6 ms·

Twitter begins testing Reddit-style nested conversations

59 points by elorant 7y ago

buboard 7y ago
a mess EDIT: the threads look like a mess. the star/like icons are too big and the whole thread will get so big so soon that it won't fit any screen. needs some condensation what a mess
- dang 7y ago
  "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
keenmaster 7y ago
Twitter hasn’t reached its full potential. It’s just not intuitive enough to most people. When a new user signs up, they don’t know: - Who/what to follow, except a handful of celebrities and sports teams - When to compose tweets vs. passively consume them - The esoteric grammar of the intimidating Twitterverse It seems like one must be a celebrity, CEO, or super user to use Twitter at all. Clearly, that’s improving, albeit at a glacial pace. Worst of all was how long it took for Twitter to add Twitter Topics.
- siegeofcondor 7y ago
  > Twitter hasn’t reached its full potential. It’s just not intuitive enough to most people. When a new user signs up, they don’t know: What? Twitter's selling point was how simple and intuitive it was. > It seems like one must be a celebrity, CEO, or super fan to use Twitter at all. That's because Twitter changed from a "user" focused to a "celebrity/journalist/CEO/etc" focused platform. If seems like you got introduced to twitter in the past 2 or 3 years. Twitter was nothing like it is now. You are describing what twitter was 5 or 10 years ago. I don't think twitter is going back towards a "user" oriented site. The same with youtube, instagram, etc.
  - keenmaster 7y ago
    For Average Joe or Median Marsha: YouTube —> watch videos Instagram —> see and share photos Reddit —> discuss whatever you want Facebook —> share thoughts and experiences with friends Twitter —> ??? I know what Twitter can be, if you really optimize it, but it takes patience which a lot of people don’t have.
    - davchana 7y ago
      I think it is: Reddit-> ???? Twitter: One Way Small Texts
      - bscphil 7y ago
        Why don't you think the parent post is accurate? Reddit is terrible logged out, but that's because its use case is basically "follow subjects that interest you, discuss whatever you want". I'm also not sure what you mean by "one way" texts. That seems to describe the format of Twitter, rather than its use case. Why would someone want to send a small text to no one in particular?
        davchana 7y ago
        I mean & I interpreted that the common user/man thinks of what (is the purpose) after hearing these site names. Not many people outside HN Crowd or tech knows about reddit; many of those regular fols use Facebook for reddit-related things like discussions, meme, groups, meetings etc. So, for a common user (not HN Crowd), Reddit is unknown -> ????. Same with twitter, as one of the above post said User thinks Twitter is for Celebrities, so they follow, & think that Twitter is for one way communication from Celebrities from a higher stage, saying their opinions & User may reply to that Celeb, but it will be drowned in other 100s of replies, just like as if a Politician is talking from a stage higher up & any of the audience member's voice will not be that high/hearable & also that that Politician is not talking one-to-one with that particular user; albeit as one-to-many users as in collective audience.
        7y ago
- panarky 7y ago
  The post is about nested conversations, not Twitter generally. What do you think about nested conversations on Twitter?
  - threatofrain 7y ago
    keenmaster's post is about Twitter's potential for growth or success, and it frames calculations one might do for nested conversations. What do you think about keenmaster's post? If you think there's a better framing, then by all means, lead the room.
- krapp 7y ago
  >It seems like one must be a celebrity, CEO, or super user to use Twitter at all. Clearly, that’s improving, albeit at a glacial pace I mean, most people who use Twitter are none of these things, and still seem to manage. Your comment seems to assume that someone who signs up to Twitter will never have even heard of it. And... "esoteric grammar" of the "intimidating" Twitterverse? You do know the concept of hashtags alone have become so well-known that they're used in everyday English, right?
