troll, and I reject the idea that anybody who disagrees with you, or doesn't stay on topic as you believe it should be done, or as some little posse of your gal pals think it should be done. This sort of insularity and small-mindedness is really more of a problem to the republic of Twitter than the occasional obvious Internet loon, precisely because you may get legs with this kind of small mindedness.

You can't call to mute/censor out people in a normal democratic debate, it's ridiculous. Don't do it. it's not necessary. And again, if this Internet freak is bothering you, *stop reading your vanity feed*. – Prokofy, on May 05, 2008 00:06

Actually, I'm not at all convinced of your thick skin when you are in high-octane macho mode here, protecting your tribe and your turf. I have people on Twitter who say the most vulgar and horrible things to me. Look my name up and see absolutely atrocious stuff like how I "need to get a man" and I "better use that mouth for what it was meant for" i.e. fellatio. Ugh. Because...I disagree with some twit on Twitter?! Nobody deserves that.

But rather than reaching for AR buttons, letters to mods, screeching to my friends, hit lists of stalkers, or screams for a feature command to remove people I hate from my vanity feed of track with my name I just leave it alone. I don't look at it. I see those people turn up in my feed? I ignore them. THey are typical unhinged Internet losers.

I sure to have every place to argue against your petition because a) you do not have a valid and democratic notion of what constitutes abuse -- it's highly subjective; b) we can't be certain this is a TOS abuse -- and TOS are notoriously vague and very subjectively enforced or not enforced; c) your demand for action on abuse of the TOS and kicking of this person has ramifications if it serves as a social and TOS enforcement *precedent*. I dno't mind if this freak is abusive -- he can be ignored. Let the good push away the bad. I mind if Twitter is wrapped up in a Valley strait jacket in its early stages and its democratic and open possibilities are snuffed out due to NewsGangism. – Prokofy, on May 04, 2008 23:11

I'm very much on topic, and sorry, you're not the arbiter of this. You may find my larger conceptual points "noise," perhaps they are pitched over your head if you don't think conceptually. Understood.

The problem is that your little problem of what you view as harassment of your little community as you define your little posse is something that has larger ramifications. Your reading of somebody's dissent against your use of Twitter as "a violation of the TOS" or as "wrong" or as "sick" is just the sort of thing we can't allow to get legs in a democratic society, because it's just too oppressive. You're just not enlightened enough about the meaning of these terms, and their ramifications.

GeekMommy, you as one of those Valley-insiders (even if not physically in the Valley), and as one of the smarmy little school marms trying to control Twitter, are part of the problem not part of the solution.

Twitter is *too* a democratic society. The company making Twitter can make an intramural or internal corporate communications device for all you and little girlfriends in the Valley, and all your little male geeky friends, and sell it to you for a high fee, if they don't want to be "democratic".

My understanding is that Twitter is bigger, and more lofty that that narrow, self-serving goal for you all.

There is nothing inherently built in to social media run by private companies that makes it a benevolent dictatorship UNLESS YOU BECOME THE DICTATORS. It's just that simple, GeekMommy and all the other little e-mommies. You don't get to be the dictators in social media; your pressure on the mods and the coders to become oppressors on your behalf is really unseemly. Let's hope they won't cave to that, let's hope Susan Wu, one of their enlightened VC funders, will not let Twitter devolve to the usual MMORPG "benevolent dictatorship".

I have as much right as anyone to articulate my view on the governance of Twitter. Indeed, Twitter itself encourages the free and open discourse of its governance issues. If decides to suppress debate and dissent about its own governance, we're in trouble -- social media is doomed to be a mere manipulative tool for marketers and power-mongers among techs in the Valley.

I won't stand idly by while that happens. You do not have any authority; I won't cede it to you. I absolutely do have the right to judge whether you are acceptable, using obvious values of universality and human rights. And you are *not* acceptable for wishing to have your little posse control governance and discourse. – Prokofy, on May 04, 2008 23:04

Mosqueda, take a deep breath. All the guy is doing is taking very legitimate and needed dissent against @QueenofSpain and @emailourmilitary, two A-lister, very pervasive presences and very judgemental presences on Twitter, and trying to twit them back precisely because they *are* so blanketing. I find them really suffocating myself -- their echo-chamber views are insular and self-referential, and their chatty girlfriend talk on such a high-visible public forum, with constant fanning and self-adoration by their followers, is really smarmy. They are nasty and catty about people they don't like. They are gushing and ass-kissing to those they love. They have hugely opinionated and intolerant views, i.e. knee-jerk pro-Obama. It's repugnant. Yet Twitter is not for the faint-hearted -- you have to expect to see people you don't like on here.

He's reacting to an actual phenom that makes quite a number of us, I'm sure, puke -- self-referential affluent Valley girls trying to take over the discourse.

His methods are unacceptable. But the more people fight him, the more he will dig in his heels, because he's got a point -- people trying to block out dissent gainst those girls aren't at heart "wrong", just dissenting against their takeover of social media.

His saying, while weird, has a point: people live in glass houses on Twitter, they want all eyes on them constantly, they want adoring fans (people like @QueenofSpain) and yet they also demand the privacy to "dress in the basement" when they feel like it. And I say: you can't have both.

I don't see that there's necessarily anything psychotic about this guy, although is vulgar, crude and nasty language is disturbing.

I'm not willing to let YOU decide what is "sick" or "wrong" because I don't trust you -- you are too reactive.

Furthermore, you may not be aware that many people using DSL lines have dynamic IPs and trying to block them is hard or impossible or creates to many false flags. IP blocking isn't a solution.

Not tracking your vanity feed *is* a solution. If you absolutely MUST see your adoring fans, let your eye not rest on anything spammy or vulgar and save your blood pressure.

That's just the problem. You want your cake AND to eat it, too. You want to be public and accessible. But you want to get rid of any people you don't like. And when that is replicated as a practice across a system, especially by paranoids, insular insensitive narrow-minded freaks, sectarians, neuralgic A-listers, manipulative e-mommies -- well, we're in trouble. In means they control the discourse with this practice. You imagine your Twitter is polluted; perhaps your bandwidth isn't sufficient for an open public dialogue. Then...don't follow your vanity feed.

Kosso, we got all that. We got that blocking a person on the Twitter functions won't knock them out of the vanity feed, as it is on the twitter API and it read on both your track AND by third-party APIs. I'm saying that if this bothers you so much, if you cannot ignore the occasional misuse of it, if you are so reactive and thin-skinned, then close up your Twitters and don't take part in a public dialogue where people very different than you, and very diametrically opposed to you have a right to co-exist and be heard. Indeed, the moral issue of then being seen is at stake too, if the old media is replaced by social media.

I marvel at the inablility of people to think systematically and conceptually about Twitter. Try to extrapolate out from just your little usage of it and what bothers you, and understand system-wide ramifications of a nation of blockers out of their vanity feeds! – Prokofy, on May 04, 2008 22:48

I disagree, and it isn't because I have some organized "agenda" here, I simply find your tone and your argumentation facile and silly. My right to disagree in fact is established by the Constitution and separation of powers. If all that backed that up was military might and military suffering, the First Amendment would not be credible, and wouldn't have survived these centuries. Military might, even with suffering, cannot justify a republic alone: it must operate under the rule of law with the consent of the government.

Twitter isn't "disregarding the populace". You are *not* the populace. You do not speak for all Twitterers; you are not elected nor even acclaimed by any huge number of followers. Your notion of what the Twitter managers are doing is just your notion. It's not shared by everyone. Try to put yourself in perspective. – Prokofy, on May 04, 2008 21:22