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So, apparently around November 5th we stopped posting to Twitter. We didn't find out until around the end of that month and when we did nobody had the time and/or ability to look into why until this past week.
Now how we get our headlines over to Twitter is overly complicated and, frankly, idiotic. It's done by one of our IRC bots pulling headlines from the RSS feed and posting them on Twitter as @SoylentNews. The bot was written back in 2014 with hand-rolled (as opposed to installed via package manager) Python libraries and hasn't been updated since. This was breakage that should absolutely have been expected to happen. Twitter's penchant for arbitrarily changing their unversioned API means you either keep on top of changes or expect things to break for no apparent reason.
Here's the question: do we even care? We can either find someone who's willing to rewrite the bot to a new Twitter library, do it the sane way as either a cron or slashd job, or just say to hell with it since we only have two hundred or so followers on Twitter anyway. What say you, folks?
[TMB Note]: Twitter's who-to-follow algorithms really impressed me this morning when I logged in to manually post this story. How did they know we were all huge @JustinBieber and @BarackObama fans?
[Update]: We're again annoying Twitter users by spreading relative intelligence across their platform of choice. Credit goes to Crash for wisely pointing out that we don't have to code everything ourselves.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Snotnose on Monday December 18 2017, @12:19PM (19 children)
No twitter, no facebook, no instagram, no pinterest, no social media at all. Don't plan to ever get any either.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by WizardFusion on Monday December 18 2017, @12:39PM (5 children)
I'm with this guy (gal).
If none of the 200 followers have noticed, then just leave it.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by zocalo on Monday December 18 2017, @01:06PM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 18 2017, @03:16PM (2 children)
Joke's on you. Snot nose is a thing - filled with stuff.
(Score: 4, Funny) by DannyB on Monday December 18 2017, @07:10PM (1 child)
When an elephant sprays with its nose, people think it is water. But itsnot.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JNCF on Monday December 18 2017, @08:09PM
DannyB, Anonymous Coward, and WizardFusion are all describing different aspects of the same Snotnose.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 18 2017, @03:54PM
I agree that it doesn't seem necessary to continue with whatever you were doing on Twitter, especially if the staff here didn't notice it was not working right for some time, and that further, there didn't seem to be any discussion here about the problems of social network APIs that caused the issues that upset services that regular Soylenters depended on.
I didn't even know you posted to Twitter, and if you had other social media activities, I don't know about those, either. I expect there are a lot of people here that use more services than me, but it still seems like no one noticed.
There's no reason to be entirely against social media activity, though--this forum is a social network, and really it is best to remain pragmatic about this. I recognize you have to reach an audience, if only to draw them here and hope they become regulars in the audience I am a part of. There are times when the word of the user's mouth is not always enough... I couldn't tell you if any of my friends or associates come here, but we all use pseudonyms we have not shared with each other.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by inertnet on Monday December 18 2017, @01:15PM
Me too, besides Twitter should be dead soon: "We believe in freedom of expression and open dialogue, but": https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-rules [twitter.com]
(Score: 1) by noneof_theabove on Monday December 18 2017, @01:46PM (5 children)
I allow people to address me properly as Mr. Anti Social.
As a believer of "scientific philosophy", all things are a tool to get from point A to B.
I did not have kids, or acquired any, in my 60+ years, so I have no need for any of that.
Not to mention as a programmer, exposing myself and personal information for no real benefit.
SN needs to evaluate their standing and from the facts presented, time and energy would be better served somewhere else.
Not to say a different venue might be worth the effort.
As far as Twitter, from the movie War Games, "the only winning move is not to play."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by cubancigar11 on Monday December 18 2017, @05:29PM (4 children)
That's what I thought when I delete bitcoin mining software in 2008 from my computer.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday December 18 2017, @09:40PM (3 children)
Do you know anyone besides twitter that ever made a nickle on twitter?
Seriously: non sequitur !
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 19 2017, @05:55AM
> Do you know anyone besides twitter that ever made a nickle on twitter?
What do you mean, "besides" Twitter? AFAIK, Twitter has yet to show *any* profit.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday December 19 2017, @07:00AM
Hey hey, I wasn't defending Twitter. Just sharing my misery :(
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 19 2017, @10:54AM
Whoever provides Twitter with bandwidth, I guess.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday December 18 2017, @07:09PM
Ditto.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 18 2017, @09:23PM (1 child)
Linkedin?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 18 2017, @11:29PM
Nah they only post on soylentnews. You know a social media platform. Using code based on one of the early web social media platforms... They never use it.
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Monday December 18 2017, @09:37PM
Ditto, I'm not a product for some social media company.
As another poster pointed out if nobody even noticed it was broken for over a month then nobody is paying attention to the feed anyway so why bother having it?
The focus should be on maintaining and updating Soylent.org itself, worrying about a twitter feed no one seems to care about is just wasted effort.
My ¥2
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday December 18 2017, @09:48PM
I'm with Needsakleenex
I don't twit, facepalm, instabate...nothing.
I don't even gab.ai...i found I did not need it ( not being a Kardashian).
Nope, nope, nope!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Insightful) by legont on Tuesday December 19 2017, @01:21AM
Agree - they are all evil.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.