  - keenmaster 7y ago
    It goes beyond hashtags. I was speaking more to the structure of discourse. Even people who are used to speaking in public, on record, in front of cameras, frequently fail to engage with others properly on Twitter. That’s pretty intimidating to me. There just seems to be so much nervous energy on that platform. You could enjoy your day, write one tweet just to express your thoughts on something before going to sleep, then have people halfway across the world jump down your throat and wake up to a nasty surprise.
    - krapp 7y ago
      I would agree that Twitter's design has led to a lot of toxic discourse, but I would disagree that it's the result of people not knowing how to use the site "properly." Quite the opposite - that's what the intended usage of Twitter leads to.
- thom 7y ago
  This is funny to me because I remember being at Chirp, the first Twitter developer conference, 10 years ago. There was a bit of a chill in the air because they'd just announced their own mobile client, effectively competing with their own ecosystem. Part of their justification for doing this was that the onboarding process, as you describe - the user testing video they showed was pretty damning. Surprising to hear no progress has been made.
- badrabbit 7y ago
  Oh...and privacy and data ownership as well. It's a shame how they haven't tried to monetizie by having premium accounts and merging twitter with periscope to compete with snapchat and friends.
- sixothree 7y ago
  It took me a good year of giving twitter a second chance for it to begin to be useful to me. I started by following all of my podcast and youtube follows. Still, it's not my first or even third destination. But maybe if I'm in line at the grocery. Nobody cares about anything I post. So why would I bother.
tenryuu 7y ago
Anyone got a mirror of this article? I can't click this link without ublock complaining about being passed through advertising trackers
- bscphil 7y ago
  https://web.archive.org/web/20191130080133/https://www.engadget.com/2019/11/28/twitter-testing-nested-conversations/ https://web.archive.org/web/20191130080133/https://www.engad... I don't have this problem with uBlock (origin), for the record.
- sojmq 7y ago
  Me too, it tries to redirect me through "guce.advertising.com" because I have enabled the list "Peter Lowe’s Ad and tracking server list". You don't actually need to click, this is a preview: https://twitter.com/wongmjane/status/1199446847560880128/photo/1 https://twitter.com/wongmjane/status/1199446847560880128/pho...
- pgl 7y ago
  Just click "Temporarily" or "Permanently" to bypass the block, if you don't mind the tracking.
jocoda 7y ago
Reddit is being credited with usenet style nested threads? the old is new again...
- ProAm 7y ago
  “The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again."
- MDWolinski 7y ago
  Same thought I had when I read the title, forums have been using nested threads for the longest time.
  - buboard 7y ago
    i mean, hellooo, we are in a nested thread
    - GaryNumanVevo 7y ago
      _echoes_ N E S T E D _echoes_
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  Well, it's not surprising that Engadget would compare it to Reddit, one of the top 20 websites in the world that readers actually use in 2019, instead of a dead social platform that people don't use except maybe a handful of people still using it for piracy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet#Decline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet#Decline Even nested-view on forums like vBulletin and phpbb was more or less worthless for various reasons, like how the software defaulted to a single-level linear view and nobody bothered to explicitly reply to individual posts. Also, linear view let you respond to any number of posts at a time which was superior for longer form discussion among multiple people, something that HN/Reddit can't really do.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
paulgb 7y ago
For those who can't wait, I wrote an open-source FireFox and Chrome plugin that gives a tree view of a conversation: https://treeverse.app https://treeverse.app

