Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I Hope Twitter Goes Away

alexgaynor.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 251 posts

Re: I Hope Twitter Goes Away

#61

Post by freebs »

atjoslin wrote: post #10

Disagree. Twitter is immensely valuable for me to quickly communicate with people in my "community" (the Javascript tech world), as well as keep up on news in areas I'm interested in: the Javascript tech world & a few others.

He also clearly doesn't understand how to use lists to create his own communities. I have lists for devs, friends, funnies, etc. With a little effort you can have these communities on tap in columns. Hey, if you're lazy, you can even subscribe to other's lists and put them in a column too.

Twitter is not hard for conversation, so long as you can put together concise thoughts. I'll agree it does become a pain when you need to explain a lot, but that's why we have links and a multitude of platforms to record our thoughts.

Re: I Hope Twitter Goes Away

#62

Post by schoen »

GI_Josh wrote: post #56
schoen wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess another way of phrasing the original article's claim is that although communities do form, they have no straightforward way to exclude strangers, interlopers, and even griefers: and except for incessant use of hashtags (which could eat up valuable space), there's no simple way for a person who is part of multiple communities to direct comments to only one community. That's a recipe for both serendipity and un…

That's a good point, that is clearer to what the article is trying to say. Defining a community by its ability to exclude is interesting. Twitter just puts the impetus to exclude on a personal level (person A blocks person B) rather than on a community level (person B is banned from this IRC channel)

Yes, I think that's right. And some unmoderated mailing lists and newsgroups have also favored that approach (with killfiles), but even there there is potentially a stronger threshold for joining (you have to deliberately subscribe to the list or group) and stronger recourse for extreme misbehavior (at least on mailing lists, where someone can be banned from the list).

Re: I Hope Twitter Goes Away

#63

Post by mcantelon »

>It's fundamentally impossible to create a safe space with a public account

Right, so use something else for that.

Twitter grew because it's open. I interpret posts like this as an attempt to lobby for the creation of a caste within Twitter with the ability to censor. I've abandoned other large sites because of unreasonable censorship.

EDIT: Gaynor thinks people shouldn't use HN too. Quel surprise. https://twitter.com/alex_gaynor/status/259803468838080512

Re: I Hope Twitter Goes Away

#64

Post by negativeview »

Tombone5 wrote: post #43
negativeview wrote: post #6

Eh. I'm definitely a part of several communities on Twitter. It's just that they're micro-communities that are fluid in size and shape. If I'm talking business stuff I'll @shazow usually. If it's coding, usually @wolever, sometimes @shazow or @lnxprgr3, depending on the language/platform/etc. The whole hashtag thing is ... pretty hit or miss. I wouldn't mind a better solution to that. But as weak as it is, it's how I…

It's not at all exactly like twitter, for one a text that needs to stand on its own (a blog post) will require far more work to be of any sort of quality than a simple reply on twitter.

Okay, I'll get more explicit.

> I think Twitter is defined by the fact that it's about broadcast.

Writing on a blog with comments off is 100% broadcast with no built-in solution for conversations to form. Twitter has a (flawed) way, so twitter is actually LESS about broadcast than this blog.

> Communities are, above all else, defined by membership, the ability for people to identify as a part of one, and to participate in activities, and share things and experiences with the group.

How does a reader proclaim membership in this blog. Sign up for comments? Post comments? Nope. How does a reader participate? How does a reader share their experiences with the group? Far easier on Twitter than here.

> Every user floats by themselves, interacting with who they please.

Every reader of the blog floats by themselves, interacting with nobody.

> Try following a multi-party conversation using any of the official clients;

How is THIS possible on the blog? You can email the author, sure, but you aren't going to see or be able to reply to anyone else that emailed him.

There's also the widely-repeated quote of "If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter." Length is not necessarily indicative of amount of thought.

http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/

Re: I Hope Twitter Goes Away

#65

Post by schoen »

djloche wrote: post #51
schoen wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess another way of phrasing the original article's claim is that although communities do form, they have no straightforward way to exclude strangers, interlopers, and even griefers: and except for incessant use of hashtags (which could eat up valuable space), there's no simple way for a person who is part of multiple communities to direct comments to only one community. That's a recipe for both serendipity and un…

Twitter has a great feature of showing you the @reply messages by the people you follow, only if you follow that same person as well. For example, if you sent me an @reply message to me ( @djloche ) that message would only show up in the feeds of your followers IF they followed me as well. This means you can have a conversation about the latest film with me, the party last night with your co-workers, and a pancake re…

I guess that helps quite a lot in preventing group conflicts from getting out of hand accidentally. It seems like a weaker control if someone is deliberately trying to get involved in a conversation where other people would see them as unwelcome.

Re: I Hope Twitter Goes Away

#66

Post by stormbrew »

penprog wrote: post #47
smacktoward wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People who think twitter is a conversation platform are #doingitwrong. Period. If millions of people insist on using your product as a conversation platform, it is a conversation platform, no matter what you intended it to be. A thing is what it is.

People use twitter for announcements and then for comments on those announcements. Very few people have actual conversations. When a conversation does happen, it's usually the root poster agreeing (or disagreeing) with the person that tweeted at them. I don't see anyone going to twitter with the initial intent of conversing with someone. Nobody goes onto their computer and says "Hey I'm gonna go message this person o…

Conversation (yes, often about announcements) is the main thing I use twitter for. To me twitter, at its best, is basically a giant irc channel with some filtering features.

Now you've seen one. I think you're confusing emergent with wrong, tbh.

Re: I Hope Twitter Goes Away

#67

Post by pessimizer »

kylec wrote: post #7
untog wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, all his Twitter account is doing is tweeting out links to his blog posts. It's a glorified RSS feed, not what he's talking about the post. But still, yeah.

Not all his posts are links to his blog: https://twitter.com/alex_gaynor/status/524683684180271106 But even if they were, there's a certain irony to decrying Twitter while syndicating yourself on it.

If you criticize the effects of cars on society, are you a hypocrite for driving? How about riding? If you critique capitalism and wish it would end, are you a hypocrite for buying?

That's always a low accusation to make primarily because it's ad hominem and completely irrelevant, but secondarily because it's an easy attack that requires a detailed defense.

If a person making billions from running tobacco companies doesn't smoke, prefers people he's around don't smoke, and thinks that it's a nasty habit, is he a hypocrite? What about if he makes money from a rise in sales of sugary candy but thinks people eat too much sugary candy? What if he makes money from selling housing but rents?

edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8535040

Re: I Hope Twitter Goes Away

#69

Post by jacquesm »

penprog wrote: post #59
jacquesm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell that to my mobile phone provider, who no longer accepts email as a viable support request path, but insists on me starting up a conversation with them on twitter or facebook (I don't have facebook, so that leaves twitter), requiring private information (so I have to 'follow' them first, and they have to 'follow' me in return), is one D away from exposing private info and in general totally unsuitable for the pur…

So because your mobile phone provider is incompetent twitter is a bad platform? Who is your provider btw? That sort of bad acting should be named and shamed (on a platform like twitter perhaps?)

It was merely meant as an illustration of why some people hold 'conversations' on twitter. The provider is Vodafone.
Post reply on HN