6 ms·

What I really dislike is the spam in the notifications section. If someone likes my tweet, replies to it or retweets it, that's relevant. I don't however want t

What I really dislike is the spam in the notifications section. If someone likes my tweet, replies to it or retweets it, that's relevant. I don't however want to see a notification for something Tweeter deems interesting under other people you follow liked/retweed this as a notification.

jeffwass 7y ago
Agreed. What really clogs up my notifications is when other people “like” a post I’m mentioned in. You get a few ‘runaway’ threads that pull on a few dozen people and every like becomes its own notification. A dozen people each liking a dozen tweets on the thread, the notification timeline becomes absolutely useless. Let me mute all likes (potentially keeping likes only for my own tweets).
ricefield 7y ago
Might be an unpopular opinion, but I actually really like this feature. I'm usually not able to get to everything, so it's great to know when something important or interesting got tweeted and I know to check it out. That notification was actually what slowly made me an active Twitter user, because they kept surfacing me interesting content and giving me a reason to come back and it became a gateway for me to discover other great content on Twitter
- BartBoch 7y ago
  Then make it an opt-in. Companies should use the more "opt-in" method. Bundle it under "experimental" or "advanced features" in an easy to use page with a very clear explanation of what each feature does.
  - hotpockets 7y ago
    But what if most people like it? I have to say I think it makes a lot of sense. If a high number of people I follow like something, you might want to show it to me too.
    - ponyous 7y ago
      Isn't that what the feed is? Now you have 2 feeds...
      - hotpockets 7y ago
        My bad, I missed that this thread was just on the notifications section.
  - ricefield 7y ago
    That's kind of the point though - I had no idea this feature existed until they started pushing it to me. I think it's too much to expect users to opt-in to things. How would I have known to opt-in to this? Yet I am now much happier because they improved the UX for me. I think opt-out makes sense though, for users who don't a feature.
    - zem 7y ago
      i can see no way to opt out of it either
      - crummy 7y ago
        You can click the "I don't like this tweet" button in the dropdown.
        zem 7y ago
        that's not opting out of the feature, that's trying to train the feature to be better.
      - jpindar 7y ago
        Use Tweetdeck instead of the main page. https://tweetdeck.twitter.com https://tweetdeck.twitter.com
    - BartBoch 7y ago
      If you put it on a single, easily recognizable, easily accessible page (all new features, etc.), then many users will find it. You can even give a notification when a new feature is added (as long as kept to a reasonable amount). Features that will go viral are worth adding for all, features that did not can be kept there.
      - naasking 7y ago
        You overestimate what people will understand from a technical description in a configuration option. Even if they were experimentally inclined, which most people are not, they probably wouldn't even notice the effect, particularly if not a new user. Twitter is a black box for most users. Twitter very likely did market research on its effectiveness for the target market they were trying to please. Probably that's just not you.
- ryan-c 7y ago
  Sometimes it shows me stuff from users I've blocked, which I find really irritating.
- mirimir 7y ago
  I don't use Twitter, except to look at tweets that people on HN or whatever link to. And the main reason that I don't is that the idea of "following" just doesn't work for me. I tried it. But even people who sometimes post stuff that interests me mostly post stuff that just gets in my way. I like HN. But I never look at particular users' posts. I just look at the front page, or sometimes at the comments list, so see what people are talking about.
  - ed_elliott_asc 7y ago
    Hacker news is pretty well regulated though in that bad comments are voted down now retweeted to more people. I think for it to work people would have to start blocking more and using more mute words. The thing where someone retweets something horrible because they disagree with it is so wrong and is what is being badly gamed.
