5 ms·

Twitter fails public discourse. What a painful format to read a presumably thoughtful statement from an intellectual. This medium is what our society has come t

Twitter fails public discourse. What a painful format to read a presumably thoughtful statement from an intellectual. This medium is what our society has come to for public intellectual discourse in the sciences?

idontknowifican 4y ago
how else would you make 13 related statements to the broadest possible group, allowing them to react to each one? is your lack of understanding a platform because you don’t like it showing?
- greyw 4y ago
  like I'm reacting now to your sentence
- DannyBee 4y ago
  You are kidding, right? Yes, how did discourse ever happen prior to twitter? We were all just cavepeople, smearing things on walls, until twitter saved us! I also like that you think any of the 13 statements is even worth individually responding to, when in fact, each one is written in a way to drive reaction, rather than be part of an overall coherent story or thought. They happen to be a reasonable writer, so they can make it overall seem reasonably coherent, but it's also 100% clear the writing would be better if they weren't trying to generate 13 statements that can be individually responded to. The platform has not made it better.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
darkerside 4y ago
What is so painful about it?
- lm28469 4y ago
  I could explain
  - darkerside 4y ago
    Nice
- lm28469 4y ago
  but it would take
  - darkerside 4y ago
    Man
- lm28469 4y ago
  way too many comments
  - darkerside 4y ago
    Straw
knorker 4y ago
The way to make it readable is to plug it into threadreaderapp: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1575233618170982400.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1575233618170982400.html
- erreJulian 4y ago
  Matter Reader App [0] also creates a more readable version if you share a link to a twitter thread. I was a ThreadReader user until Matter added this feature. [0] https://getmatter.app/ https://getmatter.app/
300bps 4y ago
What a painful format to read a presumably thoughtful statement I see this sentiment posted often on HN and I'm hoping you can help me understand this. I never use Twitter so am not familiar with its interface. When I click on the link in the OP I see a very easy to ready list of 13 contiguous statements. I'm using Microsoft Edge on Windows 11. I'm curious what you see that makes the format so painful to read?
- gumby 4y ago
  Because instead of your eye naturally flowing down the text you get a sentence or two and then have to jump down to find the next sentence or two which while remembering the context. They aren’t contiguous at all. Also because of the constraints of tweet length the sentences are chopped short rather than being whatever their “natural” length, short or long, would be. The point of writing as the GP suggested is to minimize the friction between written text and comprehension/reasoning. Twitter is designed exactly against that, so the result is a bunch of slogans or tiny sound bites.
  - 300bps 4y ago
    They aren’t contiguous at all. That's what I'm saying. They are completely contiguous and easy to read and follow for me when I view the OP with Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome on Windows 11. I'm trying to figure out - what are you viewing the OP with to make it not contiguous?
    - gumby 4y ago
      In the twitter app or safari or (shudder) chrome, each tweet is decorated with the sender, date, number of likes etc.
- AdrianB1 4y ago
  Not the OP, but I also find it weird - content is broken based on text length, not logical separation and scrolling down at some point is freezing the page with a prompt to login or create an account (I don't have one and I don't want one). The freeze for login is the more annoying one.
ahartmetz 4y ago
Uh, I guess successful scientists can apply their highly developed "smallest publishable unit" competence.
tomxor 4y ago
I also hate the anti-logged-out dark patterns they introduced this year. It's almost useless without logging in.
snowwrestler 4y ago
> Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—things like article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
oytis 4y ago
Really, can't understand why academia (or anyone frankly) chose Twitter as a means to do public communications. Character limit, poor access control capabilities, actively blocking people without accounts from reading. Like, every aspect seems to be worse than vintage blogging platforms, apart from the fact that somehow everyone is on Twitter now.
- danielvf 4y ago
  Massively bigger network than the blog-o-sphere provides more value. Your new content appears in feeds in seconds. The small content size constraints allow readers to follow more people, making the network more connected.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    >Massively bigger network than the blog-o-sphere provides more value. I question the value. Yes, there's discovery but nothing is keeping anyone from clicking through a link from a short summary. And, if people don't? Personally I'm OK with that. No one is paying me for eyeballs. Way too many people are obsessed with pageviews even if they don't get compensated for them.
  - oytis 4y ago
    Yes, you're right, feed seems to be the major differentiator. RSS never really reached the same user experience.
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  > somehow everyone is on Twitter now. Well, you can't reach me through Twitter. I think the "everyone" you refer to is "everyone who thinks they're important". Lots of politicians, journalists, "celebrities" and academics. I tried to read the tweeter's opinions, but gave up after three sentences (3 tweets). That's a truly awful way to consume a reasoned argument.
  - oytis 4y ago
    I think I'm mostly confused about academia really. I get it, it's a nice and easy format to quickly share one's thoughts, so masses are there. Now people who need to speak to the masses (celebrities, politicians) are also there. But academia should be different as I though. Post like this one seem to be rather belonging to a mailing list or a specialised blog or whatever good format that were invented on the internet. Instead it is composed as a series of linked SMS-sized messages on a walled-garden type of platform.
jccalhoun 4y ago
Maybe I'm wrong but the writing seems to blame here not the medium. I'm ignorant of the topic and had a hard time even understanding what the person was writing about. From my limited understanding, it would have been more informative to say "Intel was supposed to deliver a supercomputer but is late so now the USA is falling behind China in supercomputing." However, maybe I'm missing the actual content though and I won't disagree that the Medium is the Message.
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  It was really hard to read for me as well.
ajnin 4y ago
I recommend the "Privacy Redirect" browser extension which redirects Twitter to Nitter, which is incomparably more usable, especially not logged in. It will also redirect YouTube and Google Maps to Invidious and OpenStreetMaps respectively (and other services as well). Main issue is that the provided list of instances is not reliable so some weeding out is required at the beginning.
atemerev 4y ago
It's either that or PowerPoint.

