By Dennis D. McDonald

So far I've found Twitter useful for keeping in touch, for getting quick questions answered, and for announcing new blog posts. I check in a couple of times a day if I'm at my computer. Here are my personal Twitter rules so far:

1. Web only. I don't use a phone for sending or receiving messages nor do I use other applications; plain vanilla Web access is how I use Twitter.
   
2. No bad language. I usually "unfollow" people after reading an obscenity, swear words, cursing, or plain nastiness. It's OK to call me old fashioned.
   
3. Names, please. If you follow me but make it impossible for me to tell if you are an individual human being or not, I probably won't follow you.
   
4. No spam. If you're just interested in selling me something that's fine, I just have no interest in following Twitter based advertising that has no personal element.
   
5. No personal health details. I'd rather not know your personal health details. My family has had its share of life-threatening and traumatic situations in the past and I have no interest in sharing such details with others.
   
6. No blocking. Usually I feel that if someone wants to "follow" me, that's fine with me, but just because you follow me that doesn't mean I'll necessarily be following you â€" especially if you don't provide any name or personal information. I seldom use the "blocking" function.
   
7. Direct messages are OK. At first I didn't remember to check to see if I had direct messages, now I do. I use the "DM" facility quite a bit now as a simple form of self contained email.
8. No Twitter feed on my web site. I experimented with this but dropped it. First, the aesthetics didn't match my page design. Second, I didn't think it provided the same "social experience" that the main web view provides.

For the record: as of March 27, 2008 I am following 224; 337 are following me; and I've posted 1, 431 updates to Twitter.

Question: how do these rules compare with your own?

• Copyright (c) 2008 by Dennis D. McDonald