[jrochkind1]

So, the OP provided the email he recieved.

It did not ask him to clarify what he is doing, it did not say anything about bounds of acceptable use cases or what they might be, it did not encourage him to contact Twitter directly, or provide a link to do so. It did _not_ "inquire about why the developer needs elevated access", there is no such inquiry in the email. It _did_ say elevated access was going away.

It said he could use the free API with rate limits, or the commercial Gnip API.

It kind of half-heartedly suggested he could "reply to this email" if he had "questions". From the email, there was no reason to think elevated access might still be available, it pretty clearly said it would _not_ be, so I'm not surprised he didn't have any questions -- the email was quite clear (at saying something pretty different than you are saying).

So when you describe the email that goes out -- it does not seem to describe the one he received, according to him in the post. Are you talking about a different email? That he did not receive, or that you think he should have received in addition? Or do you actually think that email somehow communicates what you describe above? (It really really does not, which is why I think you must be thinking of a different email he did not receive or post, or you were internally misinformed about what the email was going to say).

With the email he actually pasted into the OP it is not surprising that he simply publicly notified his userbase and other interested parties that the service would be going away -- what else do you do when your upstream provider tells you the service is going away? This is all very standard and professional.

But, if you are saying that you do continue providing free elevated access to certain projects that seem worthwhile and meet some 'boudns of acceptable use', then that is nice, cool, I'm glad Twitter is doing this. (Maybe you should have told him that in the email though! And it would be great to actually advertise that fact, and what the bounds of acceptable use are, and how someone can get in touch with you to request access.)

[kbenson]

> which provided no particular encouragement that there might be other terms available

That's not entirely correct. Under option 2 after mentioning it's commercial side, it says:

There are also other solutions that offer varying levels of access as well as historical search.

It's not prominent (likely because they only want it pursued in special cases), and it's easy to miss, but it is there.

[dangrossman]

That's referring to Gnip still. They offer several levels of access and historical search, in addition to the firehose stream, for money.

> If they want all these special access cases handled through Gnip, whether they are discounted or free, that's their call.

There's nothing in the mail suggesting they "want special access cases handled through Gnip".

[kbenson]

So? If they want all these special access cases handled through Gnip, whether they are discounted or free, that's their call. Just because it's through the commercial arm doesn't mean they would be incapable of handling special cases.

In any case, it's all speculation, there was never a dialogue, and the HN title as it current stands is probably inflaming this more than it should be. Their access was not shut down (and the blog post's title and wording does does not say it is shut down, but that they believe they will be shut down). An email was sent, it was poorly worded, and the recipient overreacted (or at least prematurely reacted). The responsible thing to do would have been to contact Twitter or the sender and discuss the needs and goals of the project, and see what they could offer.

Immediately writing a public blog post is not negotiating in good faith.

[njs12345]

> Immediately writing a public blog post is not negotiating in good faith.

Yet this seems to have been quite effective, given that the head of Developer Relations at Twitter is replying to this story on HN..

[kbenson]

I don't question that. Yet doing things based purely on their effectiveness for your goals without any regard to the consequences for other parties is semi-sociopathic behavior, which is why it's frowned upon. Whether something is effective or not should not be the only metric by which we decide whether it's the action we should take.

[ploxiln]

A small-time developer asking a big company to be reasonable practically never works. Likely first response is from a low-paid customer support person who has no idea what you're talking about, likely second response is from an aggressive business or law type in the company.

Public shaming on twitter+blog is 50/50. It often gets the attention of an engineer and sometimes even a founder, and when it does the response is often reasonable. Why would you ever try anything else?

I've had a crazy technical issue with AWS that our account representative proved useless for about but a tweet got it fixed. Also see news articles about people suffering the most ridiculous treatment from comcast/timewarner/verizon/at&t until they get in the news and everything is finally sorted out. This is a totally standard thing you should already be familiar with. The problem is that these big companies get too many queries from crazies and people who have no idea what they're doing, they're inundated with stupid support requests. So a legitimate support request will never be noticed by anyone who knows anything. So you need a sort of public vetting process. You need the "shaming" part to express the priority in large companies where business people have all the power.

I'm not sure there's a better way, that's just how it is.

[threeseed]

Going public is incredibly short sighted and almost never effective. People are people and turning a potentially innocuous situation into "us versus them" just makes them less likely to want to help you.

[pmontra]

I got a problem with logging into a service a couple of weeks ago. I sent them mail, no answers. I wrote on their Facebook page a few days later (no harsh words). They called me home in a couple of hours and we fixed the problem on the spot. I wrote again on fb to thank them.

Going public means getting in front of people that care more about customers or has more time to do so. It feels a little like skipping the line though.

[smackfu]

It makes them more likely to help you and less likely to do it happily. Depends on circumstances whether that is better for you.

[mgalka]

I think the email goes further than poorly worded. It says pretty clearly that access will be cut off, gives no suggestion that there could be a negotiation.

[kbenson]

The email ends with If you have questions, please reply to this email and we will be in touch to discuss.

I think it boils down to this, if the email said "Hey, we noticed you have special access, and we are trying to clean those up. You should either use the regular API with rate limits or our commercial offerings. Let me know if you have any questions." then I think the appropriate first step would be to contact Twitter and explain your situation. Since the actual letter contains that and just more information about possible options, I don't see why it should be viewed any differently.

[ncallaway]

I think you're unfairly abridging the e-mail that was sent. I think a more representative abridged e-mail would be:

> Hey, we noticed you have special access, and we are trying to clean those up. You should either use the regular API with rate limits or our commercial offerings. Your special access will be terminated on Thursday, April 21st. Let me know if you have any questions.

On receiving an e-mail of that nature, I would very likely let my audience know that I was shutting down the service on Thursday, April 21st just as the blog post author did.

I would not assume "Let me know if you have questions" meant "Let me know if you'd like to clarify your situation and request an exemption from this policy". I would assume it meant I could inquire about the details and process of the shutdown, or ask questions about the Gnip service or other options that they discussed in the e-mail.

[endemic]

I think it's entirely reasonable, given Twitter's history in this area, to read the email as a shutdown notice.

[ZenPsycho]

> Immediately writing a public blog post is not negotiating in good faith.

Did everyone miss this part of the blog post?

> I’ve replied to Twitter asking for an exception, but I honestly don’t expect to receive one—and even if I were to, it wouldn’t help other developers who I believe deserve to get the same level of opportunity as me.

[kbenson]

That doesn't really make a difference to my point if it's done prior to getting, or waiting an acceptable time period for, a response.

[mynameisvlad]

Not really. That just implies that all the other solutions are through Gnip, not through Twitter Streaming.