Source: FOOTYMAD
Being Called Every Name Isn't Fun - Brody
Brody has his say Coventry City Director Leonard Brody has said that being called every name under the sun on Twitter isn't not fun. Speaking in depth to the CT about why he is no longer on Twitter, the Canadian said: “I was away on vacation for a while, which was one factor, but the bigger issue is that there’s a real technical problem using Twitter. “They have a calculation where they throttle everybody’s account to a thousand Tweets per day and they also break that down into hourly chunks. "If the algorithm senses that you’re sending over 40-45 Tweets in an hour it assumes you’re a spambot and cuts you off. “I knew there was a throttle, I just didn’t think I would reach it in such a short period of time. "Originally the conversations were fast but manageable but as things started to grow and more and more fans came on to chat it became very difficult. “The last six times I was on I got through 40 Tweets in about ten minutes so it suspended my account for an hour or an hour and a half. “It’s frustrating because you start all these conversations and then disappear. "I remember the first couple of times it happened I sent a message asking Darren Parkin (Coventry Telegraph editor) and Stuart Linnell (BBC CWR presenter) if they could let people know that my account had been cut off. “I know the Twitter guys very well and I asked somebody fairly high up if the throttle could be lifted, but they obviously have problems with spammers and they told me it’s exactly the same for everybody whether it’s you or Barak Obama. “That was the biggest reason, but also the Football League were getting very concerned about inappropriate betting activity on the part of directors, officers and other people working in football clubs and as part of their warning they encouraged everybody to be careful of social media. “One of the things we’ve been trying to do is get some clarity about what that means, to make sure we’re not in violation of any rules.” Speaking about his challenge to try and win over the City supporters via Twitter. he said: “People are feeling negative and I understand their frustrations,” he said. “The Telegraph, other media and the fans have been quite critical of the board and it’s important for us to be accountable – whether we make the right or wrong decisions is always up for debate. “I want to crack the best way of giving fans a voice and on the day when a couple of protesters turned up at the Sisu offices I spent an hour and a bit on the phone with one of them. “When you spend time with the fans, put the energy into listening and responding, a lot of the distasteful stuff goes away. "But the problem is that when you’re not there for a couple of hours, it goes right back up again. “I think some people imagine that I sit at a desk all day in front of 30 screens. "I would get Tweets at two or three in the morning saying ‘where are you, why are you hiding’ and I wasn’t hiding, I was asleep! “But even if I did want to sit on Twitter talking to fans 24/7 the mechanism and the medium don’t allow you to do it. Twitter was a good experiment and if they could get rid of the throttle that’s sitting on the account it would be an incredibly sophisticated way to have quick conversations with board members “But it works well in some ways, not so well in others. "It’s a good mechanism to ask questions, complain, give feedback, but it’s not good for really deep, intense, meaningful dialogue. “Because you can only speak in 140 characters sometimes what you say can come over as trite or over-simplified. “We need to be accountable and available and we’re thinking of different ways to do that. Sky Blue Talk is one of the forums we may be able to use – it’s not as live, as rapid-fire, but at least it allows us a form of communication where you’re not suddenly going to get cut off.” “It’s not nice to wake up in the morning and have somebody tell you you’re an idiot or worse – you get that enough during the working day. “But for me the saddest part is that, well before Sisu, there was such a spirit of distrust and negativity around this football club. "That’s disheartening; when good things do start to happen and you try to make moves that are positive, it’s always looked at through the lens of suspicion.”
