The Twitter RPG - The Game we are already playing
And how to make the new incentives explicit?
Last week I got to talk to J0eCool. It was a long convo that mostly centered around the Twitter RPG - the game we’re already playing.
There are plenty of moves in the game and plenty of ways play well. “Playing well” is largely defined based on who you play with.
I decided it would be fun to come up with a list of moves and a point system for the game! In my attempt to do this, I realized it is larger challenge than I originally expected. So, in this post, I’m going to establish a starting point, then write some code to get results on some seed accounts to build a better idea of whether or not a system like this makes sense.
Better Incentives
The point of a Twitter RPG point system is to incentivize better behavior - genuine interest, thoughtful replies, and encouragement. That point system could then become an alternate “status” metric for people “playing twitter” different than the default experience. Instead of focusing on followers and likes, it’ll focus on replies and sparking conversations. Then, we can use it to find the accounts who are best at these skills.
First, let’s break down the moves.
The Basic Moves
In the spirit of extensible UI (and not spending too much time speculating on a complex point system), I’ll start with the basic moves of the RPG.
like a tweet
retweet (ew)
follow
write a tweet
write a thread (replies to your own tweet)
reply to other person’s tweet
quote tweet (debatable, but will leave it here for now)
send DM
The next section in this covers a much deeper list of moves.
Basic Moves Point System
The idea I want to focus on at the start is good reply game. Replies are key to building relationships and giving others what they are looking for - genuine interest and thoughts about their own thoughts and work. How could we quantify your reply game?
For now, I’ll think in terms of generalized units where I’m not overly concerned about the magnitude other than making the numbers easier to work with.
(I apologize in advance for Substack’s lack up support for pretty looking equations)
Scoring A Standalone Tweet (for first tweet in a thread)
likes_weight = 1
rts_weight = 2
replies_weight = 4
qts_weight = 5
score = 10 +
(num_likes/follower_count) * likes_weight + ((num_rts/follower_count)*rts_weight) + ((num_qts/follower_count)*qts_weight) +
((num_replies/follower_count) * replies_weight)
The four variables likes_weight, rts_weight, qts_weight, and replies_weight are knobs to turn as we start to get results from current tweets. My initial settings are based on my idea that likes, rts, replies, and qt’s are sorted in that order of how much the tweet resonated with others.
A clause I’d likely put on the num_replies component is that the replier must have also liked the tweet before replying for it to count.
Normalizing by follower_count is important. With these new metrics, small accounts should have a chance to compete with large ones. I’m not sure this method is the best way, but it’s a start.
Lastly, the user starts with a base of 10 to encourage tweeting general. I like when people share!
Scoring a Reply Tweet
likes_weight = 1
rts_weight = 2
replies_weight = 4
qts_weight = 5
if OP likes reply:
score = 50 + (num_likes/follower_count) * likes_weight + ((num_rts/follower_count)*rts_weight) + ((num_qts/follower_count)*qts_weight) +
((num_replies/follower_count) * replies_weight)
elif OP likes and replies back:
score = 200 + (num_likes/follower_count) * likes_weight + ((num_rts/follower_count)*rts_weight) + ((num_qts/follower_count)*qts_weight) +
((num_replies/follower_count) * replies_weight)
else:
score = 0
Replies start with a higher base score than standalone tweets because they are highly encouraged. Replies are where collaboration happens.
However, a like from the OP (original poster) must happen as a means to validate the reply. This isn’t a high bar, but it is a good signal that the reply was at least a little thoughtful, funny, or useful.
If the OP likes your reply and replies back, the base score is even higher because that is a sign you are going deeper into the topic. This behavior is highly encouraged.
One of the places I’m very curious to experiment with this system is if points should continue to increase as conversations go longer, or if they should slowly diminish… one idea is that tracking likes from other folks can be used as a signal in deep threads that other people also want them to keep going and they aren’t just gaming this point system.
This is where I’ll stop for now. Instead of continuing my speculation, I’m going to write some scoring code to test my intuition of how well these work.
From there, I’ll work on a system for scoring threads, quote tweets, deeper reply convos, and more.
Building Up Moves
Here is the deeper set of moves I promised earlier. Making this list was when I realized that the RPG point could go much deeper than I expected.
like a tweet
retweet (ew)
follow
write a tweet
receive like
receive reply
like reply to your tweet
reply to reply
receive like from original replier on the reply
receive like from others
keep going…
tweet link
tweet image
thread (reply to your own tweet)
receive like on first tweet of thread
receive like on multiple tweets in your thread
someone quotes a tweet from your thread
someone quotes multiple tweets from your thread!
reply tweet other person’s tweet
get like from OP
reply to reply
receive like from OP
receive like from others (should be weighted much less heavilty)
…
quote tweet
quote someone else’s tweet in standalone tweet
get like from OP
get reply from OP
reply to reply
…
quote your own tweet in standalone tweet
quote tweet (your/someone elses) in a reply
quote tweet (yours/someone elses) in a thread
quote someone else’s tweet in standalone tweet
quote someone else’s tweet in reply
get like from OP of replied tweet
get reply from OP of replied tweet
reply to reply
…
get like from OP of quoted tweet
get reply from OP of quoted tweet
reply to reply
…
quote someone else’s tweet in a thread
get like from OP of quoted tweet
get reply from OP of quoted tweet
reply to reply…
get quote tweeted
like quote tweet
reply to quote tweet
receive like on reply to quote tweet
…
DM
send DM to a mutual
send DM to non-mutual
extend to other platforms
video calls
irl
Lists
create List
scroll list feed
added to list
Unfollow
Mute, Block (not sure if we want to incentivize these)
Thanks for Sharing
If this idea interests you, DM me!! If you have better ideas for scoring, DM me!! If you are bored and lonely, DM me!!
In the mean time, I’ll be working on getting some results. Stay tuned!
An interesting exercise, but this approach is likely highly biased by your (and my) own usage of Twitter the circles we operate in and what Twitter means to us. With 300m active users, so many weird niches and sub-cultures, this is an extremely complex problem and *likely* hard to generalize.