6 ms·

Micro.blog Reclaiming Usernames Policy

58 points by ingve 4y ago

robertlagrant 4y ago
This all seems sensible. For the latter case, could you keep the data but detach the username? So someone could log in and see/export their data, or set a new username?
- ents 4y ago
  They would probably do something like append "-inactive" or "-archive" to the users account to give someone else the name itself
disjunct 4y ago
In contrast to Twitter's newly updated inactive account policy > We encourage people to actively log in and use Twitter when they register an account. To keep your account active, be sure to log in at least every 30 days. Accounts may be permanently removed due to prolonged inactivity. It changed from 6 months around early May: https://web.archive.org/web/20230503204041/https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/inactive-twitter-accounts https://web.archive.org/web/20230503204041/https://help.twit...
- hablog 4y ago
  I assume twitter has like 7 million times as many accounts as whatever this website is though
- lawgimenez 4y ago
  This sucks, so Twitter will removed my 13 year old account just because I want some social media detox for over 1 month?
  - labster 4y ago
    If you need a detox from Twitter, maybe your account getting repossessed is a good thing for your health. Elon is doing this for public health.
    - hammyhavoc 4y ago
      Call it what it is: forced engagement. It's Farmville: "Login to water your crops every x hours."
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    Yes, time to move on
    - quaintdev 4y ago
      Or ditch social media altogether
- naet 4y ago
  I've been wanting my real name as Twitter handle but someone took it in 2012, posted one tweet and never used it again. Six months or one month is too short and would definitely damage the platform. But I wouldn't hate erasing accounts that have over 5-10 years without activity (and maybe with less than 20-50 total tweets).
  - r721 4y ago
    Why even erase accounts at all? Just rename them to randomized names with a prefix.
    - jzig 4y ago
      How do you find the account again?
      - Dylan16807 4y ago
        A link to a tweet would do it. And if they're in any lists, those lists could show the old name too. You could also keep the old name (or most of it) as the start of the new name.
    - MallocVoidstar 4y ago
      Tumblr's method is to append "-blog" to the account name. Still discoverable.
  - numpad0 4y ago
    Some inactive users are legit dead with friends still on the platform. It’ll be very mean to erase records of such accounts.
    - mvdtnz 4y ago
      I don't agree with this perspective. People die and the world keeps turning. We don't stop renting out homes that now-deceased people lived in, we don't keep their phone numbers active, we don't keep their bank accounts open and active indefinitely or keep their employment agreements current. I don't see why a twitter username is so sacred.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- nirui 4y ago
  BTW: 30 days is the duration of one blue check mark subscription. So I guess, in the mind of Mr. Musk, you must "subscription" your free account as well via login in? Never the less, this is a good thing. I set my Telegram account expiration duration to 30 days as well, and I've never opened their app since... I think 2018. To me it's great that Twitter is doing something similar to 4chan, which is making publication temporary. Musk probably realized that most posts on Twitter is worthless garbage anyways (which is also true for almost all opinion/emotion based conversations on the Internet as well, this ones too) and incapable of constructing any meaningful solution to the world's problem. Why paying all the money to store these volatile, useless and maybe even destructive information? Also, this policy has great effect of... shall I put it... testing the real social value of Twitter. Musk brought it for like $10B? That's way over priced ;)
  - simonw 4y ago
    "To me it's great that Twitter is doing something similar to 4chan, which is making publication temporary." I think it's catastrophic. Just because some people don't value their own historical content doesn't mean that attitude should be inflicted on everyone else. The amount of cultural, historic value in old tweets is absolutely immense. They tell stories that are both national or global in scale, as well as stories that are much more personal. My own Twitter history stretches back over 16 years. It captures my career achievements, online relationships I've formed, things I've learned, stuff I've published. I have a backup, thankfully, because I clearly can't trust Twitter to treat it with the respect that I think it deserves. If Twitter had been documented as ephemeral from day one this would be a very different conversation. The problem here is that millions of people have entrusted their content to it (over the past 17+ years) on the loose understanding that it wouldn't be thrown away with 30 days notice.
    - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
      Cynically, as someone who isn’t on twitter, I have to ask whether that history is as important as you’re making it out to be? You, yourself, the human being are the real legacy of your past. I feel like your history on twitter pales in comparison. And I know it might not feel that way if you’ve been on the platform for so long. What actually matters?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
awesome_dude 4y ago
Is this another foot gun policy? I mean, are the advertisers about to be shown something they never really knew before (precisely how many 'active' users there really are left on the hellsite) I mean, for the price of some disk, Twitters user count is quite high, but once this purge starts taking place we'll all be seeing how empty it really is
ed25519FUUU 4y ago
I really don’t get the appeal of keeping everything around forever. Frankly I think it’s a pathological trait many engineers suffer. Let bits expire. It’s the natural state of things. There’s no reason to fear.
- sfmike 4y ago
  because we're ingrained especially at work to never let the server die it's the absolutely worst thing can happen and then this mentality carries over to everything where everything has to be constructed with longevity as a factor. Agreed it's natural for things to expire and or cyclically reset.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  This is basically the same approach as the "lifetime warranty" goods of the olden days. It's not actually forever either way, but it's a way to tell you to not worry about preservation if you paid for the product. I guess it's also assuming that counting those blogs as active will help the service in a way or another, and storage price will go cheaper in the future, to help alleviate the burden.

