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Update: Elon was asked about these in a Twitter Space, he says it's not appropriate and will be removed from the codebase. Additionally, from another Twitter e

Update: Elon was asked about these in a Twitter Space, he says it's not appropriate and will be removed from the codebase. Additionally, from another Twitter engineer, the Democrat/Republican flags are apparently 10 years old and not important and do not have high feature importance.

lhnz 4y ago
I think the decade old comment related to a different part of the code regarding the number of followers you have in relation to the number of accounts you follow. (Everybody on the call wants to remove this: I wonder why they haven't yet.)
- delecti 4y ago
  Chesterton's Fence. In a sufficiently large system, you should be hesitant to remove things unless you're sure you know why it was added, and all the things that have come to depend on it since. I've definitely been hesitant to remove things I was pretty confident weren't used anymore, just because I didn't want to deal with the repercussions if I was wrong.
  - nonethewiser 4y ago
    I didn’t know there was a name for this. Thanks for sharing. I’ve definitely been bitten by this. You always have to weigh the chance you break something against the upside. If you’re actually fixing a bug, fine. But just refactoring to make something cleaner? Or deleting because it seems like it’s not doing anything, even after doing some research? Think again.
    - djtango 4y ago
      True for many things - doctors are now a lot more hesitant to remove the appendix for example. (it serves as a buffer for your gut flora iirc)
sillysaurusx 4y ago
Elon seems embarrassed: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1641908130274525187?s=61&t=jQbmCk1JqL7depzFWJNuPA https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1641908130274525187?s=61... It’ll be interesting to see what gets cut. Maybe just the Elon flag, but maybe others too.
- camjohnson26 4y ago
  What are the odds this flag was only introduced so that Elon could publicly fix it and give the illusion of transparency?
- evolve2k 4y ago
  Elons reply “I only learned about it now!”. What a crock of shit. We literally went through reporting a few months back where he was clearly instructing the team to make sure his tweets always come up, for everyone.
  - GuB-42 4y ago
    I think it was more narcissistic than that. As in: "My tweets are very important, if they don't show up on top, it means the algorithm can't recognize what is important, it needs to be fixed". And the team, who probably didn't see in which way Elon Musk's tweets could be that important besides the fact that he wrote them, they just decided to give Elon Musk's tweets a boost.
    - takeda 4y ago
      The most hilarious things to me was when I was reading some (unrelated to this drama tweet) posted in an article and the top recommendation was Musk's tweet that he doesn't artificially promote his tweets.
    - sawyna 4y ago
      Now someone is surely getting fired.
      - deleted 4y ago
lawn 4y ago
He's only upset that people found out about it. If they remove his artificial boosts, he'll just turn around and shout at his engineers to reinolement it in another way.
doomleika 4y ago
I would say it’s who will be removed. Considering how Twitter is now getting a servance isn’t that bad of an idea TBH

lhnz 4y ago

I think the decade old comment related to a different part of the code regarding the number of followers you have in relation to the number of accounts you follow. (Everybody on the call wants to remove this: I wonder why they haven't yet.)

delecti 4y ago
Chesterton's Fence. In a sufficiently large system, you should be hesitant to remove things unless you're sure you know why it was added, and all the things that have come to depend on it since. I've definitely been hesitant to remove things I was pretty confident weren't used anymore, just because I didn't want to deal with the repercussions if I was wrong.
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  I didn’t know there was a name for this. Thanks for sharing. I’ve definitely been bitten by this. You always have to weigh the chance you break something against the upside. If you’re actually fixing a bug, fine. But just refactoring to make something cleaner? Or deleting because it seems like it’s not doing anything, even after doing some research? Think again.
  - djtango 4y ago
    True for many things - doctors are now a lot more hesitant to remove the appendix for example. (it serves as a buffer for your gut flora iirc)

sillysaurusx 4y ago

Elon seems embarrassed: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1641908130274525187?s=61&t=jQbmCk1JqL7depzFWJNuPA https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1641908130274525187?s=61... It’ll be interesting to see what gets cut. Maybe just the Elon flag, but maybe others too.

camjohnson26 4y ago
What are the odds this flag was only introduced so that Elon could publicly fix it and give the illusion of transparency?
evolve2k 4y ago
Elons reply “I only learned about it now!”. What a crock of shit. We literally went through reporting a few months back where he was clearly instructing the team to make sure his tweets always come up, for everyone.
- GuB-42 4y ago
  I think it was more narcissistic than that. As in: "My tweets are very important, if they don't show up on top, it means the algorithm can't recognize what is important, it needs to be fixed". And the team, who probably didn't see in which way Elon Musk's tweets could be that important besides the fact that he wrote them, they just decided to give Elon Musk's tweets a boost.
  - takeda 4y ago
    The most hilarious things to me was when I was reading some (unrelated to this drama tweet) posted in an article and the top recommendation was Musk's tweet that he doesn't artificially promote his tweets.
  - sawyna 4y ago
    Now someone is surely getting fired.
    - deleted 4y ago

lawn 4y ago

He's only upset that people found out about it. If they remove his artificial boosts, he'll just turn around and shout at his engineers to reinolement it in another way.

doomleika 4y ago

I would say it’s who will be removed. Considering how Twitter is now getting a servance isn’t that bad of an idea TBH