WrestlingObserver.com/F4Wonline.com contributor David Bixenspan isn’t in the business of making friends… he’s attracting followers; by any means necessary.
Earlier tonight during a UFC event, Bixenspan took to twitter on not one, but TWO accounts in order to live tween his observations of the fights. The SAME observations. Verbatim. From both his @davidbix account, and the official account of F4Wonline.com, @WONF4W.
Dozens and dozens of duplicate tweets began barraging the feeds of anyone stupid enough to follow both twitter IDs. When asked to stop, or to back off, Bixenspan refused, stating,
“I have a bunch of MMA followers who don’t follow the site’s account and I’m not the only one who does it.”
And so it continued, for hours.
It is unknown how many subscribers unfollowed one or both of the feeds in order to stop the spamming.
This latest scrap with Observer/F4W fans and Bixenspan comes only months after rising backlash that site part-owner Bryan Alvarez had ceded his duties on the daily news updates on the site to “Bix” (as he is known in internet wrestling journey parlance), as well as handing over the reins of writing Alvarez’s newsletter Figure 4 Weekly to Bixenspan as well.
The Bixenspan Backlash has increased to such a degree that according to one recent survey, 40% of respondents felt he was the next site contributor who would suddenly vanish under unusual or controversial circumstances.
Here’s hoping!
FTR, I follow a lot of people who run MMA websites and have never seen anyone do what Bix did on Saturday. Including anyone who’s ever tweeted from the WON account.
Jeremy Botter does it. Literally all the time. And it never, ever bothered me when he did it. I’ve seen a few other people do it before, but he does it by far with the most frequency, and I understand exactly why he does it.
There seems to be three, slightly overlapping complaints here, and nobody’s been clear about which was which:
1. People who follow both accounts but, for some reason, didn’t like the 2 identical tweets quickly scrolling by next to each other.
(I see how MAYBE this could bother someone as a little pet peeve, but as someone who was cool with it when I saw it before, it just didn’t click with me)
2. People who follow @WONF4W, like that the account has rarely done live coverage (maybe because they watch a lot of stuff via DVR). and saw that as spamming.
(Totally get it; I wish Twitter had some kind of timer for the mute function for this exact reason, but we tweeted about this in advance and unless there was some kind of no livetweeting/no spoiler policy someone announced in the past that I wasn’t made aware of, that’s not something we can really let get in the way of our new plans for the site/social accounts)
3. People who just didn’t like my actual tweets.
(I mean, whatever. But that wasn’t usually the complaint as much as maybe the subtext behind them.)
Remember, I’m always looking for real constructive criticism. So tell me what you want and why. But I don’t see how something like pieces of negative feedback over the course of six hours was supposed to sway me especially when generally they weren’t clear about what the issue was. So let’s use this as an opportunity to make everything better going forward.
Had to unfollow the @WONF4W account because of this. Fucking ridiculous stuff.
…you know Twitter has had a “mute” function for a while, right? I used it on the Orphan Black account Saturday night to avoid spoilers during UFC.
Yes, sure. Just seems odd a site would force their readers/followers to do such a thing. I suppose the alternative would be to mute you, or unfollow you… And that’s fine. But, if it were me, I wouldn’t want my site’s twitter posting rehash tweets from an associated writer. It’s just poor form, and I’d want my brand to have fresher content.
I don’t get the “force” part. Was there some kind of declaration that @WONF4W would never livetweet anything that I’m not aware of (and that nobody else was aware of when we were planning for UFC Saturday)? I totally understand it if certain people wouldn’t enjoy livetweeted UFC or WWE coverage, but it’s becoming the norm on major MMA and pro wrestling sites’ accounts, so it’s something we’re experimenting with, especially since it worked out so well for us during WrestleMania this year.
Seriously, I’m trying to understand the complaint here, and nobody is giving me an answer that makes much sense. If we got an overwhelming response from our followers that they didn’t like it, I would’ve immediately messaged Tony and Bryan from the building to ask for a new battle plan. We got, at most, 2-3 tweets that complained, none of which were especially specific.
