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> I still want to read what people like Patrick McKenzie, Zach Weinersmith, John Carmack and others have to say. I quit twitter years ago for some of the same

> I still want to read what people like Patrick McKenzie, Zach Weinersmith, John Carmack and others have to say. I quit twitter years ago for some of the same reasons mentioned in this blog post, and I 100% agree with this quote. I would love a way to get at the good content from twitter without all the constant rage. Does anyone know a good tool or way to get a much more curated Twitter experience?

chrisco255 6y ago
I just keep a markdown file with links to Twitter profiles from people I care about. Then I visit the links directly despite not having a Twitter profile, I get to read what they have to say. I also added the "Calm Twitter" plugin to my browser that strips out Trending stories, hides like counts, etc. It makes for a better, focused Twitter experience. I don't care about posting, so I get the info I want without needing to participate in the gamification.
- chc 6y ago
  That seems exactly equivalent to following those people and not posting, but more work. How is this better?
  - randomsearch 6y ago
    Because twitter will constantly try to show you content you don’t want in order to engage/enrage you.
    - chc 6y ago
      Only if you tell it to. You can choose an algorithmic feed or a chronological feed. I don't know why anybody would choose the algorithmic feed, because you're right that it sucks, but there's also no pressure to do so.
      - randomsearch 6y ago
        As there's lots of confusion about this (I didn't downvote you btw) - it's untrue. First, it will switch you back to algorithmic feed at every opportunity. Second, it selectively show you likes and retweets from third parties you have nothing to do with. Third, it will show you topic based content (perhaps by remove all topics you can escape this, but it will try to add topics via dropping in links everywhere). Even if it just shows people you follow, you'll still end up seeing third party comments, and twitter will select those to engage/enrage you too.
        chc 6y ago
        Do you use Twitter much? Some of those were actual issues that arose when the algorithmic feed was first introduced, but none of that is the case anymore and hasn't been for at least at year and probably more. I can't remember the last time I was switched back to the algorithmic feed. The chronological feed categorically does not show you likes, and only shows retweets from people you follow. And the only replies that will appear on your timeline are when one person you follow replies to another person you follow.
        randomsearch 6y ago
        I've not been clear enough. > only shows retweets from people you follow yes, but only shows you _select_ retweets from people you follow. You don't control that. Anything in your timeline that is curated can be used to manipulate you. And those retweets and likes are enough. Just wait until you see a retweet or like and think "but that's wrong / I disagree / waat" and try to catch yourself - you've been shown it for a reason.
        randomsearch 6y ago
        just came across an example. I saw a retweet and thought "that's self-evidently false", started looking at the replies, and then decided to mute the original author... turned out it was someone I had already unfollowed, because they were tweeting nonsense. And the curation algorithm had deliberately shown me the most provocative tweet it could find from a person I'd unfollowed... Twitter is an unethical outrage machine.
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    It's not. I don't have to rely on Twitter's algo to pump irrelevant crap, replies, etc. I don't have to scroll an infinite feed. I just check the influencers that I care about, to get whatever they posted that day. I don't need to see all the noise. It takes me 15-20 minutes a day to catch up and then I move on.
    - chc 6y ago
      You don't have to do that anyway. Just set your feed to "latest" and there's no algorithm besides "when did this appear on the timeline of someone you follow?"
      - chrisco255 6y ago
        I don't want to keep a Twitter account. I don't want notifications when someone retweets or whatever. I just don't mess with it. I don't want the temptation to respond. I don't want some new feature from Twitter interrupting my flow. The point is to check on the people I care about hearing from and ignore all else. Anyways, you do you, this works for me.
Nextgrid 6y ago
There are tools that produce an RSS feed from Twitter feeds, so you can subscribe to them via RSS. This gives you their tweets (in a chronological feed - what an achievement) while hiding any of the noise such as like/retweet counts and other crap Twitter puts in there to increase engagement. You also don't need an account so you wouldn't be tempted to participate in any toxic conversations.
jdminhbg 6y ago
What works best for me is using a third-party client like Tweetbot. It has no algorithmic timeline at all. Just follow the McKenzies, Weinersmiths and Carmacks of the world, and that's all you will see. Edit: The other big thing for me is just unfollowing/blocking people who post garbage, with no remorse. It doesn't matter if your feed is 95% gold, the 5% that isn't makes you not worth it.
dpifke 6y ago
After I quit Twitter a few months ago, I set up a private instance of Nitter[0], and use Huginn[1] to forward posts from it to an instance of Pleroma[2]. Which reminds me, I need to clean up and publish my Huginn agent for posting to Mastodon/Pleroma. :) (Nitter supports RSS, so you could probably use a regular RSS reader instead of Huginn/Pleroma. But I also configured some other, non-RSS, content in my feed.) [0] https://github.com/zedeus/nitter https://github.com/zedeus/nitter [1] https://github.com/huginn/huginn https://github.com/huginn/huginn [2] https://pleroma.social/ https://pleroma.social/

chrisco255 6y ago

I just keep a markdown file with links to Twitter profiles from people I care about. Then I visit the links directly despite not having a Twitter profile, I get to read what they have to say. I also added the "Calm Twitter" plugin to my browser that strips out Trending stories, hides like counts, etc. It makes for a better, focused Twitter experience. I don't care about posting, so I get the info I want without needing to participate in the gamification.

