6 ways to stop me following you on Twitter

Recently, I've noticed a number of bloggers writing posts entitled 'Why I won't follow you on Twitter', which (not surprisingly) list various reasons why they won't add people to their list of friends. So, as all the cool kids are doing it, I thought I'd compile a similar list

1) You have 9000 followers but only 3 friends: Sorry, but unless you are imparting truly 'must have' information, I'm not going to follow you, I don't care how famous you think you are. If @stephenfry can follow back, you really haven't got much of an excuse not to.

2) You constantly tweet about how Twitter should be used: Who made you king of the twittersphere? It's supposed to a form of communication, not a platform for your business. People can use it anyway they choose, and if you don't like it, don't look.

3) You post nothing but links to get-rich-quick schemes which, you claim, have made you millions: If you really are that successful, why are you spending so much time marketing? Surely you should be tweeting about drinking Dom Perignon on the beach of your private island.

4) You say things like LOOL, or WOOT: What do they even mean? OK, you might not like my LOLs, Eeks, or Yucks, but at least they have a meaning that is widely understood (and you can always see point number 2 above). WOOT sounds like something annoying, English public school boys said in the 1920s when they discovered they were getting jam roly-poly for pudding, and the only time I've ever heard anything similar to LOOL, it came from a drunk who was throwing up outside a particularly sleazy nightclub.

5) You keep tweeting about how much you love Your God/George Bush/BarackObama/Darren Rowse/WordPress: I'm sure they are all absolutely delightful, but do we really need you to tell us about them, constantly, in every other tweet, day-in, day-out.

6) You are a dirty old man: If you send me direct messages containing thinly disguised pick-up lines, I will unfollow you. Sorry to shatter your illusions, but using the internet does not turn women into racy sex maniacs, it won't give you the pulling power of George Clooney and using lines from Sid James is never a good idea anyway (online or off). Sid was joking, you just look like a joke.

So now you know how to make me go away and never follow you again, but be warned: If you consistently post interesting tweets, link to useful stuff, are the least bit amusing, or are sociable and chatty, you'll never get rid of me :-)