@weather_mn Posting this as a reply, so I can get the tweets that follow in chronological order on my index page after I retweet them. I'm doing this to make a tweetstorm easier to read.
I'm guessing that nobody is going to see the notices for a weather bot that was abandoned in 2019.
I'm guessing that nobody is going to see the notices for a weather bot that was abandoned in 2019.
@weather_mn If I'm wrong in that, please speak up and ask me to stop. I'm not trying to be a nuisance, I'm just dealing with some of Twitter's questionable design choices.
(tweetstorm begins)
(tweetstorm begins)
@weather_mn The significance of my current display name, avatar and banner image is a simple one. In those misty old days before Covid, I liked to rise well before dawn, and go over to a coffeehouse that was already open.
@weather_mn I'd sit outside with an iced coffee, a few books, my laptop and a journal, reading and scribbling away as I waited for the sunrise.
@weather_mn That image might have been a little more romantic if the coffeehouse in question hadn't been a Starbucks, but the independents in Chicago didn't open that early.
@weather_mn Then came the Zombie Apocalypse of 2020 and the state of Illinois, in its infallible wisdom, decided that while liquor stores, weed dispensaries and adult bookstores were essential, coffeehouses, respectable bookstores and libraries were frills best kept closed.
@weather_mn And so the people of Illinois were kept in that state that our peerless leader and governor for life knew best suited them: drunk, horny and stupid.
@weather_mn Even after the bars were allowed to open, the coffeehouses were only allowed to sell drinks to go, which rather defeated the purpose of spending that much on flavored water.
@weather_mn "The heart longs not for coffee, but rather for company. Coffee is but the excuse."
I forget who said that, but it was and remains true. Noting how little company I was finding in that Starbucks before the Great Calamity, I suddenly had a few radical thoughts.
I forget who said that, but it was and remains true. Noting how little company I was finding in that Starbucks before the Great Calamity, I suddenly had a few radical thoughts.
@weather_mn 1. Tea, not coffee.
2. I can brew my own.
3. If I'm sitting by myself, anyway, why not just sit out in a park?
4. Who needs the laptop? Don't we all spend way too much time online, anyway? Leave it at home, where the muggers can't "borrow" it.
2. I can brew my own.
3. If I'm sitting by myself, anyway, why not just sit out in a park?
4. Who needs the laptop? Don't we all spend way too much time online, anyway? Leave it at home, where the muggers can't "borrow" it.
@weather_mn 5. I really should thank whichever gods may be for a metabolism that lets me walk around comfortably in 40 degree Fahrenheit weather in T shirt and shorts, because Chicago's climate being what it is, I'm going to need that.
@weather_mn The Midwest being as open minded as it is, I was soon gifted with feedback, and I didn't even have to ask for any.
"40 degrees? You sure you don't have a fever?"
One that I've had since I was two? Probably not.
"40 degrees? You sure you don't have a fever?"
One that I've had since I was two? Probably not.
@weather_mn "Don't you know there's a pandemic on, and that you're supposed to stay home?"
That one was actually more from the Internet. That having been said, who am I going to manage to infect sitting on a park bench by myself, at least a few hundred feet from anybody else?
That one was actually more from the Internet. That having been said, who am I going to manage to infect sitting on a park bench by myself, at least a few hundred feet from anybody else?
@weather_mn The old routine, then, lives on in mutated form. Instead of a Starbucks cup, I grab a few water bottles filled with some kind of spiced ice tea, and my books and journals, and head out to the park a few hours after most of the muggers have gone to bed.
@weather_mn Nobody else out there, which at the moment is fine, because over the last two years people have been getting on my last nerve over things so stupid that I couldn't believe I was hearing them.
My heart is not longing for company, right now.
My heart is not longing for company, right now.
@weather_mn Maybe I'll look into doing something about that later.
@weather_mn I have a semi-private blog, which I have deliberately kept out of the search engines, in which I will be posting some of the writing exercises I'll be doing as I go out in the morning. Those are rough drafts for things that might be seen on my more public blog.
@weather_mn My account on Twitter will mainly be used for notices of new content. I'll be linking my blogs to this account, so you should be notified of new content fairly quickly,
@weather_mn It will be amateurish content (at least at first), but while I do acknowledge that fact, it should not be taken as an invitation to give unsolicited writing advice.
I don't accept advice from random strangers, because why would I?
