Re: [twitter-dev] RE: FW Twitter Support
I just wanted to jump into the thread and make sure to clarify a few things being discussed. 1) Re MyPostButler specifically - Brian and the Policy team did the right thing in responding to Dean and notifying him that his app is currently in violation of a number of policies that are listed in the Twitter Rules ( http://help.twitter.com/forums/26257/entries/18311) including: - Auto-follow by Keyword - Bulk unfollowing - Promoting serial account creation for the purpose of auto-following Brian and the team then offered to work with him to fix his app to be within the guidelines before switching over to OAuth to ensure his app wouldn't be suspended. We have to work together to protect the integrity of the ecosystem and all of the rules are in place for everyone's benefit. While bulk unfollow is a somewhat ambiguous rule, the real signal is if users of your application end up getting suspended frequently. We will work with applications to address the functionality until it no longer happens. If the app is unable or unwilling to make changes, the application will be suspended. It's also important to note that if your app incentivizes spammy behavior, like allowing them to switch app tokens for the sake of creating vanity URLs or hiding the source of the application ( http://blog.collins.net.pr/2010/04/oh-snap-mypostbutler-20-is-back.html), those users will be suspended and eventually banned. We would all much rather be spending our time helping improve the ecosystem instead of policing bad behavior. 2) @mypostbutler was suspended due to a clear violation of the Twitter Rules that prevents any user from selling their Twitter username. 3) Suspension emails don't currently include the exact reasons that an app is being suspended. We do call out the Twitter Rules and the ability to contact a...@twitter.com to get a definitive answer as to why it was suspended. Brian and the team will always provide explicit answers as to why a particular app was suspended. This is something we want to fix in the tools we use and I will make sure we do so in order to provide more clarity up front. In the end, we do not tolerate spammy behavior from users or from apps that enable it. Most everyone in the ecosystem builds app that add great net value and we would much rather be spending our time helping them then having to police bad behavior. I am happy to answer any policy questions or provide more context around how we make the decisions we make. We are also always looking to improve the process around how we interact and communicate with developers (like suspension notices including exact reasons for suspension) so please let us know any constructive ways that we can improve that and provide more clarity and certainty to you. Ryan On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 1:57 PM, John Meyer john.l.me...@gmail.com wrote: On 4/26/2010 1:37 PM, Dean Collins wrote: John, Nope, Dossy is pretty much on the money, I don't care about the money and I'd prefer to see people using it rather than let it die. Basically I'm a little over twitter and their amateur approaches to certain things. I'd be the first person lining up to pay my $20 a month or whatever for real commercial accounts with real support one on one support contacts 9eg something goes wrong you call the person you dealt with alst time so as not to explain everything again).. you'll get no arguments that the support needs to be improved just a little. The fact that I'm shocked that you even got an explanation shows me just how much work needs to be done. But let's look at the site promoting your program, which I think you're promoting through http://www.mypostbutler.com/ . According to what you posted, one of the reasons your app got denied because of bulk unfollowing. Well, on your site you use the words Bulk unfollow users. You may have explained it in your message, but you did not add an explanation to the fact that you have to manually check their names in order to undelete. And then there's your first paragraph: Do You understand the difference between a web based Twitter tool that can make 150 API calls an hour for a single Twitter account and a dedicated Twitter .Net application running directly on your computer that can make 20,000 API calls an hour across multiple accounts? Ignoring the fact that this paragraphs hits people over the head with the difference between 150 and 2 (aka a beigelist and a whitelist), it dosen't make sense. Why woulddn't a web site built upon twitter not whitelist their own ip address particularly if they have multiple twitter accounts? And you also mentioned MLM schemes closeby, if only in the negative. Who exactly is buying your product that you need to mention that? Maybe this will do nothing, but I'd frame that into a legal (according to twitter's rules) use. For instance, you might mention families who have multiple twitterers but only one IP address. Kinda frustrating to get on a
RE: [twitter-dev] RE: FW Twitter Support
