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Twitter bug: Make anyone follow you on Twitter

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Re: Twitter bug: Make anyone follow you on Twitter

#131

Post by iamelgringo »

swombat wrote: post #124
iamelgringo wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude, the ad hominem is really out of line.

An ad hominem, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: "argument toward the person" or "argument against the person"), is an attempt to persuade which links the validity of a premise to a characteristic or belief of the person advocating the premise. The ad hominem is a classic logical fallacy. It's not an ad hominem, it's an outright insult. I am not attacking his character to win an unrelated argument. I am jus…

We're trying to keep the level of discourse high, here, remember? Especially since we're defenders of HN. :)

http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html

I'd suggest vigorously arguing his ideas, not his character. I'd actually be really interested in reading a vigorous discussion of "To bot or not to bot" as it relates to twitter, Facebook and Buzz.

I think discussing where the line is between automating specific marketing tasks and spamming lies is a really interesting question. I'd really enjoy reading both of you vigorously defend your oppposing points of view.

But, this discussion has now degenerated into insults which robs me of the potential insights that both of you might have on the situation.

I feel that posting insults also communicates to noob HN readers that insults are okay in this community, when in fact, it's not. One of the reasons that people like you and I have felt compelled to heavily invest our time here over the years is because we've generally managed to keep insulting comments at bay. :)

Re: Twitter bug: Make anyone follow you on Twitter

#132

Post by akadruid »

jrockway wrote: post #112
akadruid wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop caring. Its bad for your blood pressure. Seriously, it's only Twitter. Conflict, famine, and poverty are bad for the world, but Twitter doesn't matter.

Destroying communities for your own personal gain is a problem that extends much beyond Twitter.

Twitter is not a community. Twitter is a tool. A community can use Twitter, but I think describing spamming Twitter as destroying a community is disingenuous. The success of email, usenet and blogs/microblogs etc depend on their openness and easy access to all. Which also means people can and will spam them. So spam on twitter should be seen as a natural and nessecary side-effect, not the end of twitter. Berating the spammers will only increase your blood pressure - the spammers, tweeters and Twitter itself will continue as always.

Re: Twitter bug: Make anyone follow you on Twitter

#133

Post by axod »

gigantosaurus wrote: post #129
axod wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't understand what you're saying. It's obviously not a bug. It's a hidden feature. An easter egg. A floor in their design. They didn't "accidentally" make a special command in tweets that can cause others to follow you. They specifically intended for it to be that way. Suggesting it's a "bug" is silly. Suggesting they "fixed the bug" is misleading.

They specifically made a feature that allows you to respond to follow requests by tweeting "accept username". The bug is not checking that the person has actually requested to follow you when processing that response.

That's an oversight IMHO. A bad design decision. It's not a bug. But we're arguing semantics I guess.

Is the feature documented then? I assumed it was a hidden secret thing.

Re: Twitter bug: Make anyone follow you on Twitter

#134

Post by chc »

axod wrote: post #133
gigantosaurus wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They specifically made a feature that allows you to respond to follow requests by tweeting "accept username". The bug is not checking that the person has actually requested to follow you when processing that response.

That's an oversight IMHO. A bad design decision. It's not a bug. But we're arguing semantics I guess. Is the feature documented then? I assumed it was a hidden secret thing.

By the same logic, a crasher because you forgot to check for NULL is an oversight rather than a bug. Both are cases of checks that should have been done and incorrect behaviors caused by failure to perform those checks. I say, if a piece of code does something it isn't intended to do or fails to do something it is meant to do, that's a bug. The bug might be the result of a poor design decision, but unless the behavior is intentional, it's a bug.

Re: Twitter bug: Make anyone follow you on Twitter

#135

Post by axod »

chc wrote: post #134
axod wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an oversight IMHO. A bad design decision. It's not a bug. But we're arguing semantics I guess. Is the feature documented then? I assumed it was a hidden secret thing.

By the same logic, a crasher because you forgot to check for NULL is an oversight rather than a bug. Both are cases of checks that should have been done and incorrect behaviors caused by failure to perform those checks. I say, if a piece of code does something it isn't intended to do or fails to do something it is meant to do, that's a bug. The bug might be the result of a poor design decision, but unless the behavio…

I wasn't aware that the feature was public. If it was a public feature, and it was failing to check that the target had actually added you, then sure - it's a bug.

I assumed that it was more of an intentional 'backdoor'.

Re: Twitter bug: Make anyone follow you on Twitter

#136

Post by chc »

axod wrote: post #135
chc wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the same logic, a crasher because you forgot to check for NULL is an oversight rather than a bug. Both are cases of checks that should have been done and incorrect behaviors caused by failure to perform those checks. I say, if a piece of code does something it isn't intended to do or fails to do something it is meant to do, that's a bug. The bug might be the result of a poor design decision, but unless the behavio…

I wasn't aware that the feature was public. If it was a public feature, and it was failing to check that the target had actually added you, then sure - it's a bug. I assumed that it was more of an intentional 'backdoor'.

As far as I'm aware, it's a feature that's meant to allow users to accept followers by text (there's a separate interface on the website for accepting follow requests). The bug is that it didn't check whether those people had actually requested to follow you. That's what articles on the subject have indicated, anyway.

Re: Twitter bug: Make anyone follow you on Twitter

#137

Post by julio_the_squid »

duskwuff wrote: post #118
julio_the_squid wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Follow and Block make sense as commands you can send through a message. But Accept? Why would you ever be able to control an action on someone else's account? It's rather odd that this exists at all.

If you've got your tweets protected (private), you have to accept users to allow them to follow you.

I think you've missed the point here. This isn't a command that tells your account to accept follow request, or adds someone to your following list - this is a command that instantly makes other people 'accept' a follow request from YOU. This works completely differently in how it would consider the username parameter, and in that the change is applied to the other person's account, not yours.

Re: Twitter bug: Make anyone follow you on Twitter

#138

Post by swombat »

iamelgringo wrote: post #131
swombat wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An ad hominem, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: "argument toward the person" or "argument against the person"), is an attempt to persuade which links the validity of a premise to a characteristic or belief of the person advocating the premise. The ad hominem is a classic logical fallacy. It's not an ad hominem, it's an outright insult. I am not attacking his character to win an unrelated argument. I am jus…

We're trying to keep the level of discourse high, here, remember? Especially since we're defenders of HN. :) http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html I'd suggest vigorously arguing his ideas, not his character. I'd actually be really interested in reading a vigorous discussion of "To bot or not to bot" as it relates to twitter, Facebook and Buzz. I think discussing where the line is between automating specific marketi…

That's true. You make a good point.

Ok, I'll avoid devolving to insults in the future (though for this specific conversation it's a bit late). Thanks for taking the time to make that point.

Re: Twitter bug: Make anyone follow you on Twitter

#139

Post by iamelgringo »

swombat wrote: post #138
iamelgringo wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're trying to keep the level of discourse high, here, remember? Especially since we're defenders of HN. :) http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html I'd suggest vigorously arguing his ideas, not his character. I'd actually be really interested in reading a vigorous discussion of "To bot or not to bot" as it relates to twitter, Facebook and Buzz. I think discussing where the line is between automating specific marketi…

That's true. You make a good point. Ok, I'll avoid devolving to insults in the future (though for this specific conversation it's a bit late). Thanks for taking the time to make that point.

:)
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