Thesis: a web of trust based social network wouldn't have a reliable "global" follower / like / etc count -- it would only be the ones you've seen -- and this would be a feature.
Some of the most toxic behavior on Twitter comes from people trying to become "the most popular person in the room", which also leads to a lot of social messaging which isn't about being constructive, but differentiating yourself in a way that makes you look better than others.
By having a public follower count, *everyone* (yes, even you, yes even me) is gamed into comparing whether your follower count is higher than others, whether others got more likes / shares / etc than you.
This isn't a good basis for thoughtful communication.
@Alda @cwebber I try to figure out whether to follow back based on potentiality of mutual interest, or at least whether or not I would be interested in what they have to share. However, I did just follow back a person with 2 posts total. They didn't seem like a dick though, so I'm giving it a shot.
I have a theory that the Fediverse gets stronger the more folks follow each other. But it's a 2-edged sword.
@cwebber it also encourages some people to try and keep amount of people they follow smaller than amount of people following them. And of course talking people not doing that having "wrong ratio"
@tuturto Could you imagine a world where you decided to not subscribe to 20 comic rss feeds or a few more podcasts because you were afraid it would screw up your follower ratio?
@cwebber or where you decide listen to fewer people than you talk to, for the same reason?
BTW some of my recent thinking on this was prompted by @nolan's recent blogpost https://nolanlawson.com/2017/11/15/why-im-deleting-my-twitter-account/
@cwebber +1. I wrote a whole thing about this: https://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/02/i-kind-of-hate-twitter/
@jalefkowit @cwebber What a great post. I kinda feel like you foresaw a lot of this stuff before others did (or at least, before I did). I didn't really notice until 2016, when the US election/Brexit magnified everything.
I've been trying to read "Understanding Media," but it's *so dense*. 😭 Maybe Twitter has ruined my attention span too…
@jalefkowit @cwebber Your post is a breath of fresh air. Well-considered, well-written.
Your points about how Twitter's constraints (often praised as forcing clever communication) combined with the multiple scorekeeping mechanisms (followers, impressions) drives up the tweet-as-performance factor through the roof.
It's also nice to see McLuhan getting some airtime.
@jalefkowit those are well articulated points! I'll use that for reference when discussing this with folks. ^_^
@cwebber I think I agree. I can't say i know my follow count either way here except that the network is much smaller than elsewhere, but if follow count display was an option I'd disable it (leaving the ability to browse my network; if someone wants to count, whatever, and it might help others discover each other!)
Thanks for interesting thoughts
@cwebber And *THAT'S* why everyone on WitchesTown has ⛧666⛧ followers. ^_^