4 ms·

Why oh why do people abuse twitter to post entire blog posts. Do they also drink from plates, and shower in the sink? Write kernels in Javascript? smh

by qqj 6y ago

EamonnMR 6y ago
Because you get much more engagement on Twitter than you would with a blog post.
ponker 6y ago
This author has written about this in the past. He says that if he’s faced with an open blog post window he can never write/complete/publish anything but the Twitter format makes it easy for him to do so.
- nocman 6y ago
  Perhaps he should write (or contract someone else to write) an application to allow him to create a private twitter-like feed, then reformat it into a normal blog post. If it were not in such an awful format, I might have read further. I was interested enough to see what the post was about, but the format was enough to make me think "I'm not that interested".
  - ponker 6y ago
    I suppose he could do that, but the real question is, what is the value to him of having you as an additional reader? Probably too low to justify changing his tools.
    - nocman 6y ago
      I guess that depends on how many other people like me have the same reaction, and how many readers he wants to actually have. Could go either way. I'm not saying he should change the way he does things just to please me, and I might not be a reader he cares about, and that's fine. I also understand that it could be the act of publishing a piece at a time, and having it immediately be publicly available, that pushes him to actually complete the post (adding just enough pressure on himself, or whatever). I just wonder if the format choice might have a larger impact than he thinks. My suggestion was intended to be constructive. I was thinking perhaps he could still get the effect of the twitter-like way of doing things, while ending up with a final format that would appeal to a broader audience. Of course this is all just speculation on my part. Likely he will not even see what I suggested, not that I really expected him to.
      - ponker 6y ago
        Sure, just realize that the value to having an extra reader might be zero, and the value of having you specifically (or any particularly scoped reader) could actually be negative.
  - etxm 6y ago
    I wish I could down vote this twice.
  - detaro 6y ago
    Perhaps you should write that app, if you're so concerned with how they publish their posts?
- ckozlowski 6y ago
  I suspect there's a study to be done here. In what way is the open blog post window intimidating? Or discouraging? I for one often feel that if I have something long to write, I need to open a proper word processor rather than paste it into a nondescript box, less I somehow lose what I was writing. I also feel that in some of those tiny boxes, I can't adaquately arrange my thoughts, as I can't see the structure of what I wrote before adequately. Perhaps the twitter format alleviates the writer's tension by forcing them to "chunkify" (packetize?) their writing into small portions, with the satisfaction of being able to hit "enter" and calling it done after every little one. Of course, I think paragraphs can accomplish this as well. But coming back to my original statement, I wonder how the common tools of today makes us look differently at how we compose and structure our thoughts. If I think of the way I'd communicate to colleagues over chat, or email, a collaboration tool, or heck, on HN or Reddit, and compare that to how I'd go about writing a blog post or paper, they're quite two different things.
  - Digit-Al 6y ago
    No. In his post about it he says he has very bad ADHD. He's having treatment but it's not working well at all. He can't write a blog post because his brain gets tied up in knots thinking about writing and editing a long post, but he can write short scribblings.
catalogia 6y ago
They're addicted to attention. Twitter is engineered to encourage this.
philshem 6y ago
A twitter thread to answer your question https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1066547670477488128 https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1066547670477488128
ufmace 6y ago
I don't really get the beef with this. Twitter's UI for reading these tweet-streams is pretty decent these days.
- Rebelgecko 6y ago
  I'm going to have to disagree. Because the link only shows the first tweet, it's really confusing if I don't remember to click the small "show thread" link. As far as I know there's no way to share a link to the entire thread
- gorkish 6y ago
  See that's where gorkish 1 hour ago | parent |on "I don't really get the beef with this..." you and I have very markedly gorkish 1 hour ago | parent |on "I don't really get the beef with this..." very different ideas about what gorkish 1 hour ago | parent |on "I don't really get the beef with this..." "pretty decent" means gorkish 1 hour ago | parent |on "I don't really get the beef with this..." because I actually think this kind of gorkish 1 hour ago | parent |on "I don't really get the beef with this..." nonsense is really quite bullshit.
isoprophlex 6y ago
Not to be snarky but this comment and it's followups will show up in 9 out of 10 Foone twitter threads that get posted to hn. It's idiosyncratic maybe, but this is just the way he delivers his content. I'm mostly glad it's not Medium or some other paywalled shit.
pier25 6y ago
I agree it's not ideal, but there's more interaction going on. Even if you add comments on your blog you will never get the same thing you get on twitter. That said, I don't think Twitter threads works for all sorts of written content either.

