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Twitter Notes

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Re: Twitter Notes

#251

Post by phailhaus »

ckastner wrote: post #171
lamontcg wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would just love to get rid of the obnoxious writing style that twitter thought-leaders use when they're posting a thread. They always start with a fairly obnoxious click-baitey sentence. Then usually a fairly narcissistic hook about how "i'll explain" then "a " and "/1". And then each tweet needs to be punchy enough in 240 characters to keep people reading which produces a particularly annoying writing style. Then…

I wholeheartedly agree with all of what you said, but this stands out: > And then each tweet needs to be punchy enough in 240 characters to keep people reading which produces a particularly annoying writing style. I also find this writing style insufferable (every sentence a punchline), but though it may seem obvious in hindsight, the explanation that otherwise people won't keep reading had escaped me. I thought that…

> the explanation that otherwise people won't keep reading had escaped me

I think you had it right the first time: the medium is the message. Twitter posts can only be 240 characters, and there is no explicit mechanism relating those "1/n" threads together; you can't even "link to a thread", you can only link to a post. Therefore, each independent thought must fit in 240 characters, which naturally leads to punchy tweets.

Re: Twitter Notes

#253

Post by wraptile »

sumy23 wrote: post #54
dgs_sgd wrote: post #4

I welcome this. I always hated the long multi-tweet essays and have often just given up on reading them, especially when I'm not logged in I can't even make it to the end before twitter blocks me from scrolling further. As of now it doesn't look like you can reply to a note with another note? That might go a long way for improving debate and discussion.

I just tried reading some of the things written by Twitter's test authors. I immediately missed the old format. For one, the old format forces succinct points. There isn't any fluff in a Twitter thread. First four paragraphs in the sample I read: > Hello. Hi. Do you have a moment to talk about porgs? > Yes. Porgs, the cute things seen in Star Wars Episodes VII and VIII. > These. > (Image of porg) > Many people might…

Funny, because your first example is _exactly_ what twitter threads are! "Hook -> explanation -> sell" is a pretty developed marketing technique on twitter and it's everywhere to the point where people who don't even have anything to sell are using it.

Re: Twitter Notes

#254

Post by bombcar »

pbronez wrote: post #223
physicsgraph wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm unable to find the specific company and website in my old emails, but I have seen an example on the web of what you're describing. The reader could select whether to expand or collapse sections (e.g., I want more detail on this subsection). The web interface was similar to a medium blog post, but the amount of work for both the writer and the reader was more than I think most folks are willing to invest.

I’ve stumbled across something similar. It was a personal portfolio / bio site. The owner wrote several versions of each section, using different styles and level of detail. The various versions were selected by the reader with some sliders or something. I thought it was pretty neat. A huge pile of work to write all that, but neat.

It's interesting if you consider the time spent writing versus time spent reading. This post will take me less than a minute to write, you less than a minute to read, but perhaps five/ten people will read it - a 1:10 ratio.

Popular content will have a much larger ratio - if I am a popular writer I might spend a day or two on a fancy blog post like described above, but if 60,000 people spend 10 minutes reading it that's 600,000 minutes - 10,000 hours! Now spending a bit more time to make it more useful/enjoyable/readable seems worth it.

Re: Twitter Notes

#255

Post by wraptile »

Mixtape wrote: post #169

Pretty much every take I have on this is covered by the discourse here about walled gardens, but I do have two other points of concern: Indexability and SEO. When you want to view certain content on Twitter, you need to log in. If you don't want to, you're forbidden from viewing that content. If that happens here, I worry that the accessibility of long-form, blog-style content production will lead to more users eithe…

Facebook groups and twitter has been probably the worst things to happen to preservation of our knowledge.

Re: Twitter Notes

#256

Post by robocat »

nmilo wrote: post #243
robocat wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/1 The existing Twitter limitations strongly encourage conciseness, which I often like. /2 Blogs, articles, and HN comments like this, can ramble on and make diversions that I don’t always care for. /3 I would like a dynamic slider control where I could contract someone’s writing to their essential point (tl;dr) or expand it (longreads). /4 Bonus boffin round: a control to vary depth/complexity. I mostly would use si…

You already have a "dynamic slider control" for everything you read, it lives in your brain and it's called "skimming." Well-written articles already expose the essential point in an easy-to-find way, and I couldn't imagine what a "give me the tl;dr now" button would do to our already ruined attention spans. The tl;dr might exist for some articles, but most of the time, the essential point requires a lot of build-up…

To paraphrase you:

tl;dr: skim-read good articles, dummy.