Ryan, Nice to notice you are on top of things considering I only received the latest code update a few hours ago http://blog.collins.net.pr/2010/04/oh-snap-mypostbutler-20-is-back.html In response - 1/ Guns don't kill people, people kill people. 2/ bulk unfollowing - you still need to manually go through an select each person you want to unfollow - this is no different for 6-10 other apps that are out there (not counting the ones the auto unfollow after a few days should you not follow which are clearly over the line) so basically I'm saying go jump on this one. 3/ promoting serial account creating - lol yeh right are you still clinging to the fact that each and every twitter account is a real person the way Facebook is, hasn't been that way since day one. FFS you have plants making twitter posts - why aren't you shutting them down as being serial account creators. Just because you keep saying it doesn't make it true. 4/ fair enough I was going to transfer the @MyPostButler code to the new source code owner who won the flippa source code auction http://flippa.com/auctions/92443/MyPostButler-application-source-code-a nd-website-and-existing-client-base and that is a valid reason for banning the @mypostbutler account (not the real reason you banned it but whatever :-) ). 5/ Regarding MyPostButler V 2.0 - the cockroach edition and it's vanity application naming capabilities - yeh lifes a bitch. Remember when we all used to be friends? 6/ and I left this one to last - autofollow seems to be your real complaint so lets look at this. Basically the MyPostButler application encourages people to find people chatting about the topics you have an interest in. It does nothing that I cant do on http://twitter.com/#search?q=Search with a browser. I argued my point with your lawyers 9 months ago and I'll argue it again - the day you turn off search on the twitter website is the day I turn off that feature. If you have a constructive alternative you'd like to suggest I'm open to discussing it either privately or in an open forum here on the dev list. You guys put yourself out there to be this major avenue for information dissemination - I don't think you realized what it meant to be archived into the library of congress someone thought that was a really clever PR spin wellthats a line that you crossed that you cant go back on. Kind of like a utility (ATT/Verizon/PGE) you've entered a new set of rules and I'm not sure you're aware of that. Cheers, Dean From: twitter-development-talk@googlegroups.com [mailto:twitter-development-t...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ryan Sarver Sent: Friday, April 30, 2010 8:09 PM To: twitter-development-talk@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [twitter-dev] RE: FW Twitter Support I just wanted to jump into the thread and make sure to clarify a few things being discussed. 1) Re MyPostButler specifically - Brian and the Policy team did the right thing in responding to Dean and notifying him that his app is currently in violation of a number of policies that are listed in the Twitter Rules (http://help.twitter.com/forums/26257/entries/18311 http://help.twitter.com/forums/26257/entries/18311 ) including: - Auto-follow by Keyword - Bulk unfollowing - Promoting serial account creation for the purpose of auto-following Brian and the team then offered to work with him to fix his app to be within the guidelines before switching over to OAuth to ensure his app wouldn't be suspended. We have to work together to protect the integrity of the ecosystem and all of the rules are in place for everyone's benefit. While bulk unfollow is a somewhat ambiguous rule, the real signal is if users of your application end up getting suspended frequently. We will work with applications to address the functionality until it no longer happens. If the app is unable or unwilling to make changes, the application will be suspended. It's also important to note that if your app incentivizes spammy behavior, like allowing them to switch app tokens for the sake of creating vanity URLs or hiding the source of the application (http://blog.collins.net.pr/2010/04/oh-snap-mypostbutler-20-is-back.html ), those users will be suspended and eventually banned. We would all much rather be spending our time helping improve the ecosystem instead of policing bad behavior. 2) @mypostbutler was suspended due to a clear violation of the Twitter Rules that prevents any user from selling their Twitter username. 3) Suspension emails don't currently include the exact reasons that an app is being suspended. We do call out the Twitter Rules and the ability to contact a...@twitter.com to get a definitive answer as to why it was suspended. Brian and the team will always provide explicit answers as to why a particular app was suspended. This is something we want to fix in the tools we use and I
Re: [twitter-dev] RE: FW Twitter Support
On 4/26/10 2:51 PM, John Meyer wrote: On 4/26/2010 12:43 PM, Dean Collins wrote: [...] If Twitter decide that they will never allow the app to be approved for use under the current brand then I'll just opensource the app and make it free for anyone to use and download and everyone can get access to register for their own oauth application process. Basically twitter will have to sort through the 10,000 api applications to work out which ones are and aren't using my code. I don't know about raffi, but that sounds pretty much like a threat to me. It's the sound of yet another exasperated developer who is getting tired of trying to guess what Twitter is and isn't going to allow today ... or tomorrow ... or a week from now ... etc., ad nauseum. Rather than let useful software die, developers would rather give it away for free. That's not a threat - that's something Twitter is encouraging developers to do. Probably so that they don't have to pay to acquire software, but instead just take it from the open source community. Dean: If you do release code open source, perhaps you should use a non-Twitter OSI-style license that prohibits any current or former Twitter employee or Twitter itself from using the code, its runtime executables, etc. You could call it the No-Twitter Almost Open Source License ... -- Dossy Shiobara | do...@panoptic.com | http://dossy.org/ Panoptic Computer Network | http://panoptic.com/ He realized the fastest way to change is to laugh at your own folly -- then you can let go and quickly move on. (p. 70) -- Subscription settings: http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk/subscribe?hl=en
