An omission.

In the last paragraph of my post of Saturday 7 January 2012 at 8:36:10 AM, I said:

"... re the missing #reinstateallanasher hashtag,
this screenshot shows the tag in use by another
[Twitter] user on 5 November 2011."

I then omitted to post the Twitpic of my screenshot that constituted evidence as to the '#reinstateallanasher' hashtag having been in use, and therefore having been displaying a timeline of tweets to other Twitter users, as at 5 November 2011. I now rectify that deficiency with this Twitpic: http://twitpic.com/85csin

`

And for the information of viewers, the Twitpic supplying the omission referred to went straight up on the timeline of the third incarnation of the '#reinstateallanasher' hashtag, in sharp contrast to the seven hour delay in appearance experienced in relation to an earlier tweet. Looks like '@Twitter' may be taking some notice of this problem/performance glitch/exposure of a tweet-vetting system. Here is the Twitpic of the screenshot (note mouse-over time of posting only minutes before time of screenshot shown top right, as would be expected): http://twitpic.com/85d2lc

It is interesting to note the Twitter message that appears at the bottom of the '#reinstateallanasher' timeline now displaying, 'Older Tweet results for #reinstateallanasher are unavailable'. http://twitpic.com/85dfyy Does that constitute an admission that older tweets at least exist, accessible to at least some, in the Twitter (or other) databanks, I wonder?

`

I do hope I am not hogging response to your article too much, Arjenne, nor appearing to hijack discussion from the '#carbontax' example given therein to that of the '#reinstateallanasher' hashtag with which I have had some recent experience. I have taken you at your word that you are interested in what may transpire in relation to the latter tag. It does, after all, touch upon the possible frustration of public discussion of matters at the highest levels of governance: possible breach of Senate privilege by a PM and SMoS, and usurpation of a prerogative of the Parliament.

Just doing the best I can with what I've got: Twitter, Twitpic, and OLO.

You must have had a sixth sense in raising this subject on OLO, Arjenne, as but yesterday evidence may have started to emerge as to which entity is really responsible for the nobbling of Twitter functionality with respect to the indexing of hashtags and the accessing of records of Twitter user participation in hashtag timelines. It seems to have been Twitter itself!

What was I saying about Twitter's 'Hashtag Parade' being a one-way street?

The recent newsbreak started out on 10 January 2012 with Twitter reportedly whinging about the new Google search features. See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/google-catches-heat-over-social-search/2012/01/10/gIQAdAhxoP_story.html

Google responded only yesterday with this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/google-to-twitter-you-asked-us-not-to-index-tweets/2012/01/11/gIQA89JdrP_story.html . For the convenience of viewers, here is a Twitpic of part of that news item, with the most relevant part highlighted: http://twitpic.com/869wuw , and how I learned of its existence; http://twitpic.com/86h6ng

It seems that back in April 2011, Twitter changed its Terms of Service and demanded that the third-party application 'What the Hashtag' (@wthashtag), which provided a free hashtag indexing service, take its website down. Here is a Twitpic of their tweet notifying of Twitter's having imposed this restriction upon functionality: http://twitpic.com/86h28o

There is a somewhat similar third-party application for tracking hashtags and generating transcripts from Twitter hashtag timelines called 'TweetReports'. This Twitpic of part of its website is perhaps revealing as to Twitter's attitude, especially as to the generation of transcripts: http://twitpic.com/86hk63

The importance of the ability to access transcripts of Twitter chats is perhaps topically illustrated by this OLO post: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=11353#192294 . It will be noted that the post is timestamped 9 December 2010, well before Twitter's unilateral variation of its Terms of Service that put 'wthashtag' off the air, and just one day before that now infamous Stockholm blast of 10 December 2010.

With this article now having dropped off the default 'one-month back' OLO articles index display, it would seem that in the normal course of events it would be unlikely to attract much further comment. This post, however, will have the effect of keeping this comments thread open for posting for another 19 days, unless that cut-off point is extended by further posting activity for a like amount of time, and I shall now feel correspondingly less guilty about being seen to be hogging discussion.

I was surprised to see the article attract so little breadth of comment response, but perhaps that may have been as a consequence of its title: whilst the Carbon Tax may have been the subject of the hashtagged tweets that were the basis of the study, the article seemed to me to be really more about Twitter hashtagged tweeting interaction (or the lack of it) in generality, as it might come to influence public policy. Perhaps some other title may have attracted more interest.

If it is any consolation to the author, the article reached the second-topmost position on the OLO 'Today's most popular' display the day after its publication. See: http://twitpic.com/88w09e . It was still featuring in that display, in 4th position, on Monday 19 December.

FWIW, Arjenne, a Twitter hashtag conversation has been tracked from its outset by Tweet Reports, that of ' #MTRsues ', with a complete transcript and various analysis tools being available upon the taking out a US $9/mth subscription (terminable at will). This overcomes any problem of limitation of access to tweets that may exist with respect to Twitter. The free trial transcript may be viewed here: http://search.tweetreports.com/search_results.php?search=%23MTRsues&sear=Y