SecretTweet

After some recent heat (that I feel was unnecessary), some new guidelines are being enforced and I’m temporarily suspending all moderators other than myself (@mozunk, Kevin Smith). This WILL, if you haven’t already noticed, create a MAJOR lag in the time between the submission of the tweet to the time it is approved. Currently, there are a little over 1,000 submissions/secrets/tweets in the queue for me to go through. I don’t want to be the only one reading these and approving them but, thanks to the political correctness that some aim for in every aspect of life, this is the way it has to be.

Terms
By using the SecretTweet.com web site, you are agreeing to be bound by the following terms and conditions ("Terms of Use").
- You must be 18 years or older to use this site.
- You are responsible for any activity to occurs under your assigned key. An assigned key is a replacement to your IP address (because IP addresses are not logged). An example key: a2932edcbef8e91933344d098ac6e330. Your IP address can be retrieved if necessary using your assigned key IF (and only IF) you visit SecretTweet.com again. Assigned keys are permanently stored.
- You must not submit content that is abusive, harassing, threatening, impersonating, or intimidating to any Twitter.com user, individual, group, organization, animal, living plant, fungi, or bacteria.
- SecretTweet.com staff and moderators reserve the right to modify and/or publish any submission to SecretTweet.com.

While SecretTweet.com prohibits such conduct and content on its site, you understand and agree that MozunkHost cannot be responsible for the Content posted on any of its web sites, including SecretTweet.com, and you nonetheless may be exposed to such materials and that you use the SecretTweet.com service at your own risk.

General Conditions
- We reserve the right to modify or terminate the Twitter.com (@secrettweet account and SecretTweet.com) service for any reason, without notice at any time.
- We reserve the right to alter these Terms of Use at any time.
- We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason at any time.
- We may, but have no obligation to, remove Content that we determine in our sole discretion are unlawful, offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, obscene or otherwise objectionable or violates any party’s intellectual property or these Terms of Use.
——————
Hopefully (but probably not) that’ll cover my ass a little bit if ever anyone were to get pissy and want to start trouble . Nonetheless, I’ll sleep a bit better.

@SecretTweet was nominated for a Shorty Award. If you don’t know what the Shorty Awards are, check this out.

Help SecretTweet out by nominating us and asking your friends to do the same. You have until December 31 to spread the word!

How to vote: Send a tweet in the following format:

@shortyawards I nominate @secrettweet for a Shorty Award in #personal because...

You HAVE to provide a reason why. Read why others have nominated us here.

You can also nominate us via the ShortyAwards homepage. Just make sure you nominate us for the #personal category.

Regardless if SecretTweet is top nominated, I’m going to be mailing out a few more t-shirts soon and the list of nominations will be the bank from which I draw the names (seems only fair to me). So go rock the SecretTweet vote!

Some time ago, I introduced the unabridged version of SecretTweet (you can view the Unabridged version here and you can view the blog entry about the unabridged version here). Tonight I’m excited to introduce @secrettweet3. All secrets that are published to the unabridged version will also be published to http://twitter.com/SecretTweet3.

WHY? Some fans of SecretTweet asked for it. There’s no reason NOT to have it. This keeps those fans who like to receive (for the most part) fully legible, polite, and safe-for-work submissions to secrettweet to follow @SecretTweet and fans who want to read EVERYTHING to follow @SecretTweet and @SecretTweet3.

Follow @SecretTweet3 now!

Things *should* be working properly but, like with any new addition, there may be a few bugs. Just let me know if something goes wrong! Enjoy (and Happy Holidays!)

Regards,
- @mozunk,
The SecretTweet.com Admin Guy Dude

PS: Oh – for those wondering, @secrettweet2 is the rarely used Spanish version of @secrettweet.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and to promote that fact, I’ve pinked things up a bit. Things will go back to normal in 31 days.

I sent out a tweet a couple of days ago asking for help moderating the submissions to SecretTweet. I received several (over 50) emails by the end of the day offering help. I randomly chose five of the volunteers and created a moderation area for them to use.