    - mirimir 7y ago
      Yes, that is a bizarre thing about Twitter. And it's a huge part of why I don't like it. It's funny. For all that I support free speech, I don't have the patience to read much of it. So I end up gravitating to well moderated forums.
Spooky23 7y ago
Just stop using the App. Browser based mobile Twitter is way better.
dguo 7y ago
Agreed. I wish that they would just mix those into the primary feed. I keep using the "See less often" option, but the "Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your experience better." message that I get in response almost feels like a taunt at this point. I want to turn them off completely.
- justinclift 7y ago
  Yeah. That option is useless and does absolutely nothing. I've taken to just unfollowing the users who they force notifications from. Even though sometimes I'm generally interested in the user's content, I'll view it when I feel like it, not when Twitter wants me to.
- jpindar 7y ago
  You could use https://tweetdeck.twitter.com https://tweetdeck.twitter.com
danenania 7y ago
+1000 This completely ruins using Twitter as an official support channel for a business. I want to be notified immediately whenever my company is mentioned, but enabling email/push notifications so that I'm aware of these asap also means constantly opening Twitter just to dismiss whatever unsolicited spam they're trying to put in front of me. It adds up to quite a lot of wasted time and is a downright obnoxious user experience--in the end I had to disable the notifications and our response times suffer for it. At this point I would definitely pay to have these irrelevant notifications removed.
- massysett 7y ago
  This is an honest question - why on earth should Twitter be an official support channel for a business? If I had a business, I would respond to Twitter support requests with “please see our support website for how to contact us” or “thanks, we are now contacting you.” I don’t know why Twitter users should get better support and it seems odd to me to rely on Twitter to provide or to ask for support.
  - dboreham 7y ago
    Because...Millenials?
  - udwum 7y ago
    That's a funny one. I worked at a place where the support team that worked for the social network accounts of the company had better tools and higher priority when doing their jobs than the phone/site support team, so effectively customers asking for support on Twitter or Facebook got better and faster support than customers asking for support on the phone or the site. I assume that's because companies are terrified of bad publicity on social networks.
    - maxwell 7y ago
      > bad publicity on social networks Exactly. Social networks moved support from private, hidden systems to a public channel. This benefitted the user, since the brand has more to lose from interactions that are negative, non-responsive, re-directive, etc.
EricE 7y ago
I'm always surprised by these threads expressing frustration at the timelines being re-arranged - then I remember I use a 3rd party client (Tweetbot) and that's why my timeline is not molested and spam-filled. If they ever fully disable 3rd party clients that will be the day I cancel my account. I thought forced ads as you started a DVD were obnoxious...
- philpem 7y ago
  They're certainly going that way. Group DMs don't work with the API (in that there's not even a "hey log onto the website your client doesn't support this" notification). A ton of features have been removed from or gimped in the API, to the point where many of the third-party devs have given up. "Fully disable" - probably not. But they'll certainly make it nearly impossible to produce something "like the Twitter app but better".
justinclift 7y ago
Agreed. They have a useless option "see less of this", which has absolutely no effect. My approach is now to unfollow any user when Twitter forces a notification from them. Maybe someone with some brains at Twitter will notice the clear pattern and fix their idiotic notifications.
richman777 7y ago
I don't quite get why you can't disable these notifications at all. I really don't want to see the things I missed or it finds interesting. And they're purposefully pushing you to look at it to dismiss those notifications.

