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Wow, you really, really nitpicked OPs argument and completely ignored things to make your point. The comment was "you're either using the wrong medium or thinki

Wow, you really, really nitpicked OPs argument and completely ignored things to make your point. The comment was "you're either using the wrong medium or thinking too far". Assuming the false dichotomy here (notably, of a quick comment on HN...), maybe, just maybe, it's not that people who can't fully express their thoughts in around 300 characters are thinking too far, maybe it's the other part -- that they're using the wrong medium? The only portion of OPs comment I can find to "describe the benefits of terseness" would be the last paragraph. If I shorten that paragraph to the last two sentences, it fits in a tweet.

Jedd 12y ago
Where does one draw the line between cherry-picking from, and identifying the quintessential component of, a message? Rhetorical question. :) If X or Y --> means that both are possible, right? If you then suggest that it's always and only X, then the or construct is misleading. I was picking up on the fact that there will be some Y, and that worried me. But, to be absolutely clear, you are completely correct in saying that in some cases X (or inappropriate medium selection) is going to apply. (I wonder whether people who need more than 2 tweets to express their thoughts are capable of self-identifying which category they fit into. If not them, then who?) Going beyond that I'd suggest that twitter is an appropriate communication medium far less frequently than people evidently believe it is. I don't believe shortening things to fit into tweets is a healthy aspiration. I ran a character count solely to demonstrate how many tweets would have been required to get that entire message across, and most of chton's message was a guide on how to communicate in a medium that enforces brevity. An undeniably useful guide if you happen to be embracing that medium, mind.

Jedd 12y ago

Where does one draw the line between cherry-picking from, and identifying the quintessential component of, a message? Rhetorical question. :) If X or Y --> means that both are possible, right? If you then suggest that it's always and only X, then the or construct is misleading. I was picking up on the fact that there will be some Y, and that worried me. But, to be absolutely clear, you are completely correct in saying that in some cases X (or inappropriate medium selection) is going to apply. (I wonder whether people who need more than 2 tweets to express their thoughts are capable of self-identifying which category they fit into. If not them, then who?) Going beyond that I'd suggest that twitter is an appropriate communication medium far less frequently than people evidently believe it is. I don't believe shortening things to fit into tweets is a healthy aspiration. I ran a character count solely to demonstrate how many tweets would have been required to get that entire message across, and most of chton's message was a guide on how to communicate in a medium that enforces brevity. An undeniably useful guide if you happen to be embracing that medium, mind.