It all started with half a dozen __ typical __ #followfriday-tweeds (=140-letter-items in twitter filled with nothing but twitter IDs and the classifying hashtag "followfriday") from RizzoTees in a row.
It annoyed me and I unfollowed RizzoTees with the following words:
bye @RizzoTees He looks interesting. He's far too busy collecting followers he's abusing the #followfriday tradition, 1 I question anyhow
At this point I need to emphasize, that 140 words make it very hard to get a message across and stay polite when the subject is loaded with resentment. I truely think RizzoTee has a lot of interesting things to say. His followfriday entries however do not fall under this classification. (At least if you ask me. Not because I evaluated his recommendation one way or the other, but because they come as naked IDs with no added incentive, no additonal info and in far to big numbers to be considered in a days work).
He responded:
@silkester what did I do?
about 3 hours ago from TweetDeck in reply to silkester
@silkester Finally, you should most definitely unfollow someone if you don't like them. I respect your right to disagree with me, peace.
about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck in reply to silkester
@silkester So I am recommending people to you that perhaps you don't know yet. It's what #followfriday is all about (I think)
about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck in reply to silkester
At this point I discoverd his response and added a few words to the why, I wasn't sore in particularly. It is a general subject, that annoys me. It's all far to much with too little consideration to scalability and human recources in one beeing. A day just has so many hours. My response propably was a tad too harsh
@RizzoTees sorry I don't consider it useful to post tons of twitter-IDs. It's just another form of spamming and doesn't do anybody good
about 1 hour ago from web in reply to RizzoTees
@RizzoTees I toss tweets fast if I observe things I dislike very much. Quality recomendations give more than a bunch of names.
about 1 hour ago from web in reply to RizzoTees
#followfriday nonsense what good is it if there are tons of twitter-IDs without any reason, comment and personal notes. followfriday-litter
about 1 hour ago from web
@RizzoTees this [referring to his statement "recomending friends"] might be, but it is still litter as we are not computers who can evaluate hundreds of tweets thus your ff lacks quality
about 1 hour ago from web in reply to RizzoTees
@RizzoTees sure peace. I don't dislike you. I dislike your behaviour in respect to followfriday. That's huge difference
about 1 hour ago from web in reply to RizzoTees
@RizzoTees I wouldn't call it bother. I call it a nuisance and disruption of my tranquillity. Consider my reasons as food for thoughts
about 1 hour ago from web in reply to RizzoTees
@RizzoTees Finally Ignore my opinion or not.Live and let live. Tschau.
about 1 hour ago from web in reply to RizzoTees
RizzoTees responded
@silkester So, to me, they are high quality recommendations. Part of #followfriday is meeting people you don't know yet
about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck in reply to silkester
@silkester I respectfully disagree, only because I am eFriends with each of those Twitter users. To me, they are not random
about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck in reply to silkester
@silkester sorry bloke, I do Twitter on speed, sorry if it bothered you, peace brutha
about 3 hours ago from TweetDeck in reply to silkester
RT @silkester: bye @RizzoTees He looks interesting. He's far too busy collecting followers he'S abusing the #followfriday tradition,
about 3 hours ago from TweetDeck
And it ended in a blogentry for a larger discussion:
An alternative viewpoint on #followfriday http://bit.ly/5H1Uo (or at least, someone that dislikes how I do it)
about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck
@silkester I see what you're saying. We have a slight difference of opinion, but u have good points - I blogged about it http://bit.ly/5H1Uo
about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck in reply to silkester
@silkester lol hey, at least you didn't call me any really bad names! : - )
about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck in reply to silkester
He didn't mention my name. Only because I called the act spamming doesn't mean I categorize him as spammer. I don't think this incident requires any annonymity on either side. As pointed out, 140 letters tend to reduce the message to a bleak pointy knife, that cuts deeper than one might intend to.
In the little time I joined twitter I accumulated round about 200 accounts from friends or the chosen few by subjects that interest me at the moment. Already I miss out a lot. It's in the nature of twitter to observe only random glimpses of your fellow-twitterer. It is an odd format.
What does follow mean?
I don't question following in the technical sense, but in the deeper meaning, what it means to the indivdual, what he gains from it.
What does he learn by following a friend or person of interest. Twitter itself gives no instruments to organize the tweets or your fellow-twitterer. Thus it completely melts together in a big soup of a long list of short messages and the list is cut short and reduced to twenty items which one might prolongue with the button "more" at the end of the page by another twenty items.
The frequence of tweeds and their quality highly influences your ability to follow anything in twitter. Unless you want to spent all day in twitter working through your list of fellow-twitterer in your following-list, checking out new twitterer, you don't follow anybody but catch the odd glimpses from random twitter-accounts from your following list.
Collecting more twitterer and the glimpses become more random, less significant. Finding the few twitter-friends you really want to follow thoroughly involves more work consumes more of your precious little time. In view of this situation, I fail to see the benefit in the way #followfriday is done by many twitterer.
Even if I assume that each and every ID is from a friend with a twitter-account worth following (meaning not all boring cat-'n-dog-tales or invitations to Lolita and her used car dealers). Even if I assume these IDs belong to twitterer, who have a certain way with words, are interesting news hubs, are great explorer of the internet with links to pages worth opening, tweeds that are funny and make your day ervery once in while...
How am I able to distinguish between the follow-me-follow-you-jerks who think big numbers make a big man and those who "just have a lot of friends".
To tell the truth, it doesn't even make a difference. I don't need more twitter IDs. Any ID lacks value in any kind as long as there isn't additional information on the person, on the subjects written and how it might relate to you.
I don't have a suffisticated BOT with enough artificial intelligence, who can sift through #followfriday-twitter-IDs and analyse them in regard to my personality and my tasks at hand to reduce them to a handful of tweeds I actually could evaluate and select eventually for my ever growing following-list.