Most people who are taken off the list are stored instead on MyDelicious with a /twitterfeed/ tag so that I can get to them and catch up on their tweets but not necessarily wade through five hundred tweets (total) every day. I mean, there was usually a reason they made my twitterfeed list in the first place.

Is it their fault they post in spurts and every four hours I can look forward to a series of nine tweets?

Well, yes it is their fault, which is why they’re now a MyDelicious twitterfeed link rather than on my “real” twitterfeed. (Note to whoever may be fussing about me moving you off my twitterfeed: Unless your initials are TO, the aforementioned burst-tweeter isn’t you.)

Facebook, though, seems more easily controlled. I can look at someone’s updates or not. The updates from X don’t overwhelm the updates from Y. I don’t think I’ve ever defriended anyone at LinkedIn either. I did completely bail out of Friendster soon after the friends of friends of friends began including people I wouldn’t want to have coffee with.

This article on de-friending brings up many issues but #6 (“De-friending can regress mature women into a high school gossip mob”) takes the cake.