Friday Fun: How much of a Klouchebag are you?

Klout is kind of evil. Basically, it's the impact factor for the Web, where this random company uses a mysterious algorithm to quantify and rank people's standing on social media -- Twitter, Facebook, etc.

There's been some interesting commentary about it on teh interwebs these lasts few days, such as It's terrifying how important your Klout score has become, Klout Is Important Even If You Aren't Using It and What Your Klout Score Really Means. Lots of interesting and mostly measured and rational commentary and analysis.

And along comes Klouchebag.com into the fray and blows it all up.

From the home page:

What is this?
This is Klouchebag -- the standard for measuring asshattery online!

No, seriously, what's this?
I got annoyed with the fuss around Klout, the horrible social-game that assigns you a score based on how "influential" you are online. This is the result.

Who made it?
Hello. I'm Tom Scott. I live at tomscott.com, and you can email me or follow me on Twitter or Facebook.

It called me names!
Sorry. Don't take it personally. This is about as scientific as Klout's own measurements -- which is to say, it's pretty much a crapshoot. You're probably a lovely person. Although you might want to cut down on the swearing a bit.

What do the ratings mean?
Klouchebag uses the ARSE rating system. Anger: profanity and rage. Retweets: "please RT"s, no or constant retweeting, and old-style. Social Apps: every useless checkin on foursquare or its horrible brethren. And English Usage: if you use EXCLAMATION MARKS OMG!!! or no capitals at all, this'll be quite high.

Isn't "douchebag" a sexist insult?
Opinion is divided. I chose it because it's the only insult that you can put "kl" in the front of and still have it mostly make sense....

Why no achievements? Ooh, or perks?
I don't want people to actually start competing! (And I'm a bit lazy.)

But... but my Klout score is important!
No it's not. It's like search engine optimisation, only for yourself. Ignore it. Concentrate on making amazing things, caring about the people around you, and not being a douchebag. If you do that, then you'll soon realise that it doesn't matter one jot what an algorithm thinks of you.

And to further emphasize the most important point of all:

Concentrate on making amazing things, caring about the people around you, and not being a douchebag. If you do that, then you'll soon realise that it doesn't matter one jot what an algorithm thinks of you.

If you're on Twitter, give it a try. I'm a 39 and a bit of a pratt. Guilty as charged, I guess, though I was a 43 and a bit noisy earlier today.

And of course, there's a bit of delicious irony involved here as well. I tweeted about Klouchebag earlier this morning which inspired a flurry of tweets and retweets with a wide variety of other people. Which is going to end up giving my Klout score a bit of a boost. I'm a 46 and a networker.

So what's your score?