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Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users

bbc.com

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Re: Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users

#111

Post by ajcodez »

rahuldottech wrote: post #10

I wonder what will happen to the twitter accounts of folks who have passed away? Eg. Aaron Swartz: https://twitter.com/aaronsw https://twitter.com/aaronsw_hv > The cull will include users who stopped posting to the site because they died - unless someone with that person's account details is able to log-in. Yeah, this is bad. EDIT ---- Archive Team is making an effort to archive twitter accounts of dead users. Please…

For every Aaron there are thousands of people who signed up, took a great all letters no numbers username, never posted, and never came back.

Re: Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users

#112

Post by paul7986 »

kick wrote: post #95
jeromegv wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow this is quite smart. Never thought of that

When I was younger, it was a fun hobby to help people with.

Cool idea, thanks!

I actually just gained access to that email and unfortunately since I only used it once years ago it was wiped.

Darn, I hope they don't wipe my account... there is no support .. premium support even as Id pay to have access and use it again.

Re: Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users

#113

Post by haasted »

bfirsh wrote: post #105

This is actually useful for me. The name of my new company is taken by a 10 year old account that has never tweeted, and I haven’t managed to find somebody at Twitter who can get the name for me. Does anybody know what’s going to happen to the names? Are they going to become available to register on 11th Dec? I hope somebody isn’t waiting there with a dictionary to squat them all...

I’m in a similar situation.

Does anyone know of a service that can be made to automatically pick up a Twitter name as it becomes available?

Re: Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users

#114

Post by biddlesby »

bfirsh wrote: post #105

This is actually useful for me. The name of my new company is taken by a 10 year old account that has never tweeted, and I haven’t managed to find somebody at Twitter who can get the name for me. Does anybody know what’s going to happen to the names? Are they going to become available to register on 11th Dec? I hope somebody isn’t waiting there with a dictionary to squat them all...

> previously unavailable usernames will start coming up for grabs after the 11 December cut-off - though Twitter said it would be a gradual process, beginning with users outside of the US.

Re: Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users

#115

Post by biddlesby »

yungnoob wrote: post #32
hombre_fatal wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Twitter will begin deleting accounts that have been inactive for more than six months, unless they log in before an 11 December deadline.

The old Yahoo Mail strategy. See how well that one worked out.

I don't get this reference: what happened at Yahoo mail and how did it work out?

Re: Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users

#116

Post by donatj »

notatoad wrote: post #109
Tomte wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Space gets cheap. But the namespace for user names gets ever more crowded.

not just the namespace, but the content-space. a service like twitter thives on a feeling if immediacy and involvement, and if you were to constantly be coming across dead accounts (whether the owner is deceased or just otherwise left twitter) i think it would detract from the usefulness of twitter. whether the accounts are moved to the internet archive or some twitter-hosted archive, the value in twitter is not in o…

On a site that only actively presents the newest content, there’s no way you would be constantly coming across dead accounts.

I also find the insinuation that dead users provide no value absurd. Aside from current events, the human condition doesn’t really change, which is why we can still enjoy books written hundreds of years ago.

Re: Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users

#117

Post by donatj »

Laforet wrote: post #76
fooqux wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To what end? You already assume Twitter has a shorter lifespan than the internet. Are you going to be upset when Twitter dies, removing not just all the accounts of live people, but dead people as well? Also, Twitter may disagree with you on its lifespan. I wouldn't, but I do believe that unless they do start archiving, it will reduce its lifespan, perhaps considerably.

This is why I really don't like the recent trend of third party sites dynamically embedding tweets on their own page when a screenshot plus direct link could have sufficed. The internet has already lost a great deal of its past with many historical image hosts that went down or rogue (looking at you Photobucket). Why are people making the same mistake again? BTW Facebook have had the option to memorialize the profile…

The number of links I come across from dead link shortening services is too damn high.

Re: Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users

#118

Post by eggsome »

echelon wrote: post #37
fullstop wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a tweet from 2006, right after launch. It just said "this is dumb". It's gone now.

Wait, is this really happening? Can you confirm or post evidence? This is a big deal if so.

I can't provide proof, but I _know_ that I tweeted @adom_dev around the time of it's kickstarter and one of the Baldurs Gate EE devs about gemrb around the time they announced that project.

Both tweets are gone.

Re: Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users

#120

Post by mholt »

sytelus wrote: post #82

While talking with my parents I realized how little of their generation is available to us. What did they eat in there travels? Where? What music did they listen to? What kind of cloths did they wear? I have a few fragments of photos, anecdots and not much more. I was thinking about how highly detailed memories of our generation would be available to future generations. Facebook, Twitter etc are in a way digital monu…

For preserving at least your own data, check out one of my projects, Timeliner: https://github.com/mholt/timeliner

It downloads your digital life and stores it locally on a single, unified timeline, for archival and family history purposes.

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