If you haven’t been following Top Conservatives on Twitter shut down for a day last week because of internal squabbles and is now going through some kind of complicated negotiation process that I frankly don’t understand and don’t care about. I have written about TCOT (followup) before after the sites owners started using it to push candidates and push the buttons of others while using the list as leverage with elected officials. It appears that may have been a point of contention this time around as well. I don’t know, I don’t care. Frankly the squabbling is childish, counterproductive and a site could be built in about ten seconds to fill the void if it ever went down permanently, so I wouldn’t get all bent out of shape if it doesn’t survive.

With all of that said, #TCOT has played a major role in building up a very strong grassroots online right community and it should survive and should move forward without all of these childish antics. I have suggested many improvements to the site since the beginning, many of which I still believe in. I also suggested creating guidelines for how the list is leveraged and have always wanted to see it more transparent. Now might be the time to get that worked out so this kind of infighting and shutting down stunts and posturing will never happen again and we can all move forward peacefully and without sending a giant “we suck” message to the world.

I know right now many people are working on the sites future and I wish them the best. I have a few suggestions and wanted to share.

#1 End the TOP part of TCOT

I believe the site should have a list and that list should be sortable by how many followers a user has. It should also be sortable by how many people they follow and likewise how much they have tweeted. These should just be elements though, things you can do but not the destination. The entire notion of ranking “top” users doesn’t tell us much. There are many people who only use their followers as people to be sold too. There are other users who actually engage with many of their followers but you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference simply by looking at the list.

I have always been one for quality not quantity and in the early days was often annoyed by the endless begging for followers, the incessant posts about new followers, how people were moving up on the follower list, then more begging, and of course others begging to beat the beggers. It wasn’t fun and if we can end that waste I for one would be happy.

#2 Clean up the list, regularly

There are dozens of SEO salespeople, dead accounts and spammers on the list. Again quality vs. quantity. Additionally people on the list should actually tweet. There are a lot of accounts that were once active but now don’t update. Why does someone who never posts need followers? Get them off there and set some kind of limit. Don’t post for a few months, no need to be there. Never posted once? No need to be there.

#3 Add value by sorting

One of the first things I suggested was allowing people to be sortable by their state. While many people don’t include this in their profile it is easy to sort those who do and parse out those who don’t to create state lists. There is no better way to build up local networks than to connect with everyone else in your area who is on Twitter and shares your values.

Next when people sign up they should be able to identify several different interests. Are they primarily interested in fiscal issues or social ones? Do they often talk about the Second Amendment or National Defense? Do they provide LOTS of news links every day but little comment? Are they journalists, elected officials, you can see where this is going. How do you control all this? See #4

#4 Create a #TCOT login

It is so easy to create a relational database system with logins that connect to a database with the twitter information. This works best if registration is closed. Once someone gets on the #TCOT site they should also be given a login. With that login they should be able to add or change information like their location, their interests etc. making the list even more valuable, sortable and personal.

#5 Why just twitter?

If you implement #4 why not also allow people to add their Facebook, FriendFeed, Smart Girl Politics and any future social networking site information so people can REALLY connect? Use Twitter as the way to verify people are who they say they are and are conservative and active but why exclude everything else from being present on a persons profile?

#6 Create the community

Communities often work best when they are self policing which is to say, if someone notices there are SEO junkies who aren’t really conservatives on the list, they should be able to flag the account internally. Obviously this can be open to abuse but you also police the police. It is important to give users of the list access to a system or even a core group of users that has the ability to grow and is diverse access to help police. They shouldn’t be policing content specifically but to make sure it is actually a list of conservatives who are actually using twitter. It is silly to have a site devoted to social networking that has absolutely no ability for users to communicate within that site.

#7 Decide how the list will be leveraged now

I for one did not sign up to #TCOT to have my name used to push candidates or make a collective statement. If that is what people want the list to be, say so and be honest and open about that from day one. If #TCOT is going to be used to say to an elected representative, “I have X # of people behind me & they want you to do Y” I want out. Use the list to solicit support, sure. Use the list to give candidates a direct way of communicating with people, whatever. But endorsements? Lobbying? That is something everyone needs to know ahead of time and be on board with.

There are libertarians and independents who are not beholden to the Republican Party but are very conservative and very active. Even endorsing the Republican Presidential ticket as an organization would pose a very large problem and is not what people are necessarily signing up for.