WHY? I’m a pretty busy person and SecretTweet isn’t the only online project I have going. I receive tons of email every day and having to moderate the SecretTweet submissions via email by myself was causing a clog/back up in the approval of tweets. I figure with five people helping me out, a submitted secret/tweet shouldn’t sit in queue for more than an hour or two before someone is able to tend to it and push it out.

I’m not going to publish the twitter names of the volunteers unless they give me permission.

Just keeping you informed as to what’s going on with the site

Have a good weekend,
Kevin Smith
@mozunk – SecretTweet Admin

@replies and links are automatically formatted to links now. SecretTweet now parses links and replies just like Twitter.com does…

I should also mention that http:// is required for links…I might actually disable links (but not @replies) just to prevent misuse. We’ll see…

Best,
Kevin, @mozunk – the secrettweet guy

I stated yesterday that I was going to work on a way to drop the collection of IP addresses.

I’m happy to announce that SecretTweet is now 100% completely anonymous. Now, not even your IP address is collected. Hopefully this change to the way ST works will allow even the most skeptical of users to feel safe using ST for what the way it was intended to be used. Of course, there are going to be some who still feel uncomfortable sharing, and that is understandable…SecretTweet will always be here for those less paranoid lol.

Regards,
Kevin, @mozunk

I am very happy that Sarah Lane decided SecretTweet.com was interesting enough to be featured on Revision3.com’s popSiren (http://revision3.com/popsiren). However, she made a mistake in here video…IP addresses ARE recorded and I’ve never tried to hide that fact. She states several times that I say I do not record IP’s when it is even shown in the screencast in the video (skip to 14:55 to see what I’m talking about.
http://revision3.com/popsiren/outsidelands

On ALL pages where the textbox to enter your secrettweet is present, it is stated directly below that box “Only your ip address (for spam protection) and tweet will be collected.”

Yes, IPs ARE recorded. However, I do not do anything with them. I don’t look at them, they’re not shown to anyone else (the site is run by me alone), they’re never going to be made public. In fact, I have even considered “dumping” the IP column in the database once a week but in the end, it wouldn’t really make much of a difference.

For the record, yes, I DO use secrettweet for myself sometimes. What you’re reading could easily have been posted by me. I use the same form everyone else does. My IP is recorded just like everyone elses. I don’t want to know who posts on SecretTweet. I have tried to make secrettweet as transparent as possible via this blog.
Look at it this way: well over 2,000 people have used it since I opened the site a few months ago and nearly 1,000 individual tweets are viewed daily (that’s not actual site views – that’s viewing tweets in this fashion: http://secrettweet.com/secret.php?id=2665) and nothing has been leaked yet.

For everyone’s peace of mind, I will be working on dropping the collection of IPs and developing a new way to prevent spam as soon as I get a break from classes Until then, happy tweeting!

PS: Sorry for the randomness/jumpiness of this update…It’s hard to follow but it wasn’t planned and I don’t have the time or will to write something more elaborate right now haha. Have a happy and safe holiday weekend, everyone!!

Best Regards,
Kevin (@mozunk) – The secrettweet guy

I noticed that, although rarely, there are some replies submitted to very early tweets. There needed to be some way to quickly view the most recent feedback submitted to the site. The replies section was added to fill that void. This has been added to the side menu on the main site (not this blog) and the unabridged version (which has become VERY, VERY popular) has also been added to the same menu.

Hope everyone is doing well!

- Kevin
(@mozunk, the SecretTweet guy)

Don’t know what this is? Read this.
http://kevinsmithdesigns.com/blog
http://twitter.pbwiki.com/Apps
http://blogosphere.branchez-vous.com
http://mashupawards.com/secret-tweet
http://mashable.com/2008/05/24/14-more-twitter-tools
http://justintvgossip.blogspot.com
http://bienbienbien.net
http://tecnoblog.girlpower.it/web1/twitter-segreti-anonimi
http://twitturly.com
http://wwwhatsnew.com
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/bifurcated/rivets/84
http://www.littlewindows.org
http://www.geekissimo.com