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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: 2) by acid andy on Monday December 18 2017, @01:59PM (18 children)
When you click on the ID for this comment, it shows no moderation / score breakdown. Does that mean it got set to -1 server side by TMB & co? If not, then what gives?
I have no issue with the score. It's unquestionably a Troll.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 4, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 18 2017, @02:04PM (2 children)
Negative karma has always done that. It's just almost never an issue since pretty much every troll on the site is entertaining enough to someone to keep positive karma.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 18 2017, @05:26PM (1 child)
Strange... I thought you guys came from slashdot. Old guys from slashdot know what a troll is - someone who posts fake shit to spam the site. Someone who posts a point and makes fun of your loser ass in the process - that's not a troll. That's someone making fun of you. You remember high school - right? That time people would stuff you into a locker and laugh at you, while making a valid point that you are a loser and a dork, when you convinced yourself that you're just being picked on because your schmart? I guess you really do think you have a lot of users and way too many comments so you should limit them to shit a tiny group of people on here disagree with and mod down?
Actually, I'm wrong. Things get modded down because you dorks can't handle being made fun of - it brings back bad memories of the inside of that locker and masturbating to gif files on your 14 inch CRT while we all got actual pussy. I guess it was a troll then.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Monday December 18 2017, @06:27PM
Ok, I haven't commented yet.
Might as well let it drop. While I don't have first hand information, second hand information from a lot of different sources says that twitter comments tend to be boring and stupid. (This might have to do with the old "80 chars or less per twit" limitation. I believe that's been removed, but there are network effects, and traditions die hard.) As such, I expect most of the folk who post from there reflect then general twitter community.
What you need is a similar agreement with places like Scientific American, New Scientist, python-ideas@python.org, etc. but those places are probably so full with current users that this wouldn't be attractive to them. But it would be nice to improve the quality of posts, which means that if you link it should be with a quality site, and I haven't heard anyone I respect say that twitter qualifies.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 18 2017, @05:31PM (14 children)
Interesting. What exactly does that moderation do for you? You dorks with your moderation seem to be reading just fine the stuff your moderation is meant to hide from you.
So a troll then? Had 200 people on twitter, about 20 users on this actual site, let's dump those 200. I think I fired a guy who thinks like you yesterday. Did you get fired yesterday over email?
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Monday December 18 2017, @05:51PM (13 children)
Who gives a shit who you fired? Sounds like you're a career-obsessed, sociopathic suit who gets kicks out of firing people because you don't like their attitude. You live for the system and you're part of the problem. If anyone's a dork, it's you.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 18 2017, @07:07PM (8 children)
He's just trolling you. He doesn't actually have a job, much less create them.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 18 2017, @11:03PM (7 children)
Storage Architect at a fortune 100 company, with 20 years experience. I fire dorks stuck in their own little world who have zero sight of the big issues at hand and live in their stupid little world. Any more bright theories loser?
(Score: 4, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 18 2017, @11:35PM (5 children)
Yeah? realDonaldTrump has you beat. He's the President.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 20 2017, @04:55AM (4 children)
Umm, yeah. As I said, people making fun of you are not trolls - they're just enjoying themselves. Let me give you some more ammo for your crazy:
Started out as a unix admin, then and oracle dba for a couple of years, c++ and java development for a couple of years, then ended up doing emc shit that I've stuck with. make over 250k, live in a skyscraper and own a bunch of apartments I rent out, speak 6 languages, lived in 5 countries and visited over 100. Yes, I also made a bunch of money on bitcoin. I'm outgoing and get really hot girls with little effort. I'm also quite built and fight well - took the karate where they teach you to actually hurt people instead of running laps. Although after about 35 it's been less and less lifting and more and more ems, due to laziness. I do smoke though and can't permanently quit since highschool though, so you got that on me. In addition, I'm really into shisha smoking, and that's even worse. Got hooked on that shit in doha and it stuck - so damn relaxing, so fucking bad for you.
It's amazing how some normal people's lives, such as mine and my coworkers' are so much above the level you're at that you think someone is bullshitting. Do you think if you told a piss-smelling methhead about your real life he'd call you out as making it up? And I do really enjoy firing people like you. Nerds who are average but think they are very very smart. Admitting shit that's wrong with them would be like punching yourself in the stomach. You might realize your life is pretty damn crappy and get depressed. Puff up that chest buddy.
