Can someone tweet a summery to @abraham? :-P Thanks, Abraham On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 00:28, Jesse Stay <[email protected]> wrote:
> Let's discuss the follow limits. I feel, as developer of a tool that > allows people to auto-follow, I have a bit of insight into this. While > there are many, many legitimate users that auto-follow others, and have good > reason to do so, some are using it as a way to game the system, build > followers quickly, break the Twitter TOS, and reduce the meaning of follower > numbers for many other users just using the service legitimately. I see > this daily, amongst a few of my own users, and while, due to our privacy > policy I can't share who they are, I do have some suggestions that would > make the API follow limits make a little more sense. Maybe you guys can > provide more insight. > > -Currently the follow per day limit is 1,000 follows per user per day. > There is no limit on the number of unfollows a user can do per day (that I > know of), and it appears as though there is also a limit of around 10% for > the number of users a person can follow more than follow them back. The > users taking advantage of Twitter have figured this out. So here's what > they do: > > A "gamer"'s typical activity is that they will follow as many people as > they can - most up to the 1,000 limit they're allowed per day, until they > hit the ratio of 10%. The higher the follower base they gain, the longer > they're able to do this. They then hope a good portion of those 1,000 > people follow back. Those that don't use tools like mine (which weren't > intended to be used this way) to unfollow everyone who is not following them > back. This is often much greater than 1,000 for the users that are really > good at it. The process then starts over. They'll use tools like > Hummingbird (Google it) and Twollo to find people and automatically go out > and follow them. This is why I refuse to create auto-follow filters to find > new people on my service. It's way too spammy if you ask me. > > Why do they do this? 2 reasons: 1, "supposedly" having more followers > means more visits and clicks in whatever you're trying to promote. (I don't > believe this) and 2, many of these people also have auto-DM set up to send > links and messages to each person that follows them back. Back when I > offered this service (we disabled it for this exact reason) people told me > they were seeing significant clicks on the links they would send to people > via DM after they followed them. Therefore, more follows==more clicks==more > revenue. I don't blame them if that's what they're really seeing. > > So for this reason I think having limits in place is a *good* thing. I > don't think the follow limit is in place due to traffic reasons, since there > are many more calls that cause more traffic on the API and there is no limit > to unfollows, so I really think Twitter is doing this for the purpose of > reducing spam and "gaming" of Twitter. This is a good thing. > > However, I think Twitter may be approaching the limits the wrong way. > Here's what I think would be more effective, and beneficial for the > legitimate users that want to follow back and at the same time not allow > those who want to game the system to use the methods I described. Twitter > needs to impose limits based on whether the individual is following the user > back or not. > > For instance, if I follow @dacort and he is following me back, that > shouldn't count against me as a hit against my follow limit. However, if I > try to follow @dacort and he is not following me back, it should count > against me as a hit against my limit. With this, users could easily > auto-follow back if they choose to, and it would still be difficult for the > users trying to game the system and spam Twitter. In fact, you could > significantly *reduce* the limit this way and make it virtually impossible > for these users to use Twitter in that manner. If you were to look at the > relationship between the users when counting against limits, you could > probably reduce the follow/day limit all the way to around 200 per day > instead of 1,000 per day. I don't see any reason for the 10% > follow/follower ratio with a low limit such as that. > > However, as stands, the more followers you get, if you are using Twitter > legitimately, you have no way to extend the courtesy back if you choose to > do so, since after a certain point you will be following many more than > 1,000 users per day. And even if you aren't, it will take an extremely long > time for many individuals to finally catch up to follow those following them > if they want to at 1,000 follows per day. > > I know there are some that disagree with the auto-follow concept. However, > I also know most of you also want Twitter to be an open environment where > people can choose to use it as they please. Doug, Alex, etc. I'd love it if > you guys could at least consider changing the follow limits as I mentioned. > The current limits are doing nothing to prevent the spammers - my > suggestions I believe will, and will keep it an open environment for the > rest of us. > > Sorry for the long discourse - I would really love to hear others thoughts > and suggestions. > > @Jesse > -- Abraham Williams | Community | http://web608.org Hacker | http://abrah.am | http://twitter.com/abraham Project | http://fireeagle.labs.poseurtech.com This email is: [ ] blogable [x] ask first [ ] private. Sent from Madison, WI, United States