I don't accept advice from random strangers, because why would I?
@weather_mn Not to be unfriendly, but lately, everybody seems to think that everything is their business, and I find myself surrounded by self-appointed life coaches. It gets old, and I'm done putting up with it.
@weather_mn I >might< post some brief pieces of fiction directly to this microblog, with copies posted to my blog, because I don't trust Twitter. I've heard the stories about people being arbitrarily locked out of their accounts, and known people that was done to.
@weather_mn Usual stuff
"You've been locked out because we detected automated activity from your account that violated the rules."
"But I've used no automation. Would you please tell me which rule I violated and how I did so?"
"No, because I'm having fun flexing my power."
"You've been locked out because we detected automated activity from your account that violated the rules."
"But I've used no automation. Would you please tell me which rule I violated and how I did so?"
"No, because I'm having fun flexing my power."
@weather_mn I know somebody who has been kept out of his account since 2018, on the same 12 hour lockout. The company will not admit that since 2018, well over 12 hours have passed.
He appealed and they've gaslighted him and gone on gaslighting him.
He appealed and they've gaslighted him and gone on gaslighting him.
@weather_mn The story gets even worse. He got racially baited, told the person baiting him to go away, a friend of the person baiting him lied in a report about a tweet that didn't break any rule on this site, and found that Support was willing to see what they were told to see.
@weather_mn Instead of what was actually there.
@weather_mn No amount of rhetoric about the free market ("hallowed be its name") will change the fact that that was shady behavior, and that Twitter is a shady and more than faintly racist company.
@weather_mn I am not here to change that fact, because I know that I can't. Twitter is what it is.
@weather_mn But what I can do is be aware of the low ethical character of the people running this site, and plan around it.
@weather_mn If my content is over on my blog (hosted by the far more trustworthy Automattic) instead of here, and Twitter wrongly deprives me of access to my account, no problem. I'll post a note telling visitors what just happened over on my homepage.
@weather_mn That would be this page
6vbfgetfgzdcf9f1fbctbxf.wordpress.com/rhrtbr5umdfbtu…
on my Twitter blog. Yeah, strange url, you'll never remember it, but just go to my profile and you'll see the link. You don't need to memorize all of that.
6vbfgetfgzdcf9f1fbctbxf.wordpress.com/rhrtbr5umdfbtu…
on my Twitter blog. Yeah, strange url, you'll never remember it, but just go to my profile and you'll see the link. You don't need to memorize all of that.
@weather_mn Having told people what happened, I'll then tell them where they can follow me, now, and turn my Twitter blog into, maybe, a Gab blog. Or a Minds.com blog. Or something, realigning my links accordingly.
@weather_mn I'll go on doing more or less what I was doing before, with little to no interruption, and Twitter will have hurt itself more than it will have hurt me, because I'm not going to turn this microblog into a handcrafted work of art, as some of my friends and classmates have done.
@weather_mn Those collages - those could look very nice, but Twitter never appreciated the users who made that kind of effort, because the people on their staff never had that kind of class. They'd see something made with love and think "cool, that's something we can hold hostage."
@weather_mn What they did to other users made this much clear.
@weather_mn But we can learn from the misfortunes of others. I'm simply not going to make that kind of effort >here<. On Wordpress and Tumblr, sure. But here, where I can get locked out on an anonymous admin's whim and there is no real appeal process?
No.
No.
@weather_mn As I said, I >might< post some very brief fiction directly to Twitter. If you see one of those pieces and I've left replies open, feel free to continue the story and take it in a direction of your choice.
No reason not to. I'm not writing holy scripture. They're just stories.
No reason not to. I'm not writing holy scripture. They're just stories.
@weather_mn I see that other people had that idea long before I did, so maybe I'll visit some of the other fiction accounts on Twitter and do a few continuations of my own.
Or maybe not, because I've heard some wild stories about how some other users responded to such efforts.
Or maybe not, because I've heard some wild stories about how some other users responded to such efforts.
@weather_mn Eg. Somebody trying to pretend that a piece of satirical horror fiction was a coded death threat, trying to assemble an "online lynch mob" to take down the author, and then claiming that he had "harassed" others by blocking the members of the mob which she was assembling publicly
@weather_mn At least one of the ringleaders in that effort has since been permanently suspended, but that's still far more craziness than I feel like putting up with.
