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I genuinely don't understand why a small number of people think Twitter threads are so difficult to read. They're not. Threads can also create new conversation

I genuinely don't understand why a small number of people think Twitter threads are so difficult to read. They're not. Threads can also create new conversations — just like the comments here on Hacker News — but what's better is that each Tweet (like a paragraph) can have comments and discussions corresponding to that Tweet. There's a finer level of detail in the overall conversation. It's just fine and posts like this read like oldheads struggling to adapt.

kspacewalk2 4y ago
It's just so pointless and unnecessary... There are far better platforms for this. If you had to give a two-hour talk, would you post it as a Youtube video, or a series of TikTok snippets? Twitter conversations are marginally less vacuous and pointless than YouTube comments, but not significantly so. >what's better is that each Tweet (like a paragraph) can have comments and discussions corresponding to that Tweet. There's a finer level of detail in the overall conversation. So there are people out there in the wild who actually unroll those mid-thread tweet replies and read them? Huh.
- corobo 4y ago
  > If you had to give a two-hour talk, would you post it as a Youtube video, or a series of TikTok snippets? Both tbh. The snippets being marketing for the whole video, which itself is marketing for the rest of the channel. I'd wang it on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and even LinkedIn too if there's a biz link.
  - nh23423fefe 4y ago
    Ah there's the disconnect. You dont care about the information, its just an ad. i thought people wanted their ideas out there and for people to be delighted to read them. naive.
    - cercatrova 4y ago
      If the content is truly good, then my incentive is for as many people to read it as possible. Therefore, why should I not advertise it? What's the point of good writing if no one is around to read it? Sure, you can write for yourself, but again, if you think the content is good, you should want as many people to read it as possible.
    - corobo 4y ago
      If I didn't care about the information I wouldn't bother marketing it. If I didn't care about the information I wouldn't bother making a video about it in the first place. If nobody sees your information, does it inform?
  - kspacewalk2 4y ago
    Yeah, I agree completely. I'd host the thing on YouTube (where content belongs) and promo it on TikTok, Twitter, Insta, etc (where promos, hot takes and bitchfests belong). So it is with written article of some length/substance, only instead of YouTube you can substitute any number of platforms, or even a self-hosted website.
- paulpauper 4y ago
  Posting a link on twitter will not go as viral as breaking it up into into text-only posts. Twitter's algorithim gives higher rankings to plain text posts compared to posts with links or link to YouTube.
  - kspacewalk2 4y ago
    Gaming the algorithm is a noble goal, so I guess I understand it more.
pixl97 4y ago
Eh, if you're not signed in Twitter threads are a nightmare that force me to use things like nitter.net. Why don't I sign in, well because this company wants your phone number without providing adequate protections to ensure they don't immediately lose it to some 2-bit hacker or nation state.
TheCapn 4y ago
Are you an active Twitter user? Have you been for a long while? I'm not. I never have had an active account. I get linked to a Tweet and I'm not sure whether I'm at the beginning or the end. Is the embedded tweet a quote of someone they're jumping off of? Or a continuation of an active thread. Where does the thread start and end? Why are other names interjected between the parts? Is there more I'm missing in context? The UI sucks. It's probably fine if you're familiar with it, but for outsiders trying to figure out what the latest hubub being talked about in the link is, it's pretty unapproachable.
- Finnucane 4y ago
  Yeah, this. If you don't have a twitter account and/or use the dedicated app, trying to follow a thread (if it even lets you) is awful. If I follow a twitter link and it's more than one or two posts deep, I give up.
- lazzlazzlazz 4y ago
  > It's probably fine if you're familiar with it Could just end the conversation here.
- cestith 4y ago
  Meanwhile HN doesn't notify you of the thread being updated. You have to click a few times just to see if anyone has replied to you. Long threads on HN have all this indentation to follow, while Twitter doesn't. Both UI decisions have pros and cons. Some people have a much easier time writing one paragraph at a time and then replying to themselves. It's a self-editing technique. It can be especially useful to neurodivergent folks, but some neurotypical folks find it easier too. Twitter is really good for stream-of-consciousness regular thought updates as the thoughts come to you. A blog post is usually expected to be a complete topic crafted as one piece.
bsnnkv 4y ago
Sorry that you got down-voted for this. I tried to balance it out by voting it up. In general I think all of the possibilities that you mentioned with threads making new conversations etc. are true. For me, the issue is more in the UI/UX of both the Twitter website and the Twitter mobile applications and how threads are presented.
linuxdaemon 4y ago
DisplayName @username Do I want to read a full length article in bite size chunks? That are sometimes arbitrarily 1/4 DisplayName @username Split across a bunch of little cards with a number to piece them together at the bottom? 2/4 DisplayName @username No, I do not. It's a bunch of extraneous crap that I have to filter out to read the actual point 3/4 DisplayName @username It is the wrong platform for that kind of content, and people are cramming it in anyway. 4/4
- pphysch 4y ago
  This is a strawman. The best Twitter threads incorporate a coherent idea into ~1 tweet, sometimes accompanied by an illustrative image or link to further reading. It turns out that forcing conciseness and having simple embedded media can make for engaging reading. It's not the right format for all writing, and not everyone knows how to use it (see your example), but it is fantastic for commentary and analysis.
  - int_19h 4y ago
    It's fantastic for soundbites and the flamewars that they generate. I can't think of any other use case that's genuinely enhanced by Twitter limits.
- klodolph 4y ago
  Sounds kind of like a book. You split text into arbitrary page boundaries, cut off a sentence in the middle, and then put a number at the bottom to tell you where you are in the book. I’m honestly surprised that people have a hard time filtering this stuff out. Do you get distracted by the chapter headings at the top of a page in a book, or the page numbers? At least with a decent Twitter thread, the individual tweets will be coherent paragraphs. Some people do write Twitter threads where they simply write and place breaks wherever they run up against the 280 character limit, but I rarely see it.
  - xigoi 4y ago
    Books are that way because of a physical limitation. Twitter is not.
post-it 4y ago
Yeah, I've never had any issues reading Twitter threads. I like that you can easily comment and share specific chunks, and that you can easily see other people's comments on those chunks. It also encourages authors to be concise.
serf 4y ago
>It's just fine and posts like this read like oldheads struggling to adapt. Call me old, fine. If that's the line that needs to be drawn, go for it. I guess I just prefer reading long-form things without the visual distraction of an avatar every few lines, a forced 'page-gap' that has nothing to do with the reality of paper pages, page margins and view space that are entirely dynamic to the device and uncontrolled by the author, moving status notifications in the corners, unrelated authors speaking in the middle of the 'cohesive' thread, etc. Here's a new definition for 'oldhead' that just struck me : "Those that have witnessed better."

