Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 266 posts

Re: Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users

#221

Post by WildGreenLeave »

WA wrote: post #214

Apparently, I'm the only one who likes the move. Two reasons: 1. I actually think services should store less about people. It's good that stuff gets removed from parts of the internet. 2. I fully understand the idea of archiving a part of history. But in a way, I treat the websites more like a shopping window and less like articles and artifacts of time: They will be rearranged, stuff is removed, new stuff is added.…

But Twitter isn't a shop. If in 10 years Amazon goes bankrupt (or any other big shop) and it won't get archived, I don't really care. But Twitter has a lot of discussions or other information that may still be important. I think Twitter is more of a library than a shop and you wouldn't throw away books from a library either.

Re: Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users

#222

Post by ilikehurdles »

WA wrote: post #214

Apparently, I'm the only one who likes the move. Two reasons: 1. I actually think services should store less about people. It's good that stuff gets removed from parts of the internet. 2. I fully understand the idea of archiving a part of history. But in a way, I treat the websites more like a shopping window and less like articles and artifacts of time: They will be rearranged, stuff is removed, new stuff is added.…

I haven't logged in to twitter in years. I'm not sure if it qualifies but I sure hope my account gets removed without me having to log in and do it myself.

Re: Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users

#224

Post by partiallypro »

This is both good and bad, gets rid of squatters but also could delete accounts of those that have passed away and have generated great content. Why not just change it to...deleting inactive accounts that have under X amount of engagement and overall tweets. That would save most accounts of the deceased while getting rid of the other problem.

Re: Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users

#225

Post by koboll »

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...

There are lots of permanently suspended accounts that have basically been squatting on a useless name for a decade.

There's zero downside to releasing those, since their old tweets are already gone.

Re: Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users

#226

Post by jacquesm »

Frondo wrote: post #217
jacquesm wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

x@y should be unique, forever. It's not as though we're running out of bits.

Why should it be? We might not be running out bits, but keeping those bits maintained takes effort; it doesn't happen by magic. and I can't think of any form of identifier that guarantees uniqueness; even the stone markings on graveyards eventually weather away.

Because bits aren't stone markings on graveyards. If you want they can last as long as the service does, which is a fine cut-off. Otherwise you get the same trouble with every other kind of method of authentication: after your ID is recycled whoever picks it up again even after it has been carefully scrubbed will inherit all the inbound links and so on. That doesn't really happen with gravestones.

Re: Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users

#227

Post by WA »

WildGreenLeave wrote: post #221
WA wrote: post #214

Apparently, I'm the only one who likes the move. Two reasons: 1. I actually think services should store less about people. It's good that stuff gets removed from parts of the internet. 2. I fully understand the idea of archiving a part of history. But in a way, I treat the websites more like a shopping window and less like articles and artifacts of time: They will be rearranged, stuff is removed, new stuff is added.…

But Twitter isn't a shop. If in 10 years Amazon goes bankrupt (or any other big shop) and it won't get archived, I don't really care. But Twitter has a lot of discussions or other information that may still be important. I think Twitter is more of a library than a shop and you wouldn't throw away books from a library either.

I think there are several perspectives on this:

- For some, Twitter is a chat and chats usually are meant to be short-term with an expiration date.

- Twitter is a store front, because it is used to promote services or products and only the stuff that got posted recently is relevant. Furthermore, some people auto-delete their older Tweets with tools for various reasons.

I think it makes sense to archive Tweets of public figures, especially politicans to hold them accountable in a way or just for historic purposes. This can, should and is done by third party services. But this isn't the only way to see it.

Re: Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users

#230

Post by y4mi »

WildGreenLeave wrote: post #221
WA wrote: post #214

Apparently, I'm the only one who likes the move. Two reasons: 1. I actually think services should store less about people. It's good that stuff gets removed from parts of the internet. 2. I fully understand the idea of archiving a part of history. But in a way, I treat the websites more like a shopping window and less like articles and artifacts of time: They will be rearranged, stuff is removed, new stuff is added.…

But Twitter isn't a shop. If in 10 years Amazon goes bankrupt (or any other big shop) and it won't get archived, I don't really care. But Twitter has a lot of discussions or other information that may still be important. I think Twitter is more of a library than a shop and you wouldn't throw away books from a library either.

> you wouldn't throw away books from a library either.

While i wouldn't, the libraries do throw books away which aren't being borrowed.

Post reply on HN