FAQ

  • Q: It isn’t working where can I get help?
    A: The best starting place is the support forums.
  • Q: Why I’m I only getting Twitter search results from the last 6-9 days?
    A: This is a limitation of the Twitter service. Twitter says:

    The Search API is not complete index of all Tweets, but instead an index of recent Tweets. At the moment that index includes between 6-9 days of Tweets.

  • Q: I’ve already setup a Twitter application and have a key and secret, can I reuse them in this version of TAGS?
    A: Yes! You should only need one key and secret. In the new version of TAGS you also should only need to enter this once and new copies of TAGS will remember your details.
  • Q: Can I see an example of the data collected in a TAGS sheet?
    A: Yes, here’s tweets we are collecting that reference this site
  • Q: Why isn’t the archive collecting all the tweets?
    A: This is a limitation of the Search API. Twitter says:

    Please note that Twitter’s search service and, by extension, the Search API is not meant to be an exhaustive source of Tweets. Not all Tweets will be indexed or made available via the search interface.

    There has been some research looking at the impact of this:

    We find that the search API over-represents the more central users and does not offer an accurate picture of peripheral activity; we also find that the bias is greater for the network of mentions – González-Bailón, Sandra, et al. “Assessing the bias in communication networks sampled from twitter.” Available at SSRN 2185134 (2012).