4 ms·

I mean interact is a strong term here. You send 0-140 characters towards them and they get to send 0-140 back. Yes I'm sure sometimes meaningful conversations h

by mox1 9y ago

I mean interact is a strong term here. You send 0-140 characters towards them and they get to send 0-140 back. Yes I'm sure sometimes meaningful conversations happen, but I doubt that is the norm. I get to interact with a rock star if I hang out near the exit door after the concert. I can shout at them and (s)he might say something back. If I'm lucky and it's a cool musician we might be able to have a brief conversation... As a professional, if I wanted to interact with a leader in my field on a meaningful level I would e-mail, write them, attend a speech by them, etc. etc.

jerrylives 9y ago
You've clearly never used the product in a while because you can DM more than 140 characters. Who is to say the value of "meaningful" is dependent on the number of characters? You have no idea what you are talking about. Go to a speech? What if you're in another country? What if their email isn't publicly available? What if they prefer to communicate via twitter precisely because its so low-stakes and informal? I know many devs who love it precisely because of that. Brevity is key.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Personal attacks are not allowed in HN. Your last line crosses over what's acceptable here.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
    - Neliquat 9y ago
      Can we get this troll ousted please.
- mox1 9y ago
  I guess I don't have a formal proof for you, but in general the more characters/words a response contains the more significant, relevant, important, consequential, telling or material it is. Of course you can find counter examples, but considering the New York times still publishes articles and hasn't moved fully to Tweeting (yet anyway) I would say more often than not it's difficult to convey or articulate things correctly in 140 characters. If a communication method is "low-stakes,informal and brief" how often do you expect to be meaningful? To me those things are diametrically opposed to me.
  - jerrylives 9y ago
    >but in general the more characters/words a response contains the more significant, relevant, important, consequential, telling or material it is Yep because the longest books are the most important...lol fuck outta here There are NYT articles that are just tweet embeds with some of their language around it to make it seem like the journos did work. Hell half of their articles about the Trump white house are tweets for pols. And again, the 140 character limit is for public tweets only. DMs can be very long and involved. >If a communication method is "low-stakes,informal and brief" how often do you expect to be meaningful? Lol dude you must be the worst to work with. So you can't derive any meaning unless it's high stakes, formal, and involved? Meaningful can be "Derived value" from - so if you tweet at a dev "hey is it possible to do X in your library" and they just reply "No, you can't sorry"...was that not meaningful? Did they not just save you a few hours of digging through code with a short reply?
    - sctb 9y ago
      Please stop now. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
yttrium 9y ago
I mean - this seems like you don't actually use the service. I do JS development, and I can pretty reliably get someone like Dan Abramov or other JS 'rockstars' to look at/comment on an issue if it's required. Additionally, I can see these people interact with their peers and discuss ideas. Fundamentally, twitter has become a platform for idea exchange and conversation that has professionals on it, discussing things professionally! It doesn't really get more meaningful than that.
- mox1 9y ago
  So for your JS example, why would you attempt to reach them on Twitter when something like Github would be so much better? Create an issue on Github, point to the exact line of code that is a problem and wait for a response? How do you ask a meaningful question about source code / software development in 140 characters? How do you get a meaningful response in 140 characters?
  - yttrium 9y ago
    Because it's not just about issues - I don't exclusively want someone to interact with me in a setting that's centered around the content. I would preferably like the experience to be more free form and open to a wider audience. Incidentally, I don't think the 140 character limit has ever really bothered me. Most of the time I text shorter strings than that - if I want to have a longer conversation I'll either send multiple tweets, or move to DM/chat.

by mox1 9y ago

jerrylives 9y ago

You've clearly never used the product in a while because you can DM more than 140 characters. Who is to say the value of "meaningful" is dependent on the number of characters? You have no idea what you are talking about. Go to a speech? What if you're in another country? What if their email isn't publicly available? What if they prefer to communicate via twitter precisely because its so low-stakes and informal? I know many devs who love it precisely because of that. Brevity is key.

icebraining 9y ago
Personal attacks are not allowed in HN. Your last line crosses over what's acceptable here.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
  - Neliquat 9y ago
    Can we get this troll ousted please.
mox1 9y ago
I guess I don't have a formal proof for you, but in general the more characters/words a response contains the more significant, relevant, important, consequential, telling or material it is. Of course you can find counter examples, but considering the New York times still publishes articles and hasn't moved fully to Tweeting (yet anyway) I would say more often than not it's difficult to convey or articulate things correctly in 140 characters. If a communication method is "low-stakes,informal and brief" how often do you expect to be meaningful? To me those things are diametrically opposed to me.
- jerrylives 9y ago
  >but in general the more characters/words a response contains the more significant, relevant, important, consequential, telling or material it is Yep because the longest books are the most important...lol fuck outta here There are NYT articles that are just tweet embeds with some of their language around it to make it seem like the journos did work. Hell half of their articles about the Trump white house are tweets for pols. And again, the 140 character limit is for public tweets only. DMs can be very long and involved. >If a communication method is "low-stakes,informal and brief" how often do you expect to be meaningful? Lol dude you must be the worst to work with. So you can't derive any meaning unless it's high stakes, formal, and involved? Meaningful can be "Derived value" from - so if you tweet at a dev "hey is it possible to do X in your library" and they just reply "No, you can't sorry"...was that not meaningful? Did they not just save you a few hours of digging through code with a short reply?
  - sctb 9y ago
    Please stop now. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

yttrium 9y ago

I mean - this seems like you don't actually use the service. I do JS development, and I can pretty reliably get someone like Dan Abramov or other JS 'rockstars' to look at/comment on an issue if it's required. Additionally, I can see these people interact with their peers and discuss ideas. Fundamentally, twitter has become a platform for idea exchange and conversation that has professionals on it, discussing things professionally! It doesn't really get more meaningful than that.

mox1 9y ago
So for your JS example, why would you attempt to reach them on Twitter when something like Github would be so much better? Create an issue on Github, point to the exact line of code that is a problem and wait for a response? How do you ask a meaningful question about source code / software development in 140 characters? How do you get a meaningful response in 140 characters?
- yttrium 9y ago
  Because it's not just about issues - I don't exclusively want someone to interact with me in a setting that's centered around the content. I would preferably like the experience to be more free form and open to a wider audience. Incidentally, I don't think the 140 character limit has ever really bothered me. Most of the time I text shorter strings than that - if I want to have a longer conversation I'll either send multiple tweets, or move to DM/chat.