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> "You don't have to like that he said but he puts it in context and within the realm of Twitter - a 140 limited space of communication." This is part of why I

> "You don't have to like that he said but he puts it in context and within the realm of Twitter - a 140 limited space of communication." This is part of why I dislike Twitter - the 140-char restriction supposedly makes you to the point and concise, but in reality it just encourages snark and imprecision. It's a world of sound bites, and "Ever wanted to make sed or grep worse" sounds wittier and has more jazz than "I really dislike this open source project and here's why." That said, if a platform disallows you from being clear and fair to fellow people, don't use it. Ultimately the responsibility to be good to one another is your own to enforce, not Twitter's. > "Can we not be critical on the internet any more?" Honestly? No. The internet is full of flippant, callous, outright dismissals. It's reached epidemic scale - and it extends far beyond our little corner of tech. Everyone wants to have their little sound bite hating on something, and it's juvenile. Given the current state of things, IMO criticism demands a higher standard than ever before. It's not that we can't be critical, it's that we can't be critical without qualifying and substantiating said criticism - there's just too much "hurr this sucks" floating around. This may necessitate using communications platforms that permit more than 140 chars at a time ;)

nollidge 14y ago
I don't disagree with your larger point, but as an official member of the Twitter Defense Squadron (got a badge and everything): > the 140-char restriction supposedly makes you to the point and concise, but in reality it just encourages snark and imprecision. This is, of course, a false dichotomy. It does both, depending on the author, and the author's mood. The solution to this problem is to not follow jerks on Twitter. Follow cool people whose tweets have wit, poetry, interesting facts, and/or links to the same. 140 characters forces only minimalism, which exaggerates any number of latent traits, good and bad.
- potatolicious 14y ago
  > "The solution to this problem is to not follow jerks on Twitter." See my other post further down the thread. One of the prevailing attitudes I'm seeing in this thread is the notion that jerks/assholes are somehow exceptional. We're all more than capable of being terrible to each other, given the right context and the right triggers. Pretending that jerks are somehow a different class of people from "the rest of us" is folly. No one is solely defined as "jerk" - most people have valuable things to contribute, the question is if the system is set up in a way that encourages good behavior. I don't doubt there are many people who are able to tweet within 140 chars without behaving badly towards others. That's not the part under doubt, the question is if people behaving badly are in large part doing so because of forced brevity. We can make jerks contribute positive things if we set up the system correctly, we can also make more non-jerks into jerks by setting them up badly. > "140 characters forces only minimalism" This is a claim often trotted about, but I just don't see this. Looking at my Twitter feed it seems to encourage abbreviations, bad spelling, incomplete sentences, and truncated thoughts. Twitter proponents act like the internet was a giant cesspool of wordiness, and that Twitter was somehow the savior - I don't remember this internet when everyone was writing run-on sentences and long essays about their day.

nollidge 14y ago

I don't disagree with your larger point, but as an official member of the Twitter Defense Squadron (got a badge and everything): > the 140-char restriction supposedly makes you to the point and concise, but in reality it just encourages snark and imprecision. This is, of course, a false dichotomy. It does both, depending on the author, and the author's mood. The solution to this problem is to not follow jerks on Twitter. Follow cool people whose tweets have wit, poetry, interesting facts, and/or links to the same. 140 characters forces only minimalism, which exaggerates any number of latent traits, good and bad.

potatolicious 14y ago
> "The solution to this problem is to not follow jerks on Twitter." See my other post further down the thread. One of the prevailing attitudes I'm seeing in this thread is the notion that jerks/assholes are somehow exceptional. We're all more than capable of being terrible to each other, given the right context and the right triggers. Pretending that jerks are somehow a different class of people from "the rest of us" is folly. No one is solely defined as "jerk" - most people have valuable things to contribute, the question is if the system is set up in a way that encourages good behavior. I don't doubt there are many people who are able to tweet within 140 chars without behaving badly towards others. That's not the part under doubt, the question is if people behaving badly are in large part doing so because of forced brevity. We can make jerks contribute positive things if we set up the system correctly, we can also make more non-jerks into jerks by setting them up badly. > "140 characters forces only minimalism" This is a claim often trotted about, but I just don't see this. Looking at my Twitter feed it seems to encourage abbreviations, bad spelling, incomplete sentences, and truncated thoughts. Twitter proponents act like the internet was a giant cesspool of wordiness, and that Twitter was somehow the savior - I don't remember this internet when everyone was writing run-on sentences and long essays about their day.