59 points by elorant 7y ago

a mess EDIT: the threads look like a mess. the star/like icons are too big and the whole thread will get so big so soon that it won't fit any screen. needs some condensation what a mess

dang 7y ago
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

keenmaster 7y ago

Twitter hasn’t reached its full potential. It’s just not intuitive enough to most people. When a new user signs up, they don’t know: - Who/what to follow, except a handful of celebrities and sports teams - When to compose tweets vs. passively consume them - The esoteric grammar of the intimidating Twitterverse It seems like one must be a celebrity, CEO, or super user to use Twitter at all. Clearly, that’s improving, albeit at a glacial pace. Worst of all was how long it took for Twitter to add Twitter Topics.

siegeofcondor 7y ago
> Twitter hasn’t reached its full potential. It’s just not intuitive enough to most people. When a new user signs up, they don’t know: What? Twitter's selling point was how simple and intuitive it was. > It seems like one must be a celebrity, CEO, or super fan to use Twitter at all. That's because Twitter changed from a "user" focused to a "celebrity/journalist/CEO/etc" focused platform. If seems like you got introduced to twitter in the past 2 or 3 years. Twitter was nothing like it is now. You are describing what twitter was 5 or 10 years ago. I don't think twitter is going back towards a "user" oriented site. The same with youtube, instagram, etc.
- keenmaster 7y ago
  For Average Joe or Median Marsha: YouTube —> watch videos Instagram —> see and share photos Reddit —> discuss whatever you want Facebook —> share thoughts and experiences with friends Twitter —> ??? I know what Twitter can be, if you really optimize it, but it takes patience which a lot of people don’t have.
  - davchana 7y ago
    I think it is: Reddit-> ???? Twitter: One Way Small Texts
    - bscphil 7y ago
      Why don't you think the parent post is accurate? Reddit is terrible logged out, but that's because its use case is basically "follow subjects that interest you, discuss whatever you want". I'm also not sure what you mean by "one way" texts. That seems to describe the format of Twitter, rather than its use case. Why would someone want to send a small text to no one in particular?
      - davchana 7y ago
        I mean & I interpreted that the common user/man thinks of what (is the purpose) after hearing these site names. Not many people outside HN Crowd or tech knows about reddit; many of those regular fols use Facebook for reddit-related things like discussions, meme, groups, meetings etc. So, for a common user (not HN Crowd), Reddit is unknown -> ????. Same with twitter, as one of the above post said User thinks Twitter is for Celebrities, so they follow, & think that Twitter is for one way communication from Celebrities from a higher stage, saying their opinions & User may reply to that Celeb, but it will be drowned in other 100s of replies, just like as if a Politician is talking from a stage higher up & any of the audience member's voice will not be that high/hearable & also that that Politician is not talking one-to-one with that particular user; albeit as one-to-many users as in collective audience.
        7y ago
panarky 7y ago
The post is about nested conversations, not Twitter generally. What do you think about nested conversations on Twitter?
- threatofrain 7y ago
  keenmaster's post is about Twitter's potential for growth or success, and it frames calculations one might do for nested conversations. What do you think about keenmaster's post? If you think there's a better framing, then by all means, lead the room.
krapp 7y ago
>It seems like one must be a celebrity, CEO, or super user to use Twitter at all. Clearly, that’s improving, albeit at a glacial pace I mean, most people who use Twitter are none of these things, and still seem to manage. Your comment seems to assume that someone who signs up to Twitter will never have even heard of it. And... "esoteric grammar" of the "intimidating" Twitterverse? You do know the concept of hashtags alone have become so well-known that they're used in everyday English, right?
- keenmaster 7y ago
  It goes beyond hashtags. I was speaking more to the structure of discourse. Even people who are used to speaking in public, on record, in front of cameras, frequently fail to engage with others properly on Twitter. That’s pretty intimidating to me. There just seems to be so much nervous energy on that platform. You could enjoy your day, write one tweet just to express your thoughts on something before going to sleep, then have people halfway across the world jump down your throat and wake up to a nasty surprise.
  - krapp 7y ago
    I would agree that Twitter's design has led to a lot of toxic discourse, but I would disagree that it's the result of people not knowing how to use the site "properly." Quite the opposite - that's what the intended usage of Twitter leads to.
thom 7y ago
This is funny to me because I remember being at Chirp, the first Twitter developer conference, 10 years ago. There was a bit of a chill in the air because they'd just announced their own mobile client, effectively competing with their own ecosystem. Part of their justification for doing this was that the onboarding process, as you describe - the user testing video they showed was pretty damning. Surprising to hear no progress has been made.
badrabbit 7y ago
Oh...and privacy and data ownership as well. It's a shame how they haven't tried to monetizie by having premium accounts and merging twitter with periscope to compete with snapchat and friends.
sixothree 7y ago
It took me a good year of giving twitter a second chance for it to begin to be useful to me. I started by following all of my podcast and youtube follows. Still, it's not my first or even third destination. But maybe if I'm in line at the grocery. Nobody cares about anything I post. So why would I bother.

tenryuu 7y ago

Anyone got a mirror of this article? I can't click this link without ublock complaining about being passed through advertising trackers

bscphil 7y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20191130080133/https://www.engadget.com/2019/11/28/twitter-testing-nested-conversations/ https://web.archive.org/web/20191130080133/https://www.engad... I don't have this problem with uBlock (origin), for the record.
sojmq 7y ago
Me too, it tries to redirect me through "guce.advertising.com" because I have enabled the list "Peter Lowe’s Ad and tracking server list". You don't actually need to click, this is a preview: https://twitter.com/wongmjane/status/1199446847560880128/photo/1 https://twitter.com/wongmjane/status/1199446847560880128/pho...
pgl 7y ago
Just click "Temporarily" or "Permanently" to bypass the block, if you don't mind the tracking.

jocoda 7y ago

Reddit is being credited with usenet style nested threads? the old is new again...

ProAm 7y ago
“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again."
MDWolinski 7y ago
Same thought I had when I read the title, forums have been using nested threads for the longest time.
- buboard 7y ago
  i mean, hellooo, we are in a nested thread
  - GaryNumanVevo 7y ago
    _echoes_ N E S T E D _echoes_
hombre_fatal 7y ago
Well, it's not surprising that Engadget would compare it to Reddit, one of the top 20 websites in the world that readers actually use in 2019, instead of a dead social platform that people don't use except maybe a handful of people still using it for piracy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet#Decline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet#Decline Even nested-view on forums like vBulletin and phpbb was more or less worthless for various reasons, like how the software defaulted to a single-level linear view and nobody bothered to explicitly reply to individual posts. Also, linear view let you respond to any number of posts at a time which was superior for longer form discussion among multiple people, something that HN/Reddit can't really do.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

paulgb 7y ago

For those who can't wait, I wrote an open-source FireFox and Chrome plugin that gives a tree view of a conversation: https://treeverse.app https://treeverse.app