DISQUS

GO Drew! You keep laughing...

Good luck, and I'll be rooting for you!

Happy New Year SISTAH! I hope 2009 brings you fantastic things!

Well, you know Scott Monty and I had it out on Twitter about this weeks ago (I blogged the whole thing). I totally agree with you Chris.

When people respond to these ADM's (auto direct messages), I'd bet the conversations sparked are few and far between. The more likely scenario is that a person may respond to the ADM and hear nothing at all back. Or, as one user told me about Scott, he @replied to Scott after getting his ADM but heard nothing back. How disenfranchising. I hear that Scott is a pretty stand-up guy and the one user may have slipped through the cracks, but if you make promises in an ADM you can't let even one slip through. Scott is tweeting for himself and not for Ford, so slippage isn't as serious. If his were an official account, his ADM would be an impractical promise and a dangerous one.

In general, I think the ppl who use ADMs aren't interested in conversation at all. They want to spew; They don't want to listen. They are more interested in the numbers game (thanking followers? For what? For "coming to my party" as Scott Monty said on my blog? Twitter isn't a soiree. It's a tool. Thanking followers shows you are elated that you have bigger follow numbers).

I personally am at a crossroads now. I need to immediately unfollow these ADMers, but that would be like hanging up on telemarketers. To the phone intruders I used to say, "You need to take me off your list" (before the DNC list went into effect). On Twitter, I've taken to sending them a DM with this message: "I'm sorry. I have to unfollow you. I hate auto direct messages." I'm also thinking about changing my homepage background to contain the same type of message.

I'm not up to 70 ADMs a day but I get several a day (and it's increasing). It's going to eventually get me to stop using Twitter. Like the Do Not Call list, I want Twitter to introduce an ADM blocker ASAP. I want to be able to opt in/out of receiving these vacuous, pointless, disgusting breaches of basic etiquette.

Rob you poor thing! I'm not laughing. I'm not. I swear. You can't see me laughing so I am officially not laughing.

Oh man, sorry dude that is just too funny.

Denis --- it is always nice to run into you! Hope to hang out with you again soon. -Christine Cavalier

Jeff has brought so much FUN into my life! I appreciate him so much. Nice post, Chris. It's always nice to see leaders pay respects to each other. Smooth!

A sincere and warm Happy Birthday to Jeff!

This is why we are trying our best to do everything ONLINE! YIKES!

Hey Alex! It was such a great time! PhillyPreneurs should invite Josh Kopelman and other successful business types (maybe even current Wharton students) to a meet-up with the techie talent. There was a lot of tech talent and ideas in that room, but not a lot of sharp business acumen and funding. What if we can get them together to chat, just for an hour or two? You would probably need a bigger space than IndyHall, but if we could get some of those VC or other business types to come and chat, I think we could probably stimulate start-ups in Philly. What do you think?

Anyone can train for tests, if you know what types of questions to expect. This is the business model behind SAT and GMAT (etc.) prep course outlets. In fact, Princeton Review et al. prepare test takers not only by brushing up their math and reading skills, but also in test-taking techniques that show the tricks to 'beat' the test. I'm not saving up for my kids' college educations as much as I am for Princeton Review's SAT prep course!

That being said, the IQ tests for children are meant to assess natural ability (brain structure, etc.). The idea is that the ability is there or not there and can't be learned. This falls in line with the belief about the Michael Jordans of the world, or the Tiger Woods types: Natural ability is undeniable, and there is a problem-solving and observation natural ability that the WISC claims to assess.

Professionals keep the test very secret and unavailable to the public so that parents can't train their kids for it. The main advice is that the most accurate results happen with an untrained child, but that is just the stat model the professionals use. They obviously don't want anyone beating the test. The pros also talk about building up unnecessary anxiety in your child about the test and they purport that practicing will build up anxiety. I think these arguments have a 50/50 chance of applying to any one given child.

Parents cannot buy the test. Certified professionals are allowed to buy limited copies for use in their practices, and they are trained specifically to administer the test. Is all of this necessary? I don't think so. I'll see if I can do a little research on the types of questions on the children's IQ test (WISC) and I'll post them here.

Oh, like you weren't over there the second it launched.

Thanks for that, Mel! I think most educators are very well versed in alternate learning styles at this point. Here the WISC is used only to determine if a student qualifies for the gifted program.

Yeah I keep going back and forth about my Twitter feed being on FF. But honestly, it is all just noise in the end. I will make the extra effort to post something important on FF after I post it on Twitter. As for the multiple connections to the same people, meh. Doesn't bother me really. But I don't follow back on FF. Trying to keep it manageable.

Hi Mari! Did you 'scratchblog' yet? We have a 'scratchblogging' tag on flickr. I'm going to post mine up soon.

Mel, MY handwriting is neat? Wow. Thanks! Next post I'm going to try to sit at a proper desk and use proper posture like the nuns taught me.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Ummm, it kinda creeps me out though because it makes me think that people will see my actual person as a 'vehicle.' Which, you know, can be kind of blech.

John, nice to meet you too. Thanks for commenting! I probably have decent numbers on my readership (as I said, I don't keep track, but my friends tell me I'm #1 on Google search for PurpleCar or Christine Cavalier if that means anything) and this sitemeter thing is just a bug. It's just hilarious to get this email every week.

