Can't turn peoples updates off.

I just did a little experiment now:

1. Sending "OFF" when notifications are already off.

I tried sending "off user1" for someone I'm following but for whom notifications are currently off.

I got the same response as you: Can't find that person. Did you misspell the name?

2. Sending "LEAVE" when notifications are still on.

I used the webpage to turn notifications on for that person, and then I tried sending "leave user1".

The response: "you've left user1's updates. Send 'get user1' anytime to get user1's latest update, 'follow user1' to follow again.

When I checked the website, my notifications for user1 had indeed been turned off.

3. Sending "LEAVE" when notifications are already off

As a final test, I sent "leave user1" again (but I did not turn notifications back on before doing so).

I received the first response: Can't find that person. Did you misspell the name?

My conclusion:

Both "leave" and "off" are valid keywords.

If the username is spelled correctly but notifications are already off, Twitter comes back with a misleading reply: "can't find that person" when we send OFF or LEAVE.

I guess a more precise reply would have been "can't find that person in the list of people you're following whose notifications are currently set to on".

If you feel up to experimenting a bit, I'd be interested to see if you get the same results as I did in my three tests above. 8-)

Interesting...I'll check it out...Thanks for the reply, mdy!

Ok, here's the thing....I don't want to leave the person, I want to keep following them, I just don't want their updates on my blog. For example, ars technica leaves 2 pages of blogs pushing me and my friends replies off the screen so it's a bit of an inconvenience...

arstechnica is in my list, and twitter says it can't find them. (?)

Could you kindly clarify: When you say "blog", do you mean your Twitter home page at http://twitter.com/home ? Or do you mean a blog elsewhere?

When I say blogs, I mean twitters.

Ah, okay. I understand now. I was thrown off earlier by the use of "off" because that's used primarily for IM and Mobile. I didn't realize you meant the web page. Sorry about that...

Unfortunately, the only way to remove someone from your Twitter web / home page is to stop following them.

Like you, I have a few talkative friends, so I understand why you'd want to filter out high-volume people on your home page. I had actually put in a request earlier this week for Twitter to have a feature that is very similar to what you're looking for. I hope they'll consider it. 8-)