Arguments against LoudTwitter and how to to ignore LoudTwitter entries
Despite the fact that I previously considered setting up LoudTwitter myself a year or so ago, I can't help but be annoyed that LoudTwitter recently resumed their service. Looking at my Friend's page lately it appears I am not alone in this sentiment. People seem to have their own reasons for disliking LoudTwitter. For me, there are two:
1) I am a twitter user. If I want to read a user's twitter I will "follow" them and read it via my twitter feeds. This has the added benefit of filtering out the twitter replies to people I am not following. (i.e. the one-sided conversations in LoudTwitter entries.)
2) When midnight rolls around half of my friends page becomes nothing but cross-posted, 140-characters-or-less lists. Many of the tweets require the context of someone else's twitter feed. Also, because of #1, I've already read most of this stuff.
I would like to point out that twitter is not livejournal and vice versa. IMHO, I view twitter more akin to fragmented chat room in which people frequently post their status than a journal.
Now, I believe that a journal is a personal thing and that people can and should post whatever they want. However, I will try to reason that the way most people use LoudTwitter now is either unnecessary or that it can be used more appropriately without annoying the friends that don't like it. I will do this by taking arguments for LoudTwitter I have seen in the past and giving my personal thoughts.
"Some of my friends don't have twitter and I want them to know what is going on in my life."
I would argue that the friends that actually care about what you are twittering about have their own twitter accounts and are following you by now. To those that don't have an account but do care, I would like to point out that it is possible to set up a protected account (People that follow you need your approval) and that you don't have to post "tweets" to follow others.
"I hide my LoudTwitter posts behind an LJ cut out of courtesy."
I would say that most people won't bother to click the nondescript lj-cut's link to read it anyways so you are just adding stuff that people are going to ignore. If you are using LoudTwitter for yourself only, then I would ask why bother with lj-cuts at all. Aside from making every LoudTwitter post identical, they obscure the actual content of the lj entry. This in turn makes if fairly difficult (for yourself even) to go back in your livejournal to revisit and reflect on your previous entries.
"It's my journal and I'll post what I want."
That is fine and good, but please think of your friends when you do so. It IS possible to apply a custom LJ groups, icons, and tags to your LoudTwitter posts by using the post-via-email option. For more info see these links:
http://mouser.livejournal.com/379686.html
http://www.livejournal.com/manage/emailpost.bml?mode=help&type=headers
I had considered removing people from my friends list, but most are good friends that I genuinely care to hear from when they post normal entries. David made a greasemonkey script to remove the LoudTwitter entries from his friends page, but it doesn't work with my custom LJ layout. This morning I came across this greasemonkey script:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/17139
It works pretty well but it won't remove LoudTwitter entries hidden by lj-cuts. By default it just hides the list of tweets, but you can edit a number in the script using the easy instructions in that link to hide the entire entries. If you use Firefox and are put off by LoudTwitter, I highly recommend getting greasemonkey and using this.
What I am strongly asserting above is my own opinion... Please take it as such. I'm am not trying to tell people what to do. Instead I ask that people simply consider that the posting of automated LoudTwitter entries is possibly becoming less necessary as more people use twitter... or, if you still feel inclined to use the service, that there are actually ways to post to custom LJ groups.
1) I am a twitter user. If I want to read a user's twitter I will "follow" them and read it via my twitter feeds. This has the added benefit of filtering out the twitter replies to people I am not following. (i.e. the one-sided conversations in LoudTwitter entries.)
2) When midnight rolls around half of my friends page becomes nothing but cross-posted, 140-characters-or-less lists. Many of the tweets require the context of someone else's twitter feed. Also, because of #1, I've already read most of this stuff.
I would like to point out that twitter is not livejournal and vice versa. IMHO, I view twitter more akin to fragmented chat room in which people frequently post their status than a journal.
Now, I believe that a journal is a personal thing and that people can and should post whatever they want. However, I will try to reason that the way most people use LoudTwitter now is either unnecessary or that it can be used more appropriately without annoying the friends that don't like it. I will do this by taking arguments for LoudTwitter I have seen in the past and giving my personal thoughts.
"Some of my friends don't have twitter and I want them to know what is going on in my life."
I would argue that the friends that actually care about what you are twittering about have their own twitter accounts and are following you by now. To those that don't have an account but do care, I would like to point out that it is possible to set up a protected account (People that follow you need your approval) and that you don't have to post "tweets" to follow others.
"I hide my LoudTwitter posts behind an LJ cut out of courtesy."
I would say that most people won't bother to click the nondescript lj-cut's link to read it anyways so you are just adding stuff that people are going to ignore. If you are using LoudTwitter for yourself only, then I would ask why bother with lj-cuts at all. Aside from making every LoudTwitter post identical, they obscure the actual content of the lj entry. This in turn makes if fairly difficult (for yourself even) to go back in your livejournal to revisit and reflect on your previous entries.
"It's my journal and I'll post what I want."
That is fine and good, but please think of your friends when you do so. It IS possible to apply a custom LJ groups, icons, and tags to your LoudTwitter posts by using the post-via-email option. For more info see these links:
http://mouser.livejournal.com/379686.html
http://www.livejournal.com/manage/emailpost.bml?mode=help&type=headers
I had considered removing people from my friends list, but most are good friends that I genuinely care to hear from when they post normal entries. David made a greasemonkey script to remove the LoudTwitter entries from his friends page, but it doesn't work with my custom LJ layout. This morning I came across this greasemonkey script:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/17139
It works pretty well but it won't remove LoudTwitter entries hidden by lj-cuts. By default it just hides the list of tweets, but you can edit a number in the script using the easy instructions in that link to hide the entire entries. If you use Firefox and are put off by LoudTwitter, I highly recommend getting greasemonkey and using this.
What I am strongly asserting above is my own opinion... Please take it as such. I'm am not trying to tell people what to do. Instead I ask that people simply consider that the posting of automated LoudTwitter entries is possibly becoming less necessary as more people use twitter... or, if you still feel inclined to use the service, that there are actually ways to post to custom LJ groups.