About the author
Dave Winer, 56, is a visiting scholar at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and editor of the Scripting News weblog. He pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in New York City.
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Why you got blocked 
When people ask why I blocked them, I'm going to point to this piece.
1. I like to follow the Mentions tab in Twitter, so I can see who's directing messages to me, or talking about me using my Twitter handle.
2. This is the Internet, so sometimes people say mean things. When they use your Twitter handle it shows up in the Mentions tab.
3. The mean stuff can sit there for hours, esp when things are quiet.
4. I think of them as turds.
5. Since I check the Mentions tab frequently, as much as 5 times an hour, I see these turds many times. Each time they get more annoying.
6. There's no way to delete a tweet from the Mentions tab, without blocking the person.
7. Blocking has the side-effect of making me invisible to the person I'm blocking. This is totally unnecessary. I have no reason to want to stop someone from being able to read my tweets. It's this one smelly turd they left that I don't want to look at.
8. Following someone or not is a matter of personal choice. It's none of anyone's business who I follow or don't.
9. But unfollowing won't get rid of the turd if it has my handle in it.
10. To the extent that this hurts your feelings, I am sorry. However, if you hadn't said something unpleasant and personal, you wouldn't have gotten blocked, so if you want to know who to blame, look in the mirror. 
Obviously this took more than 140 characters to explain. It comes up all the time, so now I have a place to point people to when they want to know why they got blocked.