kspacewalk2 4y ago

It's just so pointless and unnecessary... There are far better platforms for this. If you had to give a two-hour talk, would you post it as a Youtube video, or a series of TikTok snippets? Twitter conversations are marginally less vacuous and pointless than YouTube comments, but not significantly so. >what's better is that each Tweet (like a paragraph) can have comments and discussions corresponding to that Tweet. There's a finer level of detail in the overall conversation. So there are people out there in the wild who actually unroll those mid-thread tweet replies and read them? Huh.

corobo 4y ago
> If you had to give a two-hour talk, would you post it as a Youtube video, or a series of TikTok snippets? Both tbh. The snippets being marketing for the whole video, which itself is marketing for the rest of the channel. I'd wang it on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and even LinkedIn too if there's a biz link.
- nh23423fefe 4y ago
  Ah there's the disconnect. You dont care about the information, its just an ad. i thought people wanted their ideas out there and for people to be delighted to read them. naive.
  - cercatrova 4y ago
    If the content is truly good, then my incentive is for as many people to read it as possible. Therefore, why should I not advertise it? What's the point of good writing if no one is around to read it? Sure, you can write for yourself, but again, if you think the content is good, you should want as many people to read it as possible.
  - corobo 4y ago
    If I didn't care about the information I wouldn't bother marketing it. If I didn't care about the information I wouldn't bother making a video about it in the first place. If nobody sees your information, does it inform?
- kspacewalk2 4y ago
  Yeah, I agree completely. I'd host the thing on YouTube (where content belongs) and promo it on TikTok, Twitter, Insta, etc (where promos, hot takes and bitchfests belong). So it is with written article of some length/substance, only instead of YouTube you can substitute any number of platforms, or even a self-hosted website.
paulpauper 4y ago
Posting a link on twitter will not go as viral as breaking it up into into text-only posts. Twitter's algorithim gives higher rankings to plain text posts compared to posts with links or link to YouTube.
- kspacewalk2 4y ago
  Gaming the algorithm is a noble goal, so I guess I understand it more.

pixl97 4y ago

Eh, if you're not signed in Twitter threads are a nightmare that force me to use things like nitter.net. Why don't I sign in, well because this company wants your phone number without providing adequate protections to ensure they don't immediately lose it to some 2-bit hacker or nation state.

