

Show HN: My wednesday project Unsocialize This - jrnkntl
http://unsocializethis.com

======
raju
This, IMO flies in the face of "Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in
a face to face conversation." - Taken from HN Submission Guidelines
[<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>].

I have been following this advice well before it appeared on HN, and wish that
everyone would.

If I have someone talking about something that I am not interested in, I have
one of two options - tell them my concern and hope we can reach a common
ground, or as hanshasuro correctly said, stop listening (by not calling them
or interacting with them in any way). In the real world, I am pretty certain I
would not ask someone else, let alone someone completely anonymous to hint at
the issue.

Now that I have gotten off my soap-box, I do realize that it was for fun,
though I am not sure it's the kind of fun I like to participate in.

------
jrnkntl
There were 2 reasons I did this; first of all the 'social' aspect:

You can easily unfollow someone when you don't like what they're tweeting
through Twitter. But, what if you want to 'tell' that person that what they're
tweeting just isn't that interesting without having to tell them yourself?
Then you'd use Unsocialize This :)

Secondly; on the technical side: I setup a Linode with nginx and php-fpm,
which was incredibly easy but I had never done before. Played around with the
Twitter API and some JS.

And, of course, it's for fun.

~~~
mcantor
You should focus more on the "why" aspect. I enjoy the cheeky, opinionated
angle that this project is taking on the act of unfollowing, but I don't think
you've taken it far enough.

What are the different reasons someone might hit the unfollow button?

They might unfollow because the other person tweets too much. This would
probably warrant a polite notification: "Your tweets are cool and all, but
they were getting in the way of other people's tweets!"

They might unfollow because the other person said something that deeply
offended them. This could involve a little more snark, but if you _really_
want to sell the "let them know" approach, you should probably ask the
unfollower to indicate which tweet was the "last straw."

I really like the simple design and unambiguous layout. Keep tweaking it,
dude!

~~~
jrnkntl
Thanks for your feedback! Next wednesday will be tweaking day. There's also
more serious work to do ;)

------
hanshasuro
This seems needlessly petty and childish. Is there a real need to tell someone
that you're not interested in what they have to say? Just stop listening.

Am I missing something?

~~~
yock
No, you aren't missing anything. This is a passive-aggressive tool to inflate
one's own self-importance by implying that the "unsocialized" individual
should care that they aren't being followed anymore.

------
perssontm
I think you made an hilarious project, personally i would never bother to use
it. But its a cool idea, that even got an implementation. But useful? No, not
for me, sorry. :)

------
kes
I'm just hoping you are not one of those people that believes that I should
follow everyone (on Twitter) that follows me. If what I say interests you,
follow me. I'll do the same.

Something like this: <http://powazek.com/posts/2754>

I agree with _araneae_ , this would seem to be an awfully rare thing to do.

------
gyardley
People who care about unfollows are likely already using a tool that'll tell
them _exactly_ who unfollows them.

Users who take your claims of anonymity at face value are going to be unhappy
when they're called on it.

~~~
jhrobert
I assume you mean "unhappy to discover how dumb they are"

------
iuguy
It's a bit bizarre. Why would someone use a service to tell them they're no
longer following them rather than do it themselves? I mean, telling them in
the first place is fairly petty, but getting a service to do it for them?

Having said all that, kudos to you for building something and shipping it in a
day.

~~~
araneae
I did tweet to @newscientist that I was unfollowing them due to them putting
all their tweeted articles behind a sign-in page.

But it seems like it would be a rare thing.

~~~
stephencelis
But why do that anonymously?

~~~
mcantor
Obviously, so that you'll survive when someone writes an app that uses the
Twitter API to communicate with the Blackwater Mercenary API to kill everyone
who unfollows you with a snarky message. Of course, it will all fall apart
when Google buys them out in a high-profile acquisition, and one of their
engineers accidentally adds "walled garden" to the snark detection heuristic,
which results in Facebook inadvertently putting a hit out on every single open
source developer on the planet due to a mass simultaneous unfollowing in the
aftermath of yet another content privacy maelstrom.

Or... I dunno. It's kinda awkward, I guess. Sometimes.

~~~
iuguy
Spot the guy who is/should be doing NaNoWriMo ;)

------
jhrobert
There is a need for such a service.

Anything that is done "in real life" has a purpose that applies equaly
"online"

There is not point is judging an action by itself, only the consequences
matter, but some actions have fairly predictable consequences.

------
duck
What does "unsocial" mean in this context? When I hear it I guess I would
think of someone that doesn't really use their account very often (like me),
but is that really bad (as in bad enough that you have to anonymously say I'm
punished)?

