I'm sure there are lots of people that aren't quite sure what "RT" (or somesuch) means. Which manifests itself in responses to you when all you've done is pass on a request from someone else. Likewise with hashtags, as they aren't part of the standard "Twitter package" and never really get explained.
I had an incoherent attempt at this a few months ago http://thebounder.co.uk/blog/583/chinese-twispers/ - it'll only take a "celebrity" retweet in a situation like the one you describe above - combined with the ignorance of the press - to cause someone a load of hassle.
Julia Gilbert
· 6 months ago
Oo yeah for some reason it really winds me up if I retweet, say, a request for info from someone I'm following and then someone who's following me gives me the info instead of giving straight to the person who wants it. I'm not a bloomin' secretary!
Also, it would be great if Twitter could evolve to not count usernames and other metadata in the 140 character limit. That would solve quite a few probs methinks.
jjmummy64
· 6 months ago
Annoys me 2 death, when you're trying to RT a really good Tweet. The time faffing to get it down 140. U don't want to be impolite by removing the RTers, using .... May loose the thread. Then it's whether your hashed RT makes sense. 140 characters for the message alone would be sooooo good
theaardvark
· 4 months ago
How about "RT" vs "via", which seem to be used interchangably at the moment.
To my mind, if you are directly quoting the original Tweet you should use "RT", which makes it clear that the words are not your own.
If you're simply re-posting an interesting link or picture with your own commentry you should use "Via" crediting the original person with the posting of the link but indicating that it's not a direct quote.
Pete Ashton
· 4 months ago
That's about right. RT is like forwarding an email. via comes from link-blogging - see Waxy as an example: http://waxy.org/links/
mariabarrett
· 4 months ago
I agree entirely BUT not all website RT tools follow the protocol. I recently RTed a tweet on Twitteriffic and was rightly ticked off by it's author (@charlesarthur as it happens) for crediting the remark to him rather than the original tweeter. I had no recollection of editing this out. Next time I retweeted a retweet(!) I was especially carefully and noticed that Twitteriffic had dropped the second name on the list, the tweeter who had made the original comment. I had to manually re-add it. Teaching people to use the protocol is good of course and this guide is helpful and clear, but how do we make sure the Twit clients follow it too?
Pete Ashton
· 4 months ago
That is annoying, but I guess it's a tradeoff. If we want this stuff to evolve we need to allow experiments and for things to go wrong. It'll eventually settle into some kind of standard and even if it's the "wrong" standard it'll be okay because it's the standard. In the meanwhile we deal with the mess because it still works.
All Comments
I had an incoherent attempt at this a few months ago http://thebounder.co.uk/blog/583/chinese-twispers/ - it'll only take a "celebrity" retweet in a situation like the one you describe above - combined with the ignorance of the press - to cause someone a load of hassle.
Also, it would be great if Twitter could evolve to not count usernames and other metadata in the 140 character limit. That would solve quite a few probs methinks.
To my mind, if you are directly quoting the original Tweet you should use "RT", which makes it clear that the words are not your own.
If you're simply re-posting an interesting link or picture with your own commentry you should use "Via" crediting the original person with the posting of the link but indicating that it's not a direct quote.
See also, http://peteashton.com/twitter.html