Why oh why do people abuse twitter to post entire blog posts. Do they also drink from plates, and shower in the sink? Write kernels in Javascript? smh

by qqj 6y ago

Why oh why do people abuse twitter to post entire blog posts. Do they also drink from plates, and shower in the sink? Write kernels in Javascript? smh

EamonnMR 6y ago

Because you get much more engagement on Twitter than you would with a blog post.

ponker 6y ago

This author has written about this in the past. He says that if he’s faced with an open blog post window he can never write/complete/publish anything but the Twitter format makes it easy for him to do so.

nocman 6y ago
Perhaps he should write (or contract someone else to write) an application to allow him to create a private twitter-like feed, then reformat it into a normal blog post. If it were not in such an awful format, I might have read further. I was interested enough to see what the post was about, but the format was enough to make me think "I'm not that interested".
- ponker 6y ago
  I suppose he could do that, but the real question is, what is the value to him of having you as an additional reader? Probably too low to justify changing his tools.
  - nocman 6y ago
    I guess that depends on how many other people like me have the same reaction, and how many readers he wants to actually have. Could go either way. I'm not saying he should change the way he does things just to please me, and I might not be a reader he cares about, and that's fine. I also understand that it could be the act of publishing a piece at a time, and having it immediately be publicly available, that pushes him to actually complete the post (adding just enough pressure on himself, or whatever). I just wonder if the format choice might have a larger impact than he thinks. My suggestion was intended to be constructive. I was thinking perhaps he could still get the effect of the twitter-like way of doing things, while ending up with a final format that would appeal to a broader audience. Of course this is all just speculation on my part. Likely he will not even see what I suggested, not that I really expected him to.
    - ponker 6y ago
      Sure, just realize that the value to having an extra reader might be zero, and the value of having you specifically (or any particularly scoped reader) could actually be negative.
- etxm 6y ago
  I wish I could down vote this twice.
- detaro 6y ago
  Perhaps you should write that app, if you're so concerned with how they publish their posts?
ckozlowski 6y ago
I suspect there's a study to be done here. In what way is the open blog post window intimidating? Or discouraging? I for one often feel that if I have something long to write, I need to open a proper word processor rather than paste it into a nondescript box, less I somehow lose what I was writing. I also feel that in some of those tiny boxes, I can't adaquately arrange my thoughts, as I can't see the structure of what I wrote before adequately. Perhaps the twitter format alleviates the writer's tension by forcing them to "chunkify" (packetize?) their writing into small portions, with the satisfaction of being able to hit "enter" and calling it done after every little one. Of course, I think paragraphs can accomplish this as well. But coming back to my original statement, I wonder how the common tools of today makes us look differently at how we compose and structure our thoughts. If I think of the way I'd communicate to colleagues over chat, or email, a collaboration tool, or heck, on HN or Reddit, and compare that to how I'd go about writing a blog post or paper, they're quite two different things.
- Digit-Al 6y ago
  No. In his post about it he says he has very bad ADHD. He's having treatment but it's not working well at all. He can't write a blog post because his brain gets tied up in knots thinking about writing and editing a long post, but he can write short scribblings.

catalogia 6y ago

They're addicted to attention. Twitter is engineered to encourage this.

philshem 6y ago

A twitter thread to answer your question https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1066547670477488128 https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1066547670477488128

ufmace 6y ago

I don't really get the beef with this. Twitter's UI for reading these tweet-streams is pretty decent these days.

Rebelgecko 6y ago
I'm going to have to disagree. Because the link only shows the first tweet, it's really confusing if I don't remember to click the small "show thread" link. As far as I know there's no way to share a link to the entire thread
gorkish 6y ago
See that's where gorkish 1 hour ago | parent |on "I don't really get the beef with this..." you and I have very markedly gorkish 1 hour ago | parent |on "I don't really get the beef with this..." very different ideas about what gorkish 1 hour ago | parent |on "I don't really get the beef with this..." "pretty decent" means gorkish 1 hour ago | parent |on "I don't really get the beef with this..." because I actually think this kind of gorkish 1 hour ago | parent |on "I don't really get the beef with this..." nonsense is really quite bullshit.

isoprophlex 6y ago

Not to be snarky but this comment and it's followups will show up in 9 out of 10 Foone twitter threads that get posted to hn. It's idiosyncratic maybe, but this is just the way he delivers his content. I'm mostly glad it's not Medium or some other paywalled shit.

pier25 6y ago

I agree it's not ideal, but there's more interaction going on. Even if you add comments on your blog you will never get the same thing you get on twitter. That said, I don't think Twitter threads works for all sorts of written content either.