Rules for effective and non annoying tweeting

I do not have the ability to have tweets sent to my phone. As such, I have to read the days tweets when I get home from work. I try to only follow people that I'm actually interested in, but still, I have to weed through an awful lot of junk that I DO NOT CARE ABOUT. So many of them are pointless and irrelevant. But that's Twitter, right?

Wrong! I do not accept this!

I present to you my rules for effective and non annoying tweeting.

1. Be interesting. You'd think this would be a given, but it's not. Don't just post about what you think is interesting. You have an audience on twitter, cater to them. Your friends are, in truth, only vaguely interested in you; try to post things that will be of interest to THEM and not just to yourself.
   
   
2. Don't live by your number of followers or lists. That's lame. When someone unfollows you, don't cry or take it personally. It shows a lack of grace and maturity. If you must, how about just send a polite Direct Message to them asking something like "I noticed you unfollowed me. May I ask why?" Don't whine about it all over twitter. Sometimes people just loose interest, it's not a big deal.
   
   
3. If you post something instigating and trite, be prepared to be called out on it. You're free to express your opinion, but don't expect others to lay down and take something they find offensive.
   
   
4. Relationship tweets. We don't need to know how much you love your gf/bf or how often you love them. On the internet, that's equivalent to PDA, and that's just rude and annoying.
   
   
5. Getting your frustrations out in a tweet? Awesome, no problem. Whining continuously over a series of tweets? Annoying.
   
   
6. Throwing out some statements about how awesome you are or about something amazing that you've accomplished is fine, people even like to hear it sometimes, they can be impressed or proud of you or whatever. But filling your day (and filling my recent tweets page) with nothing but statements such as, "I wrote 40k words today" or "Came up with an amazing new scene for story, am aching to write it" or "Drawing a portrait; it's turning out awesomely" makes me want to slap you. How about just saying "I'm excited about this writing/art/whatever project"? This is social networking, not ego networking.
   
   
7. Posting what you're listening to? Is often lame. If you've just discovered something new that has totally blown your mind and you really want to share it with people, by all means, go for it. But again, it's the repetition that gets me-- I don't need to know every song on your current playlist, I really don't. Take a few moments, get a Last.fm account, and scrobble your crap. Listing what your listening to, tweet after tweet, is obnoxious.
   
   
8. Direct messaging: Don't abuse, don't misuse. If it's not a sensitive matter, you can use a regular reply, you don't need to DM! (I have been Direct Messaged with ridiculous simple replies such as "Yes." and "Nice." before.) Don't abuse the DM either; if you've got a lot to say, SEND AN EMAIL.
   
   
9. What the hell is the point of Follow Friday? Does anyone actually follow new people thanks to that? Maybe. If you're going to do it, at least list people who are actually interesting! Not just your BFF's that you feel you have to list to show them how much you heart them.
   
   
10. Cut back on the automated notifications in tweets. I'm not following you on YouTube/Facebook/Blogspot/whatever because I have no interest. If you want to bring some attention to your offsite thing of choice, especially for those new to you, post a link to it sometime-- but please, not a link to your new update every day.
    

Everyone is bound to break these rules or have exceptions, that's just the way we are. But try to keep some things in mind when you're tweeting (or posting on the internet in general). Try to not annoy people.

Why I broke up with Neil and Amanda: A look at Twitter PDA.

Have you ever had a situation where you found yourself in the middle of a relationship? One day, you're laughing and interacting and having a good time. Then without warning you're tied down and you didn't even realize you were dating? Words expressing love and joy and need are thrown back and forth. Things are moving way too fast. YOU NEED TO GET OUT, AND YOU NEED TO GET OUT NOW! But it's too late, you've already gone past the point of no return.

This is what happened to me. But here is where it gets twisted - I was in a love triangle. With Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer.

Before you get your panties in a twist and before I get sued for libel, I never actually dated either of these two people. But I felt like I was a part of their relationship. Like thousands of other people who follow the pair on twitter, I was made privy to their love and feeling and emotions for each other because the two are unable to filter their private thoughts, call each other, or send a text message. How about an email? Nope, declarations of love were casually tossed left and right. They downright pined for each other. I felt like the rest of their tweets were just filler to support their blatant love shrine.

Do you really need to exhibit your relationship for all the word to see? Are you that uncertain that you need the public eye for validation? I didn't know they were dating until I saw it on Twitter and had a wtf moment.

The last straw for me was when Gaiman posted a message on twitter, meant for Palmer, and didn't even tag her. It consisted of Gaiman expressing his love for Palmer and letting her know TWICE (in the same tweet) that he left a voicemail for her. I would quote the exact message here but the tweet was posted two months ago and I'm not masochistic enough to sift through the rest of his public relationship, even for further mocking fodder.

Good thing I'm not his editor. Sure, repetition is for emphasis, but he crossed the line into pointless redundancy. I unfollowed them both.

And if Amanda, or anyone, uses twitter as a primary source of communication without good reason, I pity them. I always check my voicemails before twitter, because that's the intelligent thing to do. Epic fail, Neil. Epic.

Let this be a lesson to you all. If people aren't willing to take it from Neil and Amanda, why should we take it from you? Food for thought.