A qualified ReTweet microsyntax idea

May 31st, 2009

I have written a couple times in the past about the ReTweet as the Twitter currency. My conclusion was that you should lose credits when you RT and earn credits when you are RTed. I also suggested that the number of credits earned/lost would be fixed.

There is an interesting parallel here with the Twollars RT syntax: RT 2 twollars @giyom for …

I don’t know exactly how Twollars accounts for ReTweeter being ReTweted (Eiso?), but I like the idea of qualifying a ReTweet.

I see two ways to qualify it:

  • a number, positive or negative, indicating how much I like something or not (although the negative number may not be practical)
  • a hashtag or something similar, further qualifying my number. (BTW, I noticed that people like to add tags to the things they RT, but it’s not clear to receivers whether these were tags in the original tweet, or the RT only)

Examples:

  • Liking the Tweet: RT 2 @giyom … same as RT +2 @giyom same as RT ++ @giyom
  • Not liking the Tweet: RT -1 @giyom … same as RT – @giyom
  • Liking the Tweet for a specific aspect: RT 2 #fun @giyom …
  • In addition, a regular RT like RT @giyom would be accounted as +1

Note in the last example that the hastag is before the RTed username, which allows the receiver to see that the hastag was added by the RTer.

A tracker may keep track of balances for each Twitter user, like Twollars or Twitbank does.

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Posted by Guillaume Lebleu Filed in Uncategorized
Comments
  • I like your idea!

    You wrote: "BTW, I noticed that people like to add tags to the things they RT, but it’s not clear to receivers whether these were tags in the original tweet, or the RT only".

    Yep, they add tags ... and/or comments to the RT. That's often misleading. I suggest this lingo : "|"

    RT #fun @giyom blah http://www.blah.com blah blah | watch out! The link is NSFW
  • Thanks JC!
    We'll write all this down on the microsyntax.org wiki when it is announced/available.
    G
  • On a server I have a shell on, we've used something like ReTweets for a long time, but slightly differently

    They were called "CO", short of "Check Out" or "Current Offering" depending on who you asked. A normal CO message would be:

    Guillaume posts: CO=:emsenn http://bit.ly/eUXEC looks like retweeting is evolving [About time, every other message I get has a plain RT attached to it]

    That would translate to

    Check out this neutral link, originally from emsenn: <original content goes here> [Stuff between brackets is my comment]

    CO+ to say you like something, CO- to say something is bad/sad. Could easily modify to be CO+2, CO-4, and so on.

    And of course, replace CO with RT.

    (please send an e-mail if this is replied to, as I doubt I'd be able to find this page again)
  • Thank you emsenn, are you saying that the CO+ and CO- microsyntax is already used on the server you mentioned?
  • Yep - and have been for... maybe 6 years or so?
    Don't take that the wrong way - most of that has been spent editing an increasingly large document full of 'tweets' (We're lame and call them, get this, 'messages'), though recently there's been attempts and working on some aliases and commands. But that doesn't have too much to do with microsyntax.

    Oh - and you might be wondering why we use '=' for neutral, instead of not having it. Originally things that were posted as CO without +,-, or = were taken as fact - quoting a headline, providing a statistic. The =/+/- method lets you see that it's an opinion.
  • Hi, I like this idea...

    Only stumbled it on now, appropriately from an RT retweet of your follower ;) (I noticed that you got unfollow me after the Twit crunch.)
    The idea I have been promoting with ecotwollar is that in one main #eco stream, there can be qualifiers for smaller micro-streams such as #watersaving etc.

    Spawning your idea that way, an example would be RT 2 #CO2 #saving @giyom for carpooling with friend today (original link to twitpic.) Compared to this, as I originally tried out: http://www.placemark.com.au/ecotwollar.html#bef...

    - Pls email if this is replied to or DM tweet me, whichever is more convenient.
  • Hello Otto, thank you for the comment. I think "RT 2 #CO2 #saving @giyom" is a bit out-of-scope for what I intended this microsyntax to be: a way to qualify a RT to make all RTs not equal.
    You might want to take a look at http://microsyntax.pbworks.com/Sightings, add your sightings and proposals there. I also wrote a RTip proposal http://microsyntax.pbworks.com/RTip.
  • Thanks, Guillaume, I'll head over there and check out the links. And many thanks also for following ecotwollar. Please use it, I only learn more by doing. What it does, it accepts the Twollar premise of recirculation through.. > charity > business > tweets > .. But it states that the eco value we can add to this flow by using it as a micro-innovation vehicle is in fact only upward: by acknowledging someone and learning from others tweets, the "eco" portion of a twollar tag don't become a negative credit, only the "Twollar" portion. (I have ideas to develop this notion some other way...) You have 100. I look forward to you comments about the suggestions I give here: http://wikiwikimoney.com/ecoTwollar Do you think it is too complicated, restrictive, etc..., do you think it is worth using in this experimental stage...?




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