Longer version: here’s a thoughtless snark ignoring that you said you wanted longreads and ignoring you wanted to dial complexity to 11. Society’s tuned to custard, get off my lawn.

Extended version: I really like to show I am the smartest, most condescending, person in the forum. Let me state the obvious. Nobody listens or uses their brains these days, because TikTok. Your idea of a slider is lame. Normally I would just ignore it, however I felt compelled to make a sweeping commentary on society and your inane comment was just the hook I needed. I really wanted to correct your spelling and grammar, and comment on your smell, but I did remember that is against the guidelines[1]. If would love to downvote you to oblivion, but even talking about voting is illegal on HN: long live 1A. Ironic huh?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

PS: Hopefully this amuses you: I am being facetious, but I am also trying to give you the gist of how your comment comes across to me, in my opinion. I am not a bad guy, and normally I try to write higher quality comments.

Re: Twitter Notes

#257

Post by wraptile »

dnissley wrote: post #59
simlevesque wrote: post #32

I love that the mobile website forces me to use the app and now then you click a Note in the app it opens it in the browser.

Yeah, this was a huge benefit of threads for me! They don't break me out of twitter flow into some other website. On top of this they have barely distinguished notes from links (despite owning the platform!)

That's the only real reason threads are so successful imo. APP lock-in is an extremely toxic dark pattern and Twitter knows it.

Re: Twitter Notes

#258

Post by bombcar »

rapind wrote: post #191
lamontcg wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would just love to get rid of the obnoxious writing style that twitter thought-leaders use when they're posting a thread. They always start with a fairly obnoxious click-baitey sentence. Then usually a fairly narcissistic hook about how "i'll explain" then "a " and "/1". And then each tweet needs to be punchy enough in 240 characters to keep people reading which produces a particularly annoying writing style. Then…

> twitter thought-leaders Real question. What even is a twitter thought-leader? An expert of twitter or an expert using twitter, or something else? If it’s an expert using twitter I would assume the way they use it would vary, so this must be something else?

The most famous got famously banned after a number of years of thought-leading.

Re: Twitter Notes

#259

Post by bombcar »

phailhaus wrote: post #247
Pxtl wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I like the Twitter writing style. It forces authors to cut to the chase and avoid fluff. Brevity is the soul of wit.

Counterpoint: it also rewards oversimplification and hyperbole.

It provides acres and acres of self-confirming thoughts, reminds me of:

> Hobbits delighted in such things, if they were accurate: they liked to have books filled with things that they already knew, set out fair and square with no contradictions.

You can go to twitter for confirmation on what you already think, and amusements, but things that go against your worldview are basically impossible to do in short tweets, so you begin to filter them into a self-reinforcing bubble. And the algorithm notices and reaffirms.

Re: Twitter Notes

#260

Post by bombcar »

caycep wrote: post #87
dend wrote: post #76

My reaction to this is that it's an effort to keep users within the "walled garden" of Twitter, which is not the best thing for those that write. Recall the story with Medium - yes, you get broader reach with less effort, but at the cost of giving up control of your content. I know that I am talking with an overly developer-focused lens (a-la "you can reimplement Dropbox in a weekend"), but self-hosting blogs outside…

With the "walled garden" comment, I'm wondering - nowadays, all sorts of discourse seems to depend on these types of proprietary services/platforms, that employ armies of engineers to keep them running, develop new features, etc. Attempts to make things decentralized all seem to be aggregating into central controls, i.e. "Web3/crypto" -> coinbase, kraken, etc Why aren't older decentralized "services" protocols being…

Because for the vast majority of users, they just need something they can post once in a while (if at all) and maybe the ability to form little groups. They care nothing more and need nothing more.

But some of those become popular and famous, and then there's little incentive to move elsewhere, as their "fans" are on the platform and so it continues to grow.

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