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I finally got Twitter after years of not getting it

martinboss.com

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Re: I finally got Twitter after years of not getting it

#191

Post by jazzyjackson »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #178
tmalsburg2 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I settled on a similar approach. I used to liberally follow all sorts of accounts that seemed even remotely relevant, but signal to noise was abysmal and there was way too much drama. Several times I was on the verge of quitting, even though Twitter was quite useful for promoting my own work and that of my students. But recently I decided to try a new approach and systematically unfollowed a lot of accounts. Now I st…

I'm a little confused about the blocking of RTs. Finding interesting technical content in my timeline and retweeting it to my followers is the activity I feel best about on Twitter. The algorithmic timeline (which I don't use, but others do) has made this less useful, but I think this retweet capability is a huge part of the value of the platform. I certainly don't have time to quote-tweet all of those interesting tw…

some people spend all day retweeting hot takes, you just have to whittle it down to people who are sharing what you like (since there's a difference between following someone whose tweets I like, and wanting to know every tweet they think is worth boosting)

Re: I finally got Twitter after years of not getting it

#193

Post by tmalsburg2 »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #178
tmalsburg2 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I settled on a similar approach. I used to liberally follow all sorts of accounts that seemed even remotely relevant, but signal to noise was abysmal and there was way too much drama. Several times I was on the verge of quitting, even though Twitter was quite useful for promoting my own work and that of my students. But recently I decided to try a new approach and systematically unfollowed a lot of accounts. Now I st…

I'm a little confused about the blocking of RTs. Finding interesting technical content in my timeline and retweeting it to my followers is the activity I feel best about on Twitter. The algorithmic timeline (which I don't use, but others do) has made this less useful, but I think this retweet capability is a huge part of the value of the platform. I certainly don't have time to quote-tweet all of those interesting tw…

Some retweets are useful, true, but I’m more interested in people’s original thoughts. Retweets also used to be 90% of my feed which means that the vast majority of tweets in my feed were by people who I wasn’t following. Original content by people I was following got drowned out. Some accounts also retweet a lot and Twitter didn’t deemphasize these, which allowed some people to basically take over my feed. Having said that, the search function hack that I mentioned does include quote-tweets which tend to be higher quality.

Re: I finally got Twitter after years of not getting it

#194

Post by Sakos »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #173
Sakos wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started using it when the Ukraine war began. All I see is news out of the war. Nothing sensationalized or toxic or anything. You can avoid a lot of the cesspool if you put in a tiny bit of effort.

Yeah but you can hop onto a few Telegram news channels and get the same thing? And no cesspool this time either. That's how I've been getting news from Ukranian and Russian news sources.

You can also use Facebook or Reddit for it. What's your point?

Re: I finally got Twitter after years of not getting it

#195

Post by Sakos »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #174
Sakos wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've left every other social network. No longer on Facebook. No interest in Instagram or TikTok. But Twitter I've continued to get value from. This is entirely because I'm able to curate my feed. My rules for twitter engagement are: This also worked for Facebook back when I still had an account. All the posts I saw were ones directly related to my interests and local events that I was interested in. We have a lot o…

> We have a lot of control over how social media presents us with information, just most people don't bother trying to make it work for them. It's just not worth it. I can hop into a Matrix room or a Subreddit and make posts about a topic I'm interested in and receive immediate interaction without seeing a firehose of emotional or inflammatory content. On those platforms you need to post/read a lot or come with a con…

> without seeing a firehose of emotional or inflammatory content

I didn't see any of this when I started using Twitter a few months ago.

> This crazy amount of stewardship for Twitter is pretty nuts

What are you talking about? People shared their negative impressions of Twitter. I recently tried Twitter and found that it could be useful, so I decided to share my experience.

> I guess some people really want to be part of The Conversation and they'll do anything to do it

I don't talk to anybody on Twitter and this is an extremely uncharitable take that isn't okay on HN.

Re: I finally got Twitter after years of not getting it

#196

Post by Sakos »

HappyDreamer wrote: post #95
Sakos wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've left every other social network. No longer on Facebook. No interest in Instagram or TikTok. But Twitter I've continued to get value from. This is entirely because I'm able to curate my feed. My rules for twitter engagement are: This also worked for Facebook back when I still had an account. All the posts I saw were ones directly related to my interests and local events that I was interested in. We have a lot o…

> just most people don't bother trying to make it work for them Could one say that that's why TikTok is so popular? It works although people don't spend time configuring it?

To some degree, probably. I think the video format is just very popular because it allows people to express themselves in more ways.

Re: I finally got Twitter after years of not getting it

#197

Post by smw »

maxsilver wrote: post #37
kstenerud wrote: post #10

I still don't get it. Nothing in this article makes sense to me, either. Not to denigrate the author - I'm sure what he posted makes a ton of sense, just not to me. I made a twitter account shortly after it first started, made a few tweets, and then it languished and I think it's probably long deleted by now. Last year my wife made me another one because "you need it to promote your OSS stuff". Okay so I made a few t…

Twitter is the only major social network that I actually 'get'. Instagram is great, but it only works if you take good pictures. You have to be pretty, or a photographer. It's super great for that, but minimum effort needed per post is high, so engagement sort of has to be low. Reddit is great, but it's not really 'social' so much as it's a generic-access to monopolized forums. It feels like a catalog of phpBB forums…

While I find many things wrong with social media, I don't get the idea that for me to get value out of it, I need people to engage with my posts. Why? I'm more interested in seeing pictures and updates about people I care about -- or news/tech/politics on twitter. I don't feel a need for dopamine hits from engagement at all?

Re: I finally got Twitter after years of not getting it

#198

Post by smw »

incomingpain wrote: post #167
wrs wrote: post #39

I still don’t get it. Why would I want to talk to my friends in public ? In a medium specifically designed to propagate out-of-context sound bites? Surrounded by trolls of all ideologies? I stopped posting anything on Twitter because there was nothing to say that’s worth the risk.

My first account was infosec twitter, I mostly would comment with positivity and was utterly ignored. So I let that account go away. After Elon made the offer to buy twitter because of censorship I created a new account to test to see if I get censored. I never said anything at all. I was busy liking or following people at first but I connected to my country's politicians and that was enough for me to be shadowbanned…

Doesn't the term 'shadowbanned' mean that your posts are just invisible to other users, without them telling you that? How would you know if you never posted anything?

Re: I finally got Twitter after years of not getting it

#199

Post by uuee »

lapcat wrote: post #165
uuee wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> So you are for peaceful/voluntary online segregation of people who don't share your values. Does this translate to the real world? Of course it does. It's called having friends. If you're having a conversation in a restaurant, and a stranger at another table overhears you and decides to interrupt with their contrary opinion, do you "owe" them an argument, or do you tell them to mind their own business and go away?…

No post body was provided.

Re: I finally got Twitter after years of not getting it

#200

Post by uuee »

mikkergp wrote: post #169
uuee wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Weird take, we have all sorts of mores around “you don’t talk politics at work”. People go to different churches, some people choose private schools. Online seems to be the only place that we have this idea that people have to listen to each other.

It's wrong to exclude people from your twitter feed -- you have to be inclusive. Just like you don't get to pick your neighbor (you have to accept anyone that moves in next door). Well same online! Don't exclude others, but rather be inclusive.
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