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The 280 char limit seems arbitrary, given you cant even keep the about page within that limit: https://textlog.cc/about https://textlog.cc/about If you are goi
by supermatt 2mo ago
The 280 char limit seems arbitrary, given you cant even keep the about page within that limit: https://textlog.cc/about https://textlog.cc/about
If you are going to limit it to short posts, maybe the length of a short post is the length to limit it to, rather than emulating the 2xSMS of every twitter clone?
Other than that, it looks really clean and neat - I just dont think being 280 chars adds anything other than resulting in people posting with pagination as per X 1/3.
- stagas 2mo agoIt needs to be short - there is already a limit that worked well - why bikeshed it more?
- CitrusFruits 2mo agoI think this is the opposite of bikeshedding, it's literally a core feature and constraint.
- supermatt 2mo agoA limit that worked well for who? Almost every twitter/x post submitted to HN has people labelling their posts as "X of Y" threads, using images as text, or using pro account posts. You can see it yourself: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=twitter.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=twitter.com Ive just looked at 30 and each of them exceed 280 chars by far.
- Retr0id 2mo agoIt works well for microbloggers.
- supermatt 2mo agoBut clearly not the microbloggers on twitter/x, Bluesky, etc, who use the patterns I mentioned.
- Retr0id 2mo agoThose are definitionally not microbloggers. It's ok for a platform explicitly for microblogging to not cater to their macroblogging desires.
- supermatt 2mo agoDefinitionally not? "Microblogs, for example on Twitter..." https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/microblog https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/microblo... "Some popular social networks such as X (formerly Twitter), Threads, Tumblr, Mastodon, and Bluesky can be viewed as collections of microblogs." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microblogging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microblogging
- helterskelter 2mo agoI like the idea of a shorter character limit as it nudges users to a specific mode of interaction: short thoughts/updates and not long-winded soliloquies. It's signalling that interaction with this platform doesn't demand much of your time or attention. I don't know what the about page has to do with it, but you have to draw the line somewhere. That said, I'm not a social media user besides HN I guess.
- supermatt 2mo agoFor perspective: you just commented 404 chars. Your first paragraph alone was 346. My comment on the about page was that it needed more than 280 chars to communicate what the app is about - even the title + intro exceeds the limit. If it is truly believed that 280 chars is enough to communicate an idea, then the about page should follow that philosophy.
- stagas 2mo agoI'm considering raising to 500. Care enough to open an issue[0] so that maybe there is a discussion we can track? [0]: https://github.com/stagas/textlog/issues https://github.com/stagas/textlog/issues
- supermatt 2mo agoHonestly, I don't really care that much. The project looks like fun, and I wish you the best with it, but I don't really post on microblogging platforms myself. I just wanted to give a bit of feedback as someone who reads them - and point out that on almost every twitter/bluesky submission to HN they are using ways to work around the 280/300 char limitations. To play devils advocate - 500 also seems a bit arbitrary ;) If I were making a platform like this myself, I would go for a power of 2 that makes sense for storage/buffering. Maybe 1KiB including all meta, etc. You could comfortably fit a post the size of your about page, and all associated meta in that - even when serialised as JSON or something. I'd go from there and work backwards to come up with a size that has a real technical purpose.
- krapp 2mo ago
- indigodaddy 2mo agoYou could fork and do whatever no?
- supermatt 2mo agoSure, but I don't care that much. It is a Show HN, so I was giving feedback.