| # Towards a Taxonomy of Twitter Bots | |
| ## Intro | |
| - towards a definition - autonomous non-human agents on Twitter | |
| - critical thinking - MECE, rabbit rule, holding hands | |
| - patterns of behaviour, rather than content | |
| - Twitter largely a textual medium | |
| - crossover between two broadest categories (automated/event-driven), but largely one or the other (maybe?) | |
| - some bots will exhibit both behaviours (active/reactive), but tend to favour one (most commonly, tweeters will also exhibit conversationalist behaviours) | |
| - why not tags? | |
| - The #botMUS test for independence: if nobody else was tweeting, would I continue to operate? | |
| ## Independent (of *Twitter* inputs - ) | |
| - samplers/ebooks (prefer 'samplers' to distinguish from Markov '_ebooks') | |
| - @Horse_ebooks ( :…( ) | |
| - mashups (HT @LightAesthetic) | |
| - @LatourSwag | |
| - @KimKierkegaard | |
| - Markovs | |
| - permutors/permutators (madlibs/snowclones/piecewise combinators) (HT @LightAesthetic) | |
| - iterators/corpus exhausters (HT @BooDooPerson) | |
| - @everyword | |
| - randomisers (like iterators, but less intentional…?) | |
| - @everycolorbot (iterator? Randomiser?) | |
| - @killcodes | |
| - p-event/(physical)real-world event-driven/IoT | |
| - the tower bridge bot | |
| - digital event-driven | |
| ## Dependent (operate in response to conditions on Twitter) | |
| - retweeters (on keywords/tags/phrases) | |
| - responders/keyword replying | |
| - @stealthmountain | |
| - two-centers (RT on keywords/tags/phrases, with comment) | |
| - @RedScareBot | |
| - functions (parse inputs) | |
| - @101atron | |
| - @MarkovChainMe | |
| - whisperers (DM) | |
| - @magicrecs | |
| - collectors/multiretweeters/mimics (retweeting paired/matched sets) | |
| - @pentametron | |
| - @annagramatron | |
| - mimics (actual spambots) | |
| ## Qualities outside of this taxonomy | |
| - multipartite (@FavThingsBot) | |
| - functional/non-functional | |
| - "dying, time traveling mimic[s]" (HT @tinysubversions) | |
| - @oldsubversions | |
| - rhymebots | |
| - images (??) | |
| ## Edge Cases | |
| - Umm… | |
| - multi-tweet generative (oeuvre is a series) | |
| - @FavThingsBot | |
| - mimics/actual spambots "passing" (HT @tinysubversions) | |
| - "dying, time traveling mimic[s]" (HT @tinysubversions) | |
| - @oldsubversions |
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