@weather_mn For these and other reasons, my engagement on Twitter itself will probably be extremely limited, as will be my patience with anybody who comes over to troll in the comments on my blog.
As it should be.
As it should be.
@weather_mn These will just be stories, not attempted guidelines to life, and one really shouldn't be creating drama over a piece of fiction. Unless one is on stage performing it.
@weather_mn Some characters will be jerks and say and do horrible things. I expect my readers to have to maturity and intelligence needed to understand the difference between an author and his characters.
@weather_mn To portray racism is not to be a racist. To show a fictional rape and its aftermath is not to condone and certainly not to celebrate the inexcusable act of rape.
@weather_mn Truths these simple should be obvious, and yet lately, they've been forgotten, thanks to an attitude that holds that the world should be made into a safe space, built to be so blandly non-threatening as to accommodate even the most neurotic among us.
@weather_mn My posts might not be undying literature, but I'm not going to turn them into pablum just to cater to some crybully, somewhere. Nor will I ever agree to post "trigger warnings," because those are a kind of spoiler.
They take the reader out of the story.
They take the reader out of the story.
@weather_mn I'm not ever going to agree to post something like "on page three, a toddler's head gets torn off by a passing car," because real life wouldn't give such a warning. Whatever happened would just happen and people would have to deal with it.
@weather_mn By failing to reflect that reality, fiction with trigger warnings loses its feel of reality. It loses its strength.
So that's not going to happen. If that thought makes you unhappy, no problem. Just don't read my writing, and maybe get into therapy.
So that's not going to happen. If that thought makes you unhappy, no problem. Just don't read my writing, and maybe get into therapy.
@weather_mn There's somebody who got dogpiled and then saw his Twitter account get locked after he mentioned that in one of his stories, a city got H bombed and a dog died during the attack. "A lot of them," he said.
@weather_mn This deeply offended somebody who couldn't seem to grasp that this didn't qualify as cruelty to animals because none of the dogs in the backstory had ever really existed.
Adults should be able to understand the difference between reality and fiction.
Adults should be able to understand the difference between reality and fiction.
@weather_mn If they can't or won't, that's not my problem to fix, but more than a few people on Twitter seem to want to back up that kind of insanity. That, and so many others.
Which is why this will be almost entirely for update notification.
Which is why this will be almost entirely for update notification.
@weather_mn You can, perhaps, see why I used the strange url for that landing page that I did. If I replace Twitter, later on, maybe because some admin decided to find an excuse to appease a mob, while there will be a clear path from here to my new microblog, there will be none coming back.
@weather_mn People can sit here and scream about my willingness to consort with puppy murderers and they'll just be talking to themselves, after a while.
Which is how things should be.
Which is how things should be.
@weather_mn That banner, that avatar - that should give you a sense of what I'm walking out into, as I head out to do my morning scribbling. They are peaceful images.
Even a major city can be very peaceful at 5 am.
Even a major city can be very peaceful at 5 am.
@weather_mn That's one of the reasons I prefer the morning to the evening.
@weather_mn I intend to keep the writing on my blog as peaceful an experience online as it is when I'm off in the park. So if somebody comes my way looking for a fight, I'm just going to block him and be done with it.
@weather_mn If somebody then wants to have a debate with me about whether or not that's censorship, I'll block him, too, because to enable a troll is to be a troll.
Do we understand each other, clearly? If so, let's move on. If not, then you can show yourself the way out.
Do we understand each other, clearly? If so, let's move on. If not, then you can show yourself the way out.
@weather_mn Thread unroll
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1475301…
Archived copies
archive.md/q2F0v
web.archive.org/web/2021122717…
Because an admin who knows that he can't hope to lie and be believed is likelier to be an honest admin.
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1475301…
Archived copies
archive.md/q2F0v
web.archive.org/web/2021122717…
Because an admin who knows that he can't hope to lie and be believed is likelier to be an honest admin.
@weather_mn My profile on the Thread Reader App site
threadreaderapp.com/user/brief_fic…
Archived copies
archive.md/h5VMf
web.archive.org/save/https://t…
which should help me find any archived threads of mine, should I need to prove that I was telling the truth, later on.
threadreaderapp.com/user/brief_fic…
Archived copies
archive.md/h5VMf
web.archive.org/save/https://t…
which should help me find any archived threads of mine, should I need to prove that I was telling the truth, later on.
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