As for the “rehash tweets” thing…like I said earlier, the only people who it would even hypothetically bother is people who follow both the site account as well as my account, therefore wanting to read what I tweet (or, in a few cases, troll me, but that’s a tiny minority). I probably won’t do it again anyway, but nobody’s giving me a clear reason for what bothered them. If it’s that they didn’t want livetweets in the first place, then sure, I could see why them popping up twice would be annoying. But if they were following other accounts livetweeting the card in some form, I don’t get how it’s bothersome to see them scroll by right next to each other. Like I said, it never bothered me to see Botter and others do it.
By force I mean that it’s just bizarre that, assuming you’re speaking in official capacity of the site as the person who was manning the account on Saturday, that your (and therefore the site’s) official stance is “mute it” VS jus going with what I would posit is a best practice in delivering unique, original tweets for the site’s followers.
It’s like this, David… Ordinarily in professional situations (and I would like to believe that there is a modicum of professionalism at WONF4W, seeing as how it charges a larger monthly fee than WWE does for their Network) there is a notion that personal opinions are separate from official site opinions. You have a personal Twitter. Keep your live tweets there. Use the WONF4W twitter to plug that you are doing so a few times throughout the night. But keep your personal live tweeting on your personal account. Use the official WONF4W twitter for site related content/plugs OR exclusive content for followers (which you could then plug from YOUR twitter account).
Duplicating tweets across both accounts is just sloppy, and lazy and punishes people stupid enough (as it turns out) who follow both your account AND the WONF4W account… who, NEWSFLASH, are probably the people you should be cultivating more as influencers to your brand, and the site’s brand.
When you piss them off, or annoy them, you’re damaging the core of your audience and making them wish they either weren’t following you, or weren’t following WONF4W. Either way you lose where you could have benefited by live tweeting from one account, and plugging how people who were interested could follow along from the other account.
Rookie move.
I don’t get the “force” part. Was there some kind of declaration that @WONF4W would never livetweet anything that I’m not aware of (and that nobody else was aware of when we were planning for UFC Saturday)? I totally understand it if certain people wouldn’t enjoy livetweeted UFC or WWE coverage, but it’s becoming the norm on major MMA and pro wrestling sites’ accounts, so it’s something we’re experimenting with, especially since it worked out so well for us during WrestleMania this year.
Seriously, I’m trying to understand the complaint here, and nobody is giving me an answer that makes much sense. If we got an overwhelming response from our followers that they didn’t like it, I would’ve immediately messaged Tony and Bryan from the building to ask for a new battle plan. We got, at most, 2-3 tweets that complained, none of which were especially specific.
As for the “rehash tweets” thing…like I said earlier, the only people who it would even hypothetically bother is people who follow both the site account as well as my account, therefore wanting to read what I tweet (or, in a few cases, troll me, but that’s a tiny minority). I probably won’t do it again anyway, but nobody’s giving me a clear reason for what bothered them. If it’s that they didn’t want livetweets in the first place, then sure, I could see why them popping up twice would be annoying. But if they were following other accounts livetweeting the card in some form, I don’t get how it’s bothersome to see them scroll by right next to each other. Like I said, it never bothered me to see Botter and others do it.
I’d say, in the future, tweet from your personal account and occasionally remind people that you are doing it, and do a few retweets from the WON account as well. That way if people want to follow along, they can follow you. And you might get some new followers out of that as well.
I think this is a dumb thing to get all upset over though. I mute most accounts that live tweet their shows because I’m not usually watching at the time.
As usual, Bix’s response to legitimate criticism is to claim that because something wouldn’t bother him, the complaint is invalid. Bix has always been self-absorbed to the point of psychosis and completely lacking in basic human empathy, so it’s no surprise he’s here defending himself thusly. He has always been an overgrown child emotionally and Bryan was a fool to allow such an unstable upstart to have any power over anything. No matter how burnt out he is, the decision by anyone interested in maintaining the legacy of F4W or the WON to let such an unhinged malcontent damage their brand was an ominous one for the future of wrestling journalism. One day we will all look back at Bix’s ascent as the beginning of the end. He destroys everything he touches.
Really…this is what pisses people off, someone tweeting from two accounts at once?
This might be the biggest example from the wrestling/MMA world of #FirstWorldProblems