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I Hope Twitter Goes Away

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Re: I Hope Twitter Goes Away

#51

Post by djloche »

schoen wrote: post #26
GI_Josh wrote: post #11

I don't necessarily agree that Twitter users can't build communities. A friend of mine writes for a sports blog specific to an NFL team. His twitter account (and @replies) show that he is a part of a very strong community around the team. The tweets from these super-fans aren't just missives shouted into space, these people use Twitter almost solely as a response tool to each other. Their tweets look very much like s…

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 recipe with a friend that really loves pancakes - and there won't be any cross conversation unless there is a natural crossover in the social groups.

Re: I Hope Twitter Goes Away

#52

Post by tptacek »

I value communities too, but the open broadcast nature of Twitter is what I like about it: I can put a message out into the either ("sector-level FDE encryption is bad!" or "ChiSec is next Wednesday") and it quickly percolates to people who (a) I'm glad saw it and (b) I would not have known to send it to. Lots of good things have come from that dynamic.

Twitter is full of abuse and harassment. Other communities are, too. One solution to that problem is policing, which is what HN does. Another is (for lack of a better term) cliquishness, which is what closed communities do. I see a lot of value in both of those approaches too, but every community management strategy has tradeoffs, and serendipity is an awfully powerful force to trade for orderliness.

Re: I Hope Twitter Goes Away

#53

Post by jacquesm »

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…

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 purpose.

Re: I Hope Twitter Goes Away

#54

Post by _asummers »

tptacek wrote: post #52

I value communities too, but the open broadcast nature of Twitter is what I like about it: I can put a message out into the either ("sector-level FDE encryption is bad!" or "ChiSec is next Wednesday") and it quickly percolates to people who (a) I'm glad saw it and (b) I would not have known to send it to. Lots of good things have come from that dynamic. Twitter is full of abuse and harassment. Other communities are,…

OT, I didn't know about ChiSec, so thanks for that. I'm going to try and come to the next meetup.

Re: I Hope Twitter Goes Away

#55

Post by tptacek »

_asummers wrote: post #54
tptacek wrote: post #52

I value communities too, but the open broadcast nature of Twitter is what I like about it: I can put a message out into the either ("sector-level FDE encryption is bad!" or "ChiSec is next Wednesday") and it quickly percolates to people who (a) I'm glad saw it and (b) I would not have known to send it to. Lots of good things have come from that dynamic. Twitter is full of abuse and harassment. Other communities are,…

OT, I didn't know about ChiSec, so thanks for that. I'm going to try and come to the next meetup.

Neato. It's 2 weeks from now. http://sockpuppet.org/chisec.

We're going to put together something similar for HN-types.

Re: I Hope Twitter Goes Away

#56

Post by GI_Josh »

schoen wrote: post #26
GI_Josh wrote: post #11

I don't necessarily agree that Twitter users can't build communities. A friend of mine writes for a sports blog specific to an NFL team. His twitter account (and @replies) show that he is a part of a very strong community around the team. The tweets from these super-fans aren't just missives shouted into space, these people use Twitter almost solely as a response tool to each other. Their tweets look very much like s…

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)

Re: I Hope Twitter Goes Away

#57

Post by penprog »

[deleted] wrote: post #36
AYBABTME wrote: post #14

Alright, so twitter is terrible because its 'broadcast' instead of 'communities', and you don't like 'broadcast' but you like 'communities', so twitter should go away. a) "I hope Twitter genuinely ceases to be." b) "I want a product that enables me to build and participate in communities[...]." Having a product that enables b) doesn't mean a) must happen. Why come to that conclusion. Because you don't like participat…

[deleted]

Ok, i'll bite

Because twitter boosts "negative social behavior" (wtf? by whose definition?) you want a platform that allows people to report natural disasters, broadcast their products/movements, report corruption, communicate with their fan base, etc. to die?

Also, let's all ignore that fact that twitter is used by a ton of government dissidents living in totalitarian governments to broadcast the oppression that occurs there.

Re: I Hope Twitter Goes Away

#58

Post by pessimizer »

penprog wrote: post #33
smacktoward wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to speak for the author, but an argument could be made that a product that: 1) Is massively popular; and 2) Has design flaws that actively sabotage conversation ... could lead to a situation where "B would be better if A went away," due to network effects. No matter how good an alternative B you build, people will keep on suffering with A despite its limitations , because that's where all the other peopl…

Twitter doesn't have a design flaw, it sets out to do what it wants and it does so spectacularly. Twitter is a platform for announcements not for conversations (although many try to use it for that very thing). People who think twitter is a conversation platform are #doingitwrong. Period. People who try to use twitter for conversations and get angry when it doesn't work well or some random stranger barges in and star…

>it sets out to do what it wants and it does so spectacularly.

That sounds post hoc. It, of course, is what it is and does what it does, but do you have any evidence that this result was well-calculated or planned?

Re: I Hope Twitter Goes Away

#59

Post by penprog »

jacquesm wrote: post #53
penprog wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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?)

Re: I Hope Twitter Goes Away

#60

Post by programmarchy »

I always thought of twitter as a news filtering service. At least, that's how I use it. I follow people who tweet about things that I'm interested in. Journalism is about 'broadcast', not 'communities'. Should it go away, too?
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