chc 6y ago
That seems exactly equivalent to following those people and not posting, but more work. How is this better?
- randomsearch 6y ago
  Because twitter will constantly try to show you content you don’t want in order to engage/enrage you.
  - chc 6y ago
    Only if you tell it to. You can choose an algorithmic feed or a chronological feed. I don't know why anybody would choose the algorithmic feed, because you're right that it sucks, but there's also no pressure to do so.
    - randomsearch 6y ago
      As there's lots of confusion about this (I didn't downvote you btw) - it's untrue. First, it will switch you back to algorithmic feed at every opportunity. Second, it selectively show you likes and retweets from third parties you have nothing to do with. Third, it will show you topic based content (perhaps by remove all topics you can escape this, but it will try to add topics via dropping in links everywhere). Even if it just shows people you follow, you'll still end up seeing third party comments, and twitter will select those to engage/enrage you too.
      - chc 6y ago
        Do you use Twitter much? Some of those were actual issues that arose when the algorithmic feed was first introduced, but none of that is the case anymore and hasn't been for at least at year and probably more. I can't remember the last time I was switched back to the algorithmic feed. The chronological feed categorically does not show you likes, and only shows retweets from people you follow. And the only replies that will appear on your timeline are when one person you follow replies to another person you follow.
        randomsearch 6y ago
        I've not been clear enough. > only shows retweets from people you follow yes, but only shows you _select_ retweets from people you follow. You don't control that. Anything in your timeline that is curated can be used to manipulate you. And those retweets and likes are enough. Just wait until you see a retweet or like and think "but that's wrong / I disagree / waat" and try to catch yourself - you've been shown it for a reason.
        randomsearch 6y ago
        just came across an example. I saw a retweet and thought "that's self-evidently false", started looking at the replies, and then decided to mute the original author... turned out it was someone I had already unfollowed, because they were tweeting nonsense. And the curation algorithm had deliberately shown me the most provocative tweet it could find from a person I'd unfollowed... Twitter is an unethical outrage machine.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  It's not. I don't have to rely on Twitter's algo to pump irrelevant crap, replies, etc. I don't have to scroll an infinite feed. I just check the influencers that I care about, to get whatever they posted that day. I don't need to see all the noise. It takes me 15-20 minutes a day to catch up and then I move on.
  - chc 6y ago
    You don't have to do that anyway. Just set your feed to "latest" and there's no algorithm besides "when did this appear on the timeline of someone you follow?"
    - chrisco255 6y ago
      I don't want to keep a Twitter account. I don't want notifications when someone retweets or whatever. I just don't mess with it. I don't want the temptation to respond. I don't want some new feature from Twitter interrupting my flow. The point is to check on the people I care about hearing from and ignore all else. Anyways, you do you, this works for me.

Nextgrid 6y ago

There are tools that produce an RSS feed from Twitter feeds, so you can subscribe to them via RSS. This gives you their tweets (in a chronological feed - what an achievement) while hiding any of the noise such as like/retweet counts and other crap Twitter puts in there to increase engagement. You also don't need an account so you wouldn't be tempted to participate in any toxic conversations.

jdminhbg 6y ago

What works best for me is using a third-party client like Tweetbot. It has no algorithmic timeline at all. Just follow the McKenzies, Weinersmiths and Carmacks of the world, and that's all you will see. Edit: The other big thing for me is just unfollowing/blocking people who post garbage, with no remorse. It doesn't matter if your feed is 95% gold, the 5% that isn't makes you not worth it.

dpifke 6y ago

After I quit Twitter a few months ago, I set up a private instance of Nitter[0], and use Huginn[1] to forward posts from it to an instance of Pleroma[2]. Which reminds me, I need to clean up and publish my Huginn agent for posting to Mastodon/Pleroma. :) (Nitter supports RSS, so you could probably use a regular RSS reader instead of Huginn/Pleroma. But I also configured some other, non-RSS, content in my feed.) [0] https://github.com/zedeus/nitter https://github.com/zedeus/nitter [1] https://github.com/huginn/huginn https://github.com/huginn/huginn [2] https://pleroma.social/ https://pleroma.social/