TheCapn 4y ago

Are you an active Twitter user? Have you been for a long while? I'm not. I never have had an active account. I get linked to a Tweet and I'm not sure whether I'm at the beginning or the end. Is the embedded tweet a quote of someone they're jumping off of? Or a continuation of an active thread. Where does the thread start and end? Why are other names interjected between the parts? Is there more I'm missing in context? The UI sucks. It's probably fine if you're familiar with it, but for outsiders trying to figure out what the latest hubub being talked about in the link is, it's pretty unapproachable.

Finnucane 4y ago
Yeah, this. If you don't have a twitter account and/or use the dedicated app, trying to follow a thread (if it even lets you) is awful. If I follow a twitter link and it's more than one or two posts deep, I give up.
lazzlazzlazz 4y ago
> It's probably fine if you're familiar with it Could just end the conversation here.
cestith 4y ago
Meanwhile HN doesn't notify you of the thread being updated. You have to click a few times just to see if anyone has replied to you. Long threads on HN have all this indentation to follow, while Twitter doesn't. Both UI decisions have pros and cons. Some people have a much easier time writing one paragraph at a time and then replying to themselves. It's a self-editing technique. It can be especially useful to neurodivergent folks, but some neurotypical folks find it easier too. Twitter is really good for stream-of-consciousness regular thought updates as the thoughts come to you. A blog post is usually expected to be a complete topic crafted as one piece.

bsnnkv 4y ago

Sorry that you got down-voted for this. I tried to balance it out by voting it up. In general I think all of the possibilities that you mentioned with threads making new conversations etc. are true. For me, the issue is more in the UI/UX of both the Twitter website and the Twitter mobile applications and how threads are presented.

linuxdaemon 4y ago

DisplayName @username Do I want to read a full length article in bite size chunks? That are sometimes arbitrarily 1/4 DisplayName @username Split across a bunch of little cards with a number to piece them together at the bottom? 2/4 DisplayName @username No, I do not. It's a bunch of extraneous crap that I have to filter out to read the actual point 3/4 DisplayName @username It is the wrong platform for that kind of content, and people are cramming it in anyway. 4/4

pphysch 4y ago
This is a strawman. The best Twitter threads incorporate a coherent idea into ~1 tweet, sometimes accompanied by an illustrative image or link to further reading. It turns out that forcing conciseness and having simple embedded media can make for engaging reading. It's not the right format for all writing, and not everyone knows how to use it (see your example), but it is fantastic for commentary and analysis.
- int_19h 4y ago
  It's fantastic for soundbites and the flamewars that they generate. I can't think of any other use case that's genuinely enhanced by Twitter limits.
klodolph 4y ago
Sounds kind of like a book. You split text into arbitrary page boundaries, cut off a sentence in the middle, and then put a number at the bottom to tell you where you are in the book. I’m honestly surprised that people have a hard time filtering this stuff out. Do you get distracted by the chapter headings at the top of a page in a book, or the page numbers? At least with a decent Twitter thread, the individual tweets will be coherent paragraphs. Some people do write Twitter threads where they simply write and place breaks wherever they run up against the 280 character limit, but I rarely see it.
- xigoi 4y ago
  Books are that way because of a physical limitation. Twitter is not.

post-it 4y ago

Yeah, I've never had any issues reading Twitter threads. I like that you can easily comment and share specific chunks, and that you can easily see other people's comments on those chunks. It also encourages authors to be concise.

serf 4y ago

>It's just fine and posts like this read like oldheads struggling to adapt. Call me old, fine. If that's the line that needs to be drawn, go for it. I guess I just prefer reading long-form things without the visual distraction of an avatar every few lines, a forced 'page-gap' that has nothing to do with the reality of paper pages, page margins and view space that are entirely dynamic to the device and uncontrolled by the author, moving status notifications in the corners, unrelated authors speaking in the middle of the 'cohesive' thread, etc. Here's a new definition for 'oldhead' that just struck me : "Those that have witnessed better."