What's really enjoyable about that is your mentality keeps you from improving and actually making something of yourself and enjoying life to the potential that I enjoy life. Just knowing you keep yourself living what I would consider substandard puts a quiet smile on my face. You win, you win. I'm a troll. The real Donald Trump in fact.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday December 20 2017, @09:40AM (1 child)
Wow! I'm impressed! You do all that and still have time to troll users on a relatively small platform.
(Score: 0) by fakefuck39 on Thursday December 28 2017, @08:31AM
Yes, I have that relaxed nice life and still find about 2 minutes per week to make fun of retards on here for my enjoyment. What is it that is too much for you to grasp here?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 20 2017, @12:47PM (1 child)
Pro-tip: If you're looking to impress someone, you need to come up with a life that's better than what the person you're speaking to already has.
Elite-pro-tip: Money isn't how you win at life. It's just a means to an end.
When the person you're talking to works for himself, makes enough at it that he never has to work more than one day in four on average, and can drop everything whenever he feels like it and be in his boat on a lake fishing half an hour later? Yeah, you're not going to impress by touting your corporate shackles and living in the same structure as hundreds or thousands of other people.
Next time try something like telling me about your sweet new bass boat.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Troll) by fakefuck39 on Thursday December 28 2017, @08:28AM
Only retards buy boats - they are a terrible investment, a constant cause of annoying maintenance problems, and if you use one, they tie you down to a small area. If I need a boat I rent one where ever I am. I only read the last line of your post. I spend about half my time traveling around the world, about half at home, and about 5 days a month total at the office.
You started this thread by asking users not on twitter whether they use your twitter feed. Then you started this ball swinging conversation, at which you lose. You are a moron.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 19 2017, @12:05AM
You think they have a "stupid little world" because ironically you're the one that is too far up your own ass to see the bigger picture. Your "big issues" are only big in the context of pissing away decades of your life in the sole name of big bucks and big business. You're seeing just a shitty little fraction of what it is to be alive. One day you might look back and wonder what the fuck you were thinking.
(Score: -1) by fakefuck39 on Monday December 18 2017, @11:09PM (3 children)
sounds like you're the person who gets fired for having an attitude destructive to the goals of the team. i'm assuming the goal of a site like this is to have users. dumping users is idiotic, and people who would suggest doing so fails the goal of the site. of course i may be wrong, and the people who created this just really want 10 people talking to each other in a private chat. they should all get a room and get this thing off the web then. which i do believe was in my original suggestion.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Monday December 18 2017, @11:48PM (2 children)
OK, I'm willing to bury my flaming for one second to consider your point. I'll grant you that a dwindling user base is not necessarily a good goal for this site to have.
However, I'm just not seeing that dumping the twitter account would have lost all that many users. I don't get where (like, what part of your ass) you keep pulling this 10 users figure from? I could probably think of 2-3 times that if I just counted the hardcore that have written hundreds or thousands of posts and post many times a month. And that's not even counting ACs. Someone else estimated there are thousands of registered users, maybe over 7000.
Out of 200 twitter followers I bet quite a few browse the site directly and of those that don't a good few probably lost interest a while back, so I'm not buying this 200 vs 10 comparison.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 19 2017, @04:46PM
hey i don't use twitter but I remember reading that bots were an issue, and people like wanna be celebs or just the celebs themselves, or sales people, or people that need validation and will take it any way they could -- could spend $10 or more to some guy in the internet who will then bam add 100, 1000, 10000 followers just like that
all compromised and bot accounts and stuff like that.
the idea is that people then see you have a lot of followers and might read what you post
soylent here doesnt seem to have decided that bot followers contribute to the forums, or that twitter bots arent a thing anymore.
however, there were also bots that just latched onto accounts in an effort to then introduce a sexy woman that totally doesnt want to turn into a male in another country that is intending on stealing money from you in some way.
(Score: 0) by fakefuck39 on Wednesday December 20 2017, @04:27AM
I've registered about 30 accounts over time, as I've forgotten passwords and got sick of low karma posting limits. 7000? yeah retard. there are clearly 7000 uniq users reflected in the comments here. or, you know, it's 10 of you idiots over and over again. the op idiot is literally asking people on the site whether they care about people who read the stuff here outside of this site, and you 10 of course say "no, twitter is useless to us, dump it." that's a loser that not only does not bring any benefit to the site, he is actually damaging to the site, and does not realize he is a retard. you know, like you 10 retards.