In spring 2020, I crafted myself 5 rules for how I would engage on Twitter. Generally, I think they've worked well for me:
1. Tweet with intent 🖋️
2. Stay positive 🙂
3. Engage in good faith 🫱🏿🫲🏻
4. You don't owe anyone a response 💁🏻♀️
5. Never feed the trolls 🧌
1/9
First, a disclaimer: These are the rules I try to follow. But I'm not perfect - I've broken them; I've made mistakes.
But in general, I've stuck to them. I do think they've allowed me to have a better social media experience in the last 3 years than many, & I'm grateful.
2/9
1. Tweet with intent 🖋️
I try to not to tweet reactively or randomly. Doesn't mean everything has to be science, but does mean I try to ask, "why am I tweeting this? what am I trying to accomplish?" This keeps me more focused in what I choose to share.
3/9
2. Stay positive 🙂
Sometimes a real challenge in the last 3 yrs, but if I'm criticising or sharing bad news, I try to include what we can do about it (provide actionable next steps) & a reminder that it's never too late to try to do better (hope). Prevents helplessness.
4/9
3. Engage in good faith 🫱🏿🫲🏻
See also 5 - but I try to read responses/Qs in the best light I can, if someone seems to genuinely have a question or misunderstanding. Responding in good faith has often turned a bad interaction around & left both of us happier!
5/9
4. You don't owe anyone a response 💁🏻♀️
This one is a big one for me. This is Twitter, not a conference or meeting. I never have to respond if I don't want to or don't have the energy. Nobody can demand a response from me. It's my time/energy to give if I so choose.
6/9
5. Never feed the trolls 🧌
It can take all my self control not to clap back sometimes, but I rarely do. Because it's not worth it: they have more time/energy than you & you'll never win. Plus you are so boring they leave you alone! & prevents angry replies you may regret.
7/9
Sometime following these rules means writing "friendly" replies through gritted teeth. Sometimes it means shutting down the whole thing for 2 days so I don't explode at someone who really got under my skin. Sometimes it means sitting on a thread for a day to think it over.
8/9
But overall it has helped make my time on Twitter intentional & focused. It has discouraged trolls, abuse & bad-actors. It has helped me have helpful, meaningful interactions.
It hasn't all been good. But I do think these rules have helped!
9/9
Great advice. Thank you for sharing 🙏
@firefoxx66 In general I agree with #4 because we have to take care of ourselves. But I also think that this protective behaviour is a function of how much one uses social media like an amplifier vs a way to meet mutuals.
Your suggestions seem great if you are trying to cultivate more parasocial relationships.
I want to weave in:
https://mastodon.sharma.io/@harshad/109427572204290218 by @harshad
where they ask what tools might be employed to make plain the different relationships we might be trying to build together here
When replying to a post on Mastodon, I would like a green/amber/red indicator based on: - Do I follow them - Do they follow me - Have I muted the account - Have we had interactions before (frequency sparkline in UI?) - The note I left on the profile page (parseable markup/emojis) When names appears familiar - but they don't follow me and my note says "#biz" - an amber indicator to pause and decide if I really want to send that funny(?) comeback would be much appreciated.
@firefoxx66 Excuse me Dr. Hodcroft. There is an old twitter habit you have that doesn't work very well in the tech/paradigm of Mastodon for engagement.
The replies may not all federate to other instances, meaning that someone on a different instance might only see part of the thread before it seemingly stops abruptly.
It is perhaps better to use a short summary and then link to a blog post or link to an article you have written. ( e.g https://fediverse.blog/ )
@firefoxx66 indeed... unfortunately that doesn't work well. The only thing I could suggest as a work-around would be to make sure you copy the -link- to the just submitted post into the next one using a short URL generator perhaps?
It's a bit of an awkward solution, but the [1/n] was a hack on Birdsite to start with.
If I come up with any better solutions, I'll ping you!
@firefoxx66 Thank you, nicely described.
I have one more rule (for me): Don't tweet in the office.
@firefoxx66 I'm thinking the last 4 are equally applicable here but the first needs reconsideration.
Possibly if replace it with:
1, use #contentWarnings (aka #contentWrappers) and #hastags generously.
Excellent list, thank you,
Point 5 luckily was never an issue for me, my small account was never under attack. Point 2 has been key to me too, especially when posting on upsetting events --- always worth trying to encourage each other to look for positive next steps.
Point 1 is where I need to reign in on my excitable nature! The individual post always has intent, but there also needs to be a degree of conscious curation of my overall output, to create an overall message.
Dr Emma Hodcroft 
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