OK, not really.
Was away from the internets pretty much all day today, but I when I tried to check into the Twitterverse just now, I kept getting a server timeout. Then I noticed Chris’ post about the reaction the Twitter Packs idea. 55 comments and counting. And I saw that GeekMommy closed the comments to her “wolf packs” post after 30 replies. (Correction: comments not closed. My bad.)
Oh dear. Here I was going to post some thoughts about why the “me-too” rush to edit the Twitter Packs wiki was no big deal, but now I see that apparently it was.
Ike Piggott of Occam’s RazR fame sums up some of the issues raised by the wiki nicely in this guest post over at the Now Is Gone blog. To wit:
Within hours, there were hundreds of names sorted across many divisions. And within hours, there were cries that it had gotten too clubby, too cliquey, too clunky, and too crowded. Others were disturbed that specialty lists were being added that had the potential for mischief and pranks.
Agreed. And more generally, these are issues – not just in social media, but in social life. I will state the obvious: cliques, mischief, pranks and whatnot have been around forever. You never know what somebody might say about you behind your back.
But even so, I still think the Twitter Packs idea is great: a handy tool to get folks started with Twittering. In fact, it’s openness is an advantage – if you don’t like where you’ve been included or not included, then go ahead and fix it.
(And despite the exponential growth in the geographic location packs, there’s still no Ottawa entry! LOL.)
What's a spaghetti test?
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Bingo! The magic is in the fixing. You (anyone) can edit it. : )
Timing is everything, you must’ve hit Twitter tonight during their update time (7-10pm PT) – I haven’t been able to reach it for a couple of hours either.
That said, I do think Chris’s idea about trying to give people new to the Twitter experience a good place to figure out who to start listening to in order to hear the conversation – it’s off to a rocky start implementation-wise.
I’m still hoping that it evolves into something really positive instead of something negative.
But I would disagree with you about the “if you don’t like it, fix it” – honestly? I don’t have the time to monitor the constant changes to that wiki to see if someone has or hasn’t added me to a given group, or has removed me from one I do want to be on… do you?
Clearly, I don’t think the wiki was the right format for that – but I don’t have a viable alternative to offer, unfortunately. I suppose, at some point, if Twitter incorporates groups, we’ll all have the ability to control our own involvement in those – without the worry that someone else might add or remove us without our consent.
And hey… take your own advice and add that Ottawa entry!
Thanks geekmommy. Good points.
True I would not want to constantly monitor the wiki, but I guess that in the end I’m not all that worried about it. I mean my twitter profile is public anyhow, so where it ends up on the internets I cannot control. If someone thinks it’s funny to put a link to me in the “these guys are jerks” topic list or whatever, so be it. (But yes I would remove myself from that list if I happened to notice it LOL.)
I will get around to the Ottawa pack soon, I promise!