The decision to leave out retweets is incomprehensible. I don't see who it benefits to leave these out, besides maybe the programmer at Twitter who has to do the work to include them. The API Programmers don't like it, the confused Twitter users who no longer see Retweets in their favorite third party services certainly don't like it either. Leaving retweets out of the public api certainly played a part in the general user backlash to the Retweet feature.
On Dec 22, 12:46 am, Tim Acheson <tim.ache...@gmail.com> wrote: > I strongly agree with the OP. > > Problem: Unable to get the complete timeline for a user including > retweets (without logging in)! > > There is an important limitation with the API regarding retweets. With > the new retweets feature, in the current API, it is not possible to > get a complete timeline for a user (unless you have the user's > password). This is bad. Firstly, it means user timelines retrieved > from the API will always be potentially incomplete, with retweets > excluded. Yet retweets are considered part of a users timeline and > always have been. Secondly, it means I can't retrieve my own complete > timeline without logging in, which is surely an unnecessary extra > step. > > The API functionality for retweets seems inconsistent with other API > methods, notably statuses/user_timeline which does not require a log- > in. It's also inconsistent with the RSS feed which does include > retweets in a users' timeline. > > Solution: A new API method is required, to retrieve retweets for a > user without logging in. > > DOCUMENTATION > > statuses/user_timeline > Returns the 20 most recent statuses posted from the authenticating > user. It's also possible to request another user's timeline via the id > parameter. This is the equivalent of the Web /<user> page for your own > user, or the profile page for a third party. > Note: For backwards compatibility reasons, retweets are stripped out > of the user_timeline when calling in XML or JSON (they appear with > 'RT' in RSS and Atom). If you'd like them included, you can merge them > in from statuses retweeted_by_me. > > http://apiwiki.twitter.com/Twitter-REST-API-Method%3A-statuses-user_t...