jeffwass 7y ago

Agreed. What really clogs up my notifications is when other people “like” a post I’m mentioned in. You get a few ‘runaway’ threads that pull on a few dozen people and every like becomes its own notification. A dozen people each liking a dozen tweets on the thread, the notification timeline becomes absolutely useless. Let me mute all likes (potentially keeping likes only for my own tweets).

ricefield 7y ago

Might be an unpopular opinion, but I actually really like this feature. I'm usually not able to get to everything, so it's great to know when something important or interesting got tweeted and I know to check it out. That notification was actually what slowly made me an active Twitter user, because they kept surfacing me interesting content and giving me a reason to come back and it became a gateway for me to discover other great content on Twitter

BartBoch 7y ago
Then make it an opt-in. Companies should use the more "opt-in" method. Bundle it under "experimental" or "advanced features" in an easy to use page with a very clear explanation of what each feature does.
- hotpockets 7y ago
  But what if most people like it? I have to say I think it makes a lot of sense. If a high number of people I follow like something, you might want to show it to me too.
  - ponyous 7y ago
    Isn't that what the feed is? Now you have 2 feeds...
    - hotpockets 7y ago
      My bad, I missed that this thread was just on the notifications section.
- ricefield 7y ago
  That's kind of the point though - I had no idea this feature existed until they started pushing it to me. I think it's too much to expect users to opt-in to things. How would I have known to opt-in to this? Yet I am now much happier because they improved the UX for me. I think opt-out makes sense though, for users who don't a feature.
  - zem 7y ago
    i can see no way to opt out of it either
    - crummy 7y ago
      You can click the "I don't like this tweet" button in the dropdown.
      - zem 7y ago
        that's not opting out of the feature, that's trying to train the feature to be better.
    - jpindar 7y ago
      Use Tweetdeck instead of the main page. https://tweetdeck.twitter.com https://tweetdeck.twitter.com
  - BartBoch 7y ago
    If you put it on a single, easily recognizable, easily accessible page (all new features, etc.), then many users will find it. You can even give a notification when a new feature is added (as long as kept to a reasonable amount). Features that will go viral are worth adding for all, features that did not can be kept there.
    - naasking 7y ago
      You overestimate what people will understand from a technical description in a configuration option. Even if they were experimentally inclined, which most people are not, they probably wouldn't even notice the effect, particularly if not a new user. Twitter is a black box for most users. Twitter very likely did market research on its effectiveness for the target market they were trying to please. Probably that's just not you.
ryan-c 7y ago
Sometimes it shows me stuff from users I've blocked, which I find really irritating.
mirimir 7y ago
I don't use Twitter, except to look at tweets that people on HN or whatever link to. And the main reason that I don't is that the idea of "following" just doesn't work for me. I tried it. But even people who sometimes post stuff that interests me mostly post stuff that just gets in my way. I like HN. But I never look at particular users' posts. I just look at the front page, or sometimes at the comments list, so see what people are talking about.
- ed_elliott_asc 7y ago
  Hacker news is pretty well regulated though in that bad comments are voted down now retweeted to more people. I think for it to work people would have to start blocking more and using more mute words. The thing where someone retweets something horrible because they disagree with it is so wrong and is what is being badly gamed.
  - mirimir 7y ago
    Yes, that is a bizarre thing about Twitter. And it's a huge part of why I don't like it. It's funny. For all that I support free speech, I don't have the patience to read much of it. So I end up gravitating to well moderated forums.

Spooky23 7y ago

Just stop using the App. Browser based mobile Twitter is way better.

dguo 7y ago

Agreed. I wish that they would just mix those into the primary feed. I keep using the "See less often" option, but the "Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your experience better." message that I get in response almost feels like a taunt at this point. I want to turn them off completely.

justinclift 7y ago
Yeah. That option is useless and does absolutely nothing. I've taken to just unfollowing the users who they force notifications from. Even though sometimes I'm generally interested in the user's content, I'll view it when I feel like it, not when Twitter wants me to.
jpindar 7y ago
You could use https://tweetdeck.twitter.com https://tweetdeck.twitter.com

danenania 7y ago

+1000 This completely ruins using Twitter as an official support channel for a business. I want to be notified immediately whenever my company is mentioned, but enabling email/push notifications so that I'm aware of these asap also means constantly opening Twitter just to dismiss whatever unsolicited spam they're trying to put in front of me. It adds up to quite a lot of wasted time and is a downright obnoxious user experience--in the end I had to disable the notifications and our response times suffer for it. At this point I would definitely pay to have these irrelevant notifications removed.

massysett 7y ago
This is an honest question - why on earth should Twitter be an official support channel for a business? If I had a business, I would respond to Twitter support requests with “please see our support website for how to contact us” or “thanks, we are now contacting you.” I don’t know why Twitter users should get better support and it seems odd to me to rely on Twitter to provide or to ask for support.
- dboreham 7y ago
  Because...Millenials?
- udwum 7y ago
  That's a funny one. I worked at a place where the support team that worked for the social network accounts of the company had better tools and higher priority when doing their jobs than the phone/site support team, so effectively customers asking for support on Twitter or Facebook got better and faster support than customers asking for support on the phone or the site. I assume that's because companies are terrified of bad publicity on social networks.
  - maxwell 7y ago
    > bad publicity on social networks Exactly. Social networks moved support from private, hidden systems to a public channel. This benefitted the user, since the brand has more to lose from interactions that are negative, non-responsive, re-directive, etc.

EricE 7y ago

I'm always surprised by these threads expressing frustration at the timelines being re-arranged - then I remember I use a 3rd party client (Tweetbot) and that's why my timeline is not molested and spam-filled. If they ever fully disable 3rd party clients that will be the day I cancel my account. I thought forced ads as you started a DVD were obnoxious...

philpem 7y ago
They're certainly going that way. Group DMs don't work with the API (in that there's not even a "hey log onto the website your client doesn't support this" notification). A ton of features have been removed from or gimped in the API, to the point where many of the third-party devs have given up. "Fully disable" - probably not. But they'll certainly make it nearly impossible to produce something "like the Twitter app but better".

justinclift 7y ago

Agreed. They have a useless option "see less of this", which has absolutely no effect. My approach is now to unfollow any user when Twitter forces a notification from them. Maybe someone with some brains at Twitter will notice the clear pattern and fix their idiotic notifications.

richman777 7y ago

I don't quite get why you can't disable these notifications at all. I really don't want to see the things I missed or it finds interesting. And they're purposefully pushing you to look at it to dismiss those notifications.