idontknowifican 4y ago

how else would you make 13 related statements to the broadest possible group, allowing them to react to each one? is your lack of understanding a platform because you don’t like it showing?

greyw 4y ago
like I'm reacting now to your sentence
DannyBee 4y ago
You are kidding, right? Yes, how did discourse ever happen prior to twitter? We were all just cavepeople, smearing things on walls, until twitter saved us! I also like that you think any of the 13 statements is even worth individually responding to, when in fact, each one is written in a way to drive reaction, rather than be part of an overall coherent story or thought. They happen to be a reasonable writer, so they can make it overall seem reasonably coherent, but it's also 100% clear the writing would be better if they weren't trying to generate 13 statements that can be individually responded to. The platform has not made it better.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

darkerside 4y ago

What is so painful about it?

lm28469 4y ago
I could explain
- darkerside 4y ago
  Nice
lm28469 4y ago
but it would take
- darkerside 4y ago
  Man
lm28469 4y ago
way too many comments
- darkerside 4y ago
  Straw

knorker 4y ago

The way to make it readable is to plug it into threadreaderapp: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1575233618170982400.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1575233618170982400.html

erreJulian 4y ago
Matter Reader App [0] also creates a more readable version if you share a link to a twitter thread. I was a ThreadReader user until Matter added this feature. [0] https://getmatter.app/ https://getmatter.app/

300bps 4y ago

What a painful format to read a presumably thoughtful statement I see this sentiment posted often on HN and I'm hoping you can help me understand this. I never use Twitter so am not familiar with its interface. When I click on the link in the OP I see a very easy to ready list of 13 contiguous statements. I'm using Microsoft Edge on Windows 11. I'm curious what you see that makes the format so painful to read?

gumby 4y ago
Because instead of your eye naturally flowing down the text you get a sentence or two and then have to jump down to find the next sentence or two which while remembering the context. They aren’t contiguous at all. Also because of the constraints of tweet length the sentences are chopped short rather than being whatever their “natural” length, short or long, would be. The point of writing as the GP suggested is to minimize the friction between written text and comprehension/reasoning. Twitter is designed exactly against that, so the result is a bunch of slogans or tiny sound bites.
- 300bps 4y ago
  They aren’t contiguous at all. That's what I'm saying. They are completely contiguous and easy to read and follow for me when I view the OP with Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome on Windows 11. I'm trying to figure out - what are you viewing the OP with to make it not contiguous?
  - gumby 4y ago
    In the twitter app or safari or (shudder) chrome, each tweet is decorated with the sender, date, number of likes etc.
AdrianB1 4y ago
Not the OP, but I also find it weird - content is broken based on text length, not logical separation and scrolling down at some point is freezing the page with a prompt to login or create an account (I don't have one and I don't want one). The freeze for login is the more annoying one.

ahartmetz 4y ago

Uh, I guess successful scientists can apply their highly developed "smallest publishable unit" competence.

tomxor 4y ago

I also hate the anti-logged-out dark patterns they introduced this year. It's almost useless without logging in.

snowwrestler 4y ago

> Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—things like article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

oytis 4y ago

Really, can't understand why academia (or anyone frankly) chose Twitter as a means to do public communications. Character limit, poor access control capabilities, actively blocking people without accounts from reading. Like, every aspect seems to be worse than vintage blogging platforms, apart from the fact that somehow everyone is on Twitter now.

danielvf 4y ago
Massively bigger network than the blog-o-sphere provides more value. Your new content appears in feeds in seconds. The small content size constraints allow readers to follow more people, making the network more connected.
- ghaff 4y ago
  >Massively bigger network than the blog-o-sphere provides more value. I question the value. Yes, there's discovery but nothing is keeping anyone from clicking through a link from a short summary. And, if people don't? Personally I'm OK with that. No one is paying me for eyeballs. Way too many people are obsessed with pageviews even if they don't get compensated for them.
- oytis 4y ago
  Yes, you're right, feed seems to be the major differentiator. RSS never really reached the same user experience.
denton-scratch 4y ago
> somehow everyone is on Twitter now. Well, you can't reach me through Twitter. I think the "everyone" you refer to is "everyone who thinks they're important". Lots of politicians, journalists, "celebrities" and academics. I tried to read the tweeter's opinions, but gave up after three sentences (3 tweets). That's a truly awful way to consume a reasoned argument.
- oytis 4y ago
  I think I'm mostly confused about academia really. I get it, it's a nice and easy format to quickly share one's thoughts, so masses are there. Now people who need to speak to the masses (celebrities, politicians) are also there. But academia should be different as I though. Post like this one seem to be rather belonging to a mailing list or a specialised blog or whatever good format that were invented on the internet. Instead it is composed as a series of linked SMS-sized messages on a walled-garden type of platform.

jccalhoun 4y ago

Maybe I'm wrong but the writing seems to blame here not the medium. I'm ignorant of the topic and had a hard time even understanding what the person was writing about. From my limited understanding, it would have been more informative to say "Intel was supposed to deliver a supercomputer but is late so now the USA is falling behind China in supercomputing." However, maybe I'm missing the actual content though and I won't disagree that the Medium is the Message.

systemvoltage 4y ago
It was really hard to read for me as well.

ajnin 4y ago

I recommend the "Privacy Redirect" browser extension which redirects Twitter to Nitter, which is incomparably more usable, especially not logged in. It will also redirect YouTube and Google Maps to Invidious and OpenStreetMaps respectively (and other services as well). Main issue is that the provided list of instances is not reliable so some weeding out is required at the beginning.

atemerev 4y ago

It's either that or PowerPoint.