Live data from Hacker News

Twitter Notes

twitter.com

291–300 of 316 posts

Re: Twitter Notes

#291

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…

“Let me explain” No thanks.

Buttermilk is marrying Humperdink in little less than half an hour.

Re: Twitter Notes

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medium has turned in such a unusable shitshow now, it should be a lesson for anybody who seriously considers using twitter as a writing platform.

It amazes me how Medium held the shrine for the BEST blogging platform and the best reading experience for a few years around 2015. Which didn't last long as it became one of the worst platform for writers and readers alike. How can a company shit the bed so bad?!

Twitter itself used to be very usable. You used to be able to just open a link to a tweet, that was just rendered as HTML. Replies in thread below.

Now it loads the SPA, you get a spinner, 1/5 times the API fails to load the actual tweet data. If you're not logged in you get bombarded with signup popups. Cookie banners come up from time to time even if logged int. Instead of the replies to the tweet, you get other supposedly related tweets as in replies, you have to click "Show more replies" over and over to load more of the fucking thread you opened.

Re: Twitter Notes

#294

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.

Sounds like a job for GPT-3. The author writes the long form version of each section and then GPT writes the simpler versions.

Re: Twitter Notes

#295
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- " If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter. " For all the horrible UX that Twitter, is, one thing I really appreciate is that the thought-leader (or anyone, really) was forced to sit down and write Pascal's shorter letter; i.e. to take their time and think hard how to convey just the essential ideas they want to express, without fluff or narrative detours (which, if preferred, can be found in other…

But you can just write a thread of arbitrary length or take pictures of text.

You can, some people do it from time to time, but in general terms it is not a common practice in the platform, at least not among the people I follow.

Re: Twitter Notes

#296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, s…

I find a Gish Gallop of misinformation is far more obvious on a platform that forces you to break up your points. It also provides more effective rebuttal on a point-by-point basis.

And the self-confirming problem is less about the 280char thing and more about allowing people to create filter bubbles, which is intrinsic to social media.

Re: Twitter Notes

#298

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…

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.

Something like this? https://quillbot.com/summarize

Re: Twitter Notes

#299
post #90

While it's all well and good to launch new features, I think Twitter should improve their existing service and I'm referring to low hanging fruits. I don't understand the rationale behind cutting me off while I'm scrolling through Twitter simply because I'm not logged in. Twitter can still display Ads to me irrespective of whether I'm logged in or not. In fact cutting me off means I leave Twitter which means I don't…

> I don't understand the rationale behind cutting me off while I'm scrolling through Twitter simply because I'm not logged in.

Precisely the reason why I switched over to nitter and have a rule that redirects me to it.

Re: Twitter Notes

#300
post #214
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’d have loved inline quoting on Usenet.

I was there. Someone should've made a nice, readable interface for it.

Actually, Usenet clients (like slrn) were the most usable and efficient discussion software I ever came across.
Post reply on HN