Towards a Taxonomy of Twitter Bots

Intro

towards a definition - autonomous non-human agents on Twitter
critical thinking - MECE, rabbit rule, holding hands
patterns of behaviour, rather than content
Twitter largely a textual medium
crossover between two broadest categories (automated/event-driven), but largely one or the other (maybe?)
some bots will exhibit both behaviours (active/reactive), but tend to favour one (most commonly, tweeters will also exhibit conversationalist behaviours)
why not tags?
The #botMUS test for independence: if nobody else was tweeting, would I continue to operate?

samplers/ebooks (prefer 'samplers' to distinguish from Markov '_ebooks')
- @Horse_ebooks ( :…( )
mashups (HT @LightAesthetic)
- @LatourSwag
- @KimKierkegaard
Markovs
permutors/permutators (madlibs/snowclones/piecewise combinators) (HT @LightAesthetic)
iterators/corpus exhausters (HT @BooDooPerson)
- @everyword
randomisers (like iterators, but less intentional…?)
- @everycolorbot (iterator? Randomiser?)
- @killcodes
p-event/(physical)real-world event-driven/IoT
- the tower bridge bot
digital event-driven

retweeters (on keywords/tags/phrases)
responders/keyword replying
- @stealthmountain
two-centers (RT on keywords/tags/phrases, with comment)
- @RedScareBot
functions (parse inputs)
- @101atron
- @MarkovChainMe
whisperers (DM)
- @magicrecs
collectors/multiretweeters/mimics (retweeting paired/matched sets)
- @pentametron
- @annagramatron
mimics (actual spambots)