58 points by ingve 4y ago

This all seems sensible. For the latter case, could you keep the data but detach the username? So someone could log in and see/export their data, or set a new username?

ents 4y ago
They would probably do something like append "-inactive" or "-archive" to the users account to give someone else the name itself

disjunct 4y ago

In contrast to Twitter's newly updated inactive account policy > We encourage people to actively log in and use Twitter when they register an account. To keep your account active, be sure to log in at least every 30 days. Accounts may be permanently removed due to prolonged inactivity. It changed from 6 months around early May: https://web.archive.org/web/20230503204041/https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/inactive-twitter-accounts https://web.archive.org/web/20230503204041/https://help.twit...

hablog 4y ago
I assume twitter has like 7 million times as many accounts as whatever this website is though
lawgimenez 4y ago
This sucks, so Twitter will removed my 13 year old account just because I want some social media detox for over 1 month?
- labster 4y ago
  If you need a detox from Twitter, maybe your account getting repossessed is a good thing for your health. Elon is doing this for public health.
  - hammyhavoc 4y ago
    Call it what it is: forced engagement. It's Farmville: "Login to water your crops every x hours."
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  Yes, time to move on
  - quaintdev 4y ago
    Or ditch social media altogether
naet 4y ago
I've been wanting my real name as Twitter handle but someone took it in 2012, posted one tweet and never used it again. Six months or one month is too short and would definitely damage the platform. But I wouldn't hate erasing accounts that have over 5-10 years without activity (and maybe with less than 20-50 total tweets).
- r721 4y ago
  Why even erase accounts at all? Just rename them to randomized names with a prefix.
  - jzig 4y ago
    How do you find the account again?
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      A link to a tweet would do it. And if they're in any lists, those lists could show the old name too. You could also keep the old name (or most of it) as the start of the new name.
  - MallocVoidstar 4y ago
    Tumblr's method is to append "-blog" to the account name. Still discoverable.
- numpad0 4y ago
  Some inactive users are legit dead with friends still on the platform. It’ll be very mean to erase records of such accounts.
  - mvdtnz 4y ago
    I don't agree with this perspective. People die and the world keeps turning. We don't stop renting out homes that now-deceased people lived in, we don't keep their phone numbers active, we don't keep their bank accounts open and active indefinitely or keep their employment agreements current. I don't see why a twitter username is so sacred.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
nirui 4y ago
BTW: 30 days is the duration of one blue check mark subscription. So I guess, in the mind of Mr. Musk, you must "subscription" your free account as well via login in? Never the less, this is a good thing. I set my Telegram account expiration duration to 30 days as well, and I've never opened their app since... I think 2018. To me it's great that Twitter is doing something similar to 4chan, which is making publication temporary. Musk probably realized that most posts on Twitter is worthless garbage anyways (which is also true for almost all opinion/emotion based conversations on the Internet as well, this ones too) and incapable of constructing any meaningful solution to the world's problem. Why paying all the money to store these volatile, useless and maybe even destructive information? Also, this policy has great effect of... shall I put it... testing the real social value of Twitter. Musk brought it for like $10B? That's way over priced ;)
- simonw 4y ago
  "To me it's great that Twitter is doing something similar to 4chan, which is making publication temporary." I think it's catastrophic. Just because some people don't value their own historical content doesn't mean that attitude should be inflicted on everyone else. The amount of cultural, historic value in old tweets is absolutely immense. They tell stories that are both national or global in scale, as well as stories that are much more personal. My own Twitter history stretches back over 16 years. It captures my career achievements, online relationships I've formed, things I've learned, stuff I've published. I have a backup, thankfully, because I clearly can't trust Twitter to treat it with the respect that I think it deserves. If Twitter had been documented as ephemeral from day one this would be a very different conversation. The problem here is that millions of people have entrusted their content to it (over the past 17+ years) on the loose understanding that it wouldn't be thrown away with 30 days notice.
  - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
    Cynically, as someone who isn’t on twitter, I have to ask whether that history is as important as you’re making it out to be? You, yourself, the human being are the real legacy of your past. I feel like your history on twitter pales in comparison. And I know it might not feel that way if you’ve been on the platform for so long. What actually matters?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

awesome_dude 4y ago

Is this another foot gun policy? I mean, are the advertisers about to be shown something they never really knew before (precisely how many 'active' users there really are left on the hellsite) I mean, for the price of some disk, Twitters user count is quite high, but once this purge starts taking place we'll all be seeing how empty it really is

ed25519FUUU 4y ago

I really don’t get the appeal of keeping everything around forever. Frankly I think it’s a pathological trait many engineers suffer. Let bits expire. It’s the natural state of things. There’s no reason to fear.

sfmike 4y ago
because we're ingrained especially at work to never let the server die it's the absolutely worst thing can happen and then this mentality carries over to everything where everything has to be constructed with longevity as a factor. Agreed it's natural for things to expire and or cyclically reset.
makeitdouble 4y ago
This is basically the same approach as the "lifetime warranty" goods of the olden days. It's not actually forever either way, but it's a way to tell you to not worry about preservation if you paid for the product. I guess it's also assuming that counting those blogs as active will help the service in a way or another, and storage price will go cheaper in the future, to help alleviate the burden.