Re: [twitter-dev] RE: FW Twitter Support
On 4/26/2010 1:18 PM, Andrew Badera wrote: Though I've disagreed with Dean's use and means of promoting of his app since Day One, I hardly think his message rises to the level of threat. I think there's enough misinformation, disinformation, irritation and anger floating around this list these days that the last thing anyone needs is gratuitous drama, particularly on behalf of someone NOT employed by Twitter and NOT directly addressed by Dean's communication and possible intent of said communication. Here's what I saw it boil down to: Dean saying that if Twitter doesn't like his application and won't approve it because they think that it's spamming or churning, he'll just open source it let others try to whitelist his app under their name. I doubt it will work (unless Dean thinks that they're going after him personally I don't see how others will get approved on the same app just because the name's changed), but it's almost like you'll whitelist this app one way or another. Your choice. -- Subscription settings: http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk/subscribe?hl=en
RE: [twitter-dev] RE: FW Twitter Support
John, Nope, Dossy is pretty much on the money, I don't care about the money and I'd prefer to see people using it rather than let it die. Basically I'm a little over twitter and their amateur approaches to certain things. I'd be the first person lining up to pay my $20 a month or whatever for real commercial accounts with real support one on one support contacts 9eg something goes wrong you call the person you dealt with alst time so as not to explain everything again).. At the end of the day I think this oauth is a ballsup, why change now when 2.0 is around the corner. Why change now when you just found out everyone in china is going to be cut off. Basically I'm exiting the twitter dance, last one out turn off the lights. I'm off to Friendster :) Cheers, Dean -Original Message- From: twitter-development-talk@googlegroups.com [mailto:twitter-development-t...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of John Meyer Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 3:26 PM To: twitter-development-talk@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [twitter-dev] RE: FW Twitter Support On 4/26/2010 1:18 PM, Andrew Badera wrote: Though I've disagreed with Dean's use and means of promoting of his app since Day One, I hardly think his message rises to the level of threat. I think there's enough misinformation, disinformation, irritation and anger floating around this list these days that the last thing anyone needs is gratuitous drama, particularly on behalf of someone NOT employed by Twitter and NOT directly addressed by Dean's communication and possible intent of said communication. Here's what I saw it boil down to: Dean saying that if Twitter doesn't like his application and won't approve it because they think that it's spamming or churning, he'll just open source it let others try to whitelist his app under their name. I doubt it will work (unless Dean thinks that they're going after him personally I don't see how others will get approved on the same app just because the name's changed), but it's almost like you'll whitelist this app one way or another. Your choice. -- Subscription settings: http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk/subscribe?hl=en
Re: [twitter-dev] RE: FW Twitter Support
On 4/26/2010 1:37 PM, Dean Collins wrote: John, Nope, Dossy is pretty much on the money, I don't care about the money and I'd prefer to see people using it rather than let it die. Basically I'm a little over twitter and their amateur approaches to certain things. I'd be the first person lining up to pay my $20 a month or whatever for real commercial accounts with real support one on one support contacts 9eg something goes wrong you call the person you dealt with alst time so as not to explain everything again).. you'll get no arguments that the support needs to be improved just a little. The fact that I'm shocked that you even got an explanation shows me just how much work needs to be done. But let's look at the site promoting your program, which I think you're promoting through http://www.mypostbutler.com/ . According to what you posted, one of the reasons your app got denied because of bulk unfollowing. Well, on your site you use the words Bulk unfollow users. You may have explained it in your message, but you did not add an explanation to the fact that you have to manually check their names in order to undelete. And then there's your first paragraph: Do You understand the difference between a web based Twitter tool that can make 150 API calls an hour for a single Twitter account and a dedicated Twitter .Net application running directly on your computer that can make 20,000 API calls an hour across multiple accounts? Ignoring the fact that this paragraphs hits people over the head with the difference between 150 and 2 (aka a beigelist and a whitelist), it dosen't make sense. Why woulddn't a web site built upon twitter not whitelist their own ip address particularly if they have multiple twitter accounts? And you also mentioned MLM schemes closeby, if only in the negative. Who exactly is buying your product that you need to mention that? Maybe this will do nothing, but I'd frame that into a legal (according to twitter's rules) use. For instance, you might mention families who have multiple twitterers but only one IP address. Kinda frustrating to get on a computer after a sibling is hogging it only to realize that they have to wait an hour to tweet. -- Subscription settings: http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-talk/subscribe?hl=en
