4 ms·

This is long over due. Can they fix this... When a Tweet starts with a @username, the only users who will see it in their timeline (other than the sender and t

This is long over due. Can they fix this... When a Tweet starts with a @username, the only users who will see it in their timeline (other than the sender and the recipient) are those who follow both the sender and the recipient. ".@someone Hello I want to respond to you but in public!"

msbarnett 10y ago
That's not a bug/something that needs fixing? The exponential increase in noise would make twitter even less useful. The last thing my timeline needs is to see all of the crap the people I follow are saying to people I don't care to follow.
- sharkweek 10y ago
  Right, this is very much a feature not a bug. I have friends who do corporate customer service through Twitter and the feed would be a disaster if every response or "@" to someone was in the main stream of tweets. It still shows up if two people you follow are @ing each other, which is a great way to jump into the conversation if desired.
- stephenitis 10y ago
  I believe I was more commenting on the behavior of the period and @ ".@" to a average user I think the understanding the intention and the ability to quickly pick up this feature/behavorial cue is a toughie.
  - nicky0 10y ago
    What is your suggested fix?
    - HappyTypist 10y ago
      Visual indication on the compose tab with popover that explains the concept.
andyfleming 10y ago
I feel the opposite. I think this system works well. I find it easy to view a conversation with @replies when I want to. The rest of the time I don't want to see misc conversational tweets. There are more elegant ways to respond too, like "That's a great point @andyfleming".
minikites 10y ago
When Twitter first started, @replies went to everyone like you propose, and they changed to the current model.
jdminhbg 10y ago
Much earlier in Twitter's history, there was a setting you could change to either show or hide conversations between people you followed and ones you didn't; they took it away on purpose. Personally I think quoting tweets and responding in there is the best way to reply to something publicly, but regardless, they aren't likely to change the @-reply behavior at this point.
BinaryIdiot 10y ago
I agree because most people use Twitter where they replace a person's name with @personsname so they get a notification of it. Referring to people should work like this in my opinion. Honestly it should notify you even if an @ wasn't included similar to how hashtags essentially don't matter anymore. Edit: seems people disagree with me. You can't create a feature that limits natural parts of speech. It's just simply not a good user experience. For instance let's say I want to talk about how awesome someone is. Or hell I simply want to introduce one person to another. It may be natural for me to say "Person A, I would like you to meet Person B". That's simply not possible with how replies are currently setup so you have to put a character in front or re-word it. Yes re-wording is viable but why should someone change the way they converse only so their intended audience can reach them? That is not a good user experience. What Twitter needs to do is allow you to send a message out to everyone, even if it starts with a user reference, like it used to be. The rub is changing the way conversations work. Conversations are frustrating as hell on Twitter. They need to rework them so that it doesn't rely on an @user but instead thread them. There is a difference between regular messages and a threaded one. A threaded conversation could also make it easier to link to different conversations people have. Right now it's just jumbled into one huge, stupid pile of crap that's not easy to sort through.
- zimpenfish 10y ago
  > why should someone change the way they converse In a 140 character limited context, they're already doing that.
- scholia 10y ago
  > Honestly it should notify you even if an @ wasn't included similar to how hashtags essentially don't matter anymore. One problem with that is that dozens of people have identical names. The @name works because it's a unique identifier... though people still sometimes send tweets to the wrong person.
lucisferre 10y ago
I feel like the way they expect this to be done now is by retweeting with a comment added. Though yes there is a case in the middle still supported by the "." technique and it is less than idea. I suppose you can't fix everything.
intoverflow2 10y ago
".@someone" has important dogpiling functionality which is absolutely essential for Twitters most dedicated users.

msbarnett 10y ago

That's not a bug/something that needs fixing? The exponential increase in noise would make twitter even less useful. The last thing my timeline needs is to see all of the crap the people I follow are saying to people I don't care to follow.

sharkweek 10y ago
Right, this is very much a feature not a bug. I have friends who do corporate customer service through Twitter and the feed would be a disaster if every response or "@" to someone was in the main stream of tweets. It still shows up if two people you follow are @ing each other, which is a great way to jump into the conversation if desired.
stephenitis 10y ago
I believe I was more commenting on the behavior of the period and @ ".@" to a average user I think the understanding the intention and the ability to quickly pick up this feature/behavorial cue is a toughie.
- nicky0 10y ago
  What is your suggested fix?
  - HappyTypist 10y ago
    Visual indication on the compose tab with popover that explains the concept.

andyfleming 10y ago

I feel the opposite. I think this system works well. I find it easy to view a conversation with @replies when I want to. The rest of the time I don't want to see misc conversational tweets. There are more elegant ways to respond too, like "That's a great point @andyfleming".

minikites 10y ago

When Twitter first started, @replies went to everyone like you propose, and they changed to the current model.

jdminhbg 10y ago

Much earlier in Twitter's history, there was a setting you could change to either show or hide conversations between people you followed and ones you didn't; they took it away on purpose. Personally I think quoting tweets and responding in there is the best way to reply to something publicly, but regardless, they aren't likely to change the @-reply behavior at this point.

BinaryIdiot 10y ago

I agree because most people use Twitter where they replace a person's name with @personsname so they get a notification of it. Referring to people should work like this in my opinion. Honestly it should notify you even if an @ wasn't included similar to how hashtags essentially don't matter anymore. Edit: seems people disagree with me. You can't create a feature that limits natural parts of speech. It's just simply not a good user experience. For instance let's say I want to talk about how awesome someone is. Or hell I simply want to introduce one person to another. It may be natural for me to say "Person A, I would like you to meet Person B". That's simply not possible with how replies are currently setup so you have to put a character in front or re-word it. Yes re-wording is viable but why should someone change the way they converse only so their intended audience can reach them? That is not a good user experience. What Twitter needs to do is allow you to send a message out to everyone, even if it starts with a user reference, like it used to be. The rub is changing the way conversations work. Conversations are frustrating as hell on Twitter. They need to rework them so that it doesn't rely on an @user but instead thread them. There is a difference between regular messages and a threaded one. A threaded conversation could also make it easier to link to different conversations people have. Right now it's just jumbled into one huge, stupid pile of crap that's not easy to sort through.

zimpenfish 10y ago
> why should someone change the way they converse In a 140 character limited context, they're already doing that.
scholia 10y ago
> Honestly it should notify you even if an @ wasn't included similar to how hashtags essentially don't matter anymore. One problem with that is that dozens of people have identical names. The @name works because it's a unique identifier... though people still sometimes send tweets to the wrong person.

lucisferre 10y ago

I feel like the way they expect this to be done now is by retweeting with a comment added. Though yes there is a case in the middle still supported by the "." technique and it is less than idea. I suppose you can't fix everything.

intoverflow2 10y ago

".@someone" has important dogpiling functionality which is absolutely essential for Twitters most dedicated users.