The update you sent yesterday for login on schoolpulse seems to have solved my issue. I forgot my password. Will try to log in today to review.

Upon first look, http://www.schoolpulse.com/ seems like it would be the perfect solution to my PTA's problem of a luddite principal and lack of on-line calendaring and resource lists. Will chat with Pam about the site soon. Thanks for the opportunity to review.

Ben, thanks for commenting. You have a point about the op-ed article that I referenced about the Philadelphia School District, but what it says about the uniform policy of anti-discipline is true. For whatever legal or otherwise reason, the school district is loathe to expel even the most violent (i.e. criminal) children.

Here is a reply from Biz Stone, an employee of Twitter, to another thread at Get Satisfaction! about harassment and abuse at Twitter:

"Biz Stone Official Rep, replied 1 hour ago
We're upset that Ariel is having such a bad experience with Twitter. She's been a long term user of ours and a great advocate of our service. Also, it's clear that folks here are interested and concerned about how we at Twitter react to content issues like this.

Something to keep in mind is that we're discussing content that has not been shared here. This account is no longer available for review because the person who created it willingly removed it back in March. We reviewed this account at the time of the complaint and did not find it in violation of our Terms.

The fact that so many of us can have differing opinions without having even reviewed the content we're discussing highlights the difficulty of this issue. In fact, Twitter recognizes that it is not skilled at judging content disputes between individuals. Determining the line between update and insult is not something that Twitter nor a crowd would do well.

We have deleted accounts for more straightforward violations of the existing Terms. That being said, we are engaged in an editorial review of those Terms to make it more clear what actions we will and won't take. Essentially, Twitter is a communication utility, not a mediator of content.

It's great that everyone's talking about this because it helps us make important decisions. After all, Twitter is a new medium that we're all figuring out as we go.

:-) I’m thankful
*The company and 7 other people say this solves the problem "


This is me again, PC: Twitter keeps saying that they 'don't know' what harassing is, that they can't sit around and settle disputes between users. This may or may not be true, but it would behoove them to construct a semblance of propriety. In other words, they need to try. This lame excuse of 'we can't do it nor could we figure out what is abuse and what is commentary' is crap. It wouldn't stand up in court and it definitely isn't being bought in the court of public opinion now.

It's ok Mrs. B! The report has zeros in it because I haven't gone through the whole setup or I haven't found a bug. Stats just aren't something I pay attention to. Plus, getting this every week is a reminder that we are but small things in the universe!

Thanks for commenting, guys!

Rick, I did watch Clay's speech. *sigh* Well, we have a few years to go.

Farouq, an alternative school or schools is necessary for districts to survive, and policing is necessary for websites to survive. Policing can be slow as molasses, as long as it exists. Users are patient if they think they will have a response at the end of the tunnel. Having no light and having no tunnel is a major mistake.

See Ariel's post about the same Twitter silliness:
http://arielwaldman.com/2008/05/22/twitter-refu...

And that, my friends, is the last word on that!

Noah's first tweet, I'm guessing the bottom one, isn't so offensive. I don't know why it got so out of hand. But at the end of the day, it was just a mistake of communication. Let's all put it to bed. I'm not asking Dayngr and Objections to kiss and make up, but we are REALLY all on the same side. Seriously.

In the future, maybe we can remember to not tweet off the tips of our fingers but with the souls of our palms. I'm guilty of spewing sometimes myself, but this whole thing is a good reminder to always be genuine.

Again, we are all agreed that this culture's servicemen who want communication from strangers back home should get it. It's a standard institution in our country's cultural fabric, and at least a 3,000 year old practice.

Yeah, man, I get you. But do you see what I mean about how you may be worried too much about it? We shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. In other words, emailing our troops - the troops who request emails only - is a good thing. They are asking for a shout out and eMOM finds strangers like me to give it to them. I know you don't want to underestimate me, Noah, but I fear that you may have. And the Twitter folks may spew politics on both sides of the coin, but that doesn't mean at all that they would be so cold-hearted or just plain stupid to spew it at a service person. And I'm sure you don't underestimate the military's professionalism - you are probably just thinking of how to make it better for them. Well, some of them want total strangers to write to them, like our war heroes from past wars were written to. If a stranger writes to them, it makes them feel like the whole country is writing to them. And we are. We love them. And I know you are included in the 'we.' :-)

Yup, makes sense, but we can use technology to tell if people are going to come to the event, too. Also, the sponsors are guaranteed to get their name in front of members whether or not the members show up, because there will be mass emails, mailings, etc. to members. It almost doesn't matter if they show up then, does it?

Hey guys! I was chatting with Whitney yesterday (in person! whoo hoo!) about this. Maybe we could have avoided the controversy if we offered memberships to Podcamp Boston. It's a dot org, so memberships are expected! 50 buck a year membership gets you free admission to podcamp, automatic yearly registration, etc. etc. I can come up with a list of other doable benefits (like a business contact directory etc.) that would last the year in ten minutes. Heck, we could charge $75 for such a valuable membership! And if there is any money left over we could set up a scholarship program for Podcamp Boston attendance. What do you think of that?

YAY! Look at me in there! I wish TweetCloud didn't crash when I ask to include @replies! I'm sure you'd show up as BIG BIG in mine too! :-) Rock on , SISTAH! See you at podcampNYC.