The Problem with Twitter Lists

The author seems to think that lists should be their own accounts (with multiple owners), but the purpose of lists is different: they allow a user to organize their (too busy to make sense of) feed into subfeeds that are more manageable.

My main problem with the current implementation is that I can't view all my lists at the same time, side by side (so I still use my own quick-and-dirty Python app to do that).

The author's point about being put in lists named "big fat hairy men" is quite valid though, I think the lists should be private (or at least not visible on the listed user's info page).

I agree with some of the statements of the blog. However it misses one important point in how people use lists. For example I follow around 300 people, some of them are very noisy some times but eventually they post something interesting, so I feel that the noisy is an acceptable price to pay. Nevertheless, because of the overflow of information, many times I miss posts of quiet people that generally have something important to say. Then, lists come to the rescue. I just put those very interesting people in a list that I can check for time to time. If people follow my list(s), they give the authority that I created it(them)or whatever I do not really care. For me that is just marketing trying to convince of the value of twitter. For me, the value is finding good content with less effort; and I think the lists are helping on it.

Note: I use also tweetdeck that has a similar concept, which I found very useful. Perhaps that is why I liked the lists concept.

Why should people be allowed to remove themselves from other people's lists?

I'm guessing that most people check which lists they're in. I do. (I'm only in 11 lists so it was easy for me.) If so, the point about the viral loop doesn't stand.