6 ms·

Can I just say this is an abuse of Twitter. Seriously, if you want to use more that 140 characters, use something else.

thefreeman 11y ago
While we're at it. How about company's stop linking fucking screen shots of their press releases on twitter which are impossible to reflow or read properly on a mobile device.
drivingmenuts 11y ago
It's a better use of Twitter than celebrity updates, so there's that.
stormbrew 11y ago
There has never been a twitter post that wasn't an 'abuse of twitter' to someone.
yzzxy 11y ago
Yeah, just like abuse of photocopiers. They're meant for letter size documents only! http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/news/artmarketwatch/warhol-photostat-3-30-12.asp http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/news/artmarketwatch/warhol-... Nobody is required to use a given medium in a way that others find "proper" just because they annoy some people. I personally enjoy the stream-of-consciousness feel of this style of self-referential twitter threads for certain types of storytelling or reporting.
- jsmthrowaway 11y ago
  I'm not sure how I feel about comparing a Twitter conversation to Warhol.
  - hyperbovine 11y ago
    Because Warhol was such a stickler for tradition.
  - yzzxy 11y ago
    I agree there's disparity in artistic prominence here but I was going for more of a metaphor than a comparison.
- normloman 11y ago
  That would be a good point, if the writer's intention was to create a disjointed slipstream narrative for the readers enjoyment. But it's more likely the writer wanted to tell a straight forward story about lego dongs. Would have been better off writing a blog post.
xnxn 11y ago
Please refrain next time. It's completely off-topic.
- scrollaway 11y ago
  When websites suck (for example, those horrible, horrible websites that break right click, scroll wheel or the back button), nobody hesitates to point it out. Twitter is a pretty awful format to .. essentially write a whole article. Gotta agree with GP...
  - DanBC 11y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238739 > A reader emailed to complain about how this and other HN discussions often become derailed by off-topic carping about blog design. I agree completely. Could there be a more classic form of bikeshedding? It would seem parodic if it weren't sadly real. This has become more of a thing on HN lately. It needs to become less of a thing. > I don't mean to pick on you personally, or just on this one comment. (Your second sentence alone, by the way, would have been a helpful contribution.) The problem is the tedious stampedes such comments spawn.
    - J_Darnley 11y ago
      Honestly, what is the problem with ranting and railing about poor design, poor execution, and poor UX? This website seems obsessed with good versions of these three things so why can't we bitch about these things when they appear?
      - DanBC 11y ago
        If the design is what's being shown, and you can make a constructive criticism then probably go ahead. But it's boring and tedious when the first comments to a detailed technical post are about the blog platform or the font. It's off-putting for people writing those articles and as dang says above it's off-putting for some readers.
arrrg 11y ago
This is someone who doesn’t owe you anything or want anything at all from you tell an interesting story. If they were using morse code it wouldn’t matter – so no, you shouldn’t say that. (It’s always the same, boring, irrelevant talk about the presentation format. Who cares about such irrelevant things in cases such as these that are not the least little bit about presentation?! It’s so, so boring and so, so cliché. Wildly off-topic, too.)
aikah 11y ago
Twitter should allow article embedding like Facebook is about to.One can embed photos or video, so why not articles ? at least some part of it ?
jordigh 11y ago
I rather like how pump.io just went "to hell with it" and removed any length restriction, e.g. https://identi.ca/joeyh https://identi.ca/joeyh
Eric_WVGG 11y ago
Thus the beauty of Twitter, you can use it however the hell you want, and if you don’t like what you see, there’s this magical unfollow button.
- normloman 11y ago
  Nothing is immune to criticism just because you have the ability to avoid it.
yellowapple 11y ago
In this thread: folks who get snippy about other folks criticizing presentation choices without offering an alternative means to voice such criticism. Like it or not, folks, presentation is just as important as the content being presented in most cases. If the presentation style is so distracting as to cause threads (like this one) focusing on presentation rather than content, then one should probably strive to fix that problem instead of sitting on one's haunches complaining about the flood of criticism. In my book, therefore, presentation criticism is fair game, and I'm with the parent commenter on this. If you don't want to be criticized for using inappropriate presentation methods, then don't use inappropriate presentation methods. A more conventional blog post would have been far more appropriate for this sort of thing.

While we're at it. How about company's stop linking fucking screen shots of their press releases on twitter which are impossible to reflow or read properly on a mobile device.

drivingmenuts 11y ago

It's a better use of Twitter than celebrity updates, so there's that.

stormbrew 11y ago

There has never been a twitter post that wasn't an 'abuse of twitter' to someone.

yzzxy 11y ago

Yeah, just like abuse of photocopiers. They're meant for letter size documents only! http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/news/artmarketwatch/warhol-photostat-3-30-12.asp http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/news/artmarketwatch/warhol-... Nobody is required to use a given medium in a way that others find "proper" just because they annoy some people. I personally enjoy the stream-of-consciousness feel of this style of self-referential twitter threads for certain types of storytelling or reporting.

jsmthrowaway 11y ago
I'm not sure how I feel about comparing a Twitter conversation to Warhol.
- hyperbovine 11y ago
  Because Warhol was such a stickler for tradition.
- yzzxy 11y ago
  I agree there's disparity in artistic prominence here but I was going for more of a metaphor than a comparison.
normloman 11y ago
That would be a good point, if the writer's intention was to create a disjointed slipstream narrative for the readers enjoyment. But it's more likely the writer wanted to tell a straight forward story about lego dongs. Would have been better off writing a blog post.

xnxn 11y ago

Please refrain next time. It's completely off-topic.

scrollaway 11y ago
When websites suck (for example, those horrible, horrible websites that break right click, scroll wheel or the back button), nobody hesitates to point it out. Twitter is a pretty awful format to .. essentially write a whole article. Gotta agree with GP...
- DanBC 11y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238739 > A reader emailed to complain about how this and other HN discussions often become derailed by off-topic carping about blog design. I agree completely. Could there be a more classic form of bikeshedding? It would seem parodic if it weren't sadly real. This has become more of a thing on HN lately. It needs to become less of a thing. > I don't mean to pick on you personally, or just on this one comment. (Your second sentence alone, by the way, would have been a helpful contribution.) The problem is the tedious stampedes such comments spawn.
  - J_Darnley 11y ago
    Honestly, what is the problem with ranting and railing about poor design, poor execution, and poor UX? This website seems obsessed with good versions of these three things so why can't we bitch about these things when they appear?
    - DanBC 11y ago
      If the design is what's being shown, and you can make a constructive criticism then probably go ahead. But it's boring and tedious when the first comments to a detailed technical post are about the blog platform or the font. It's off-putting for people writing those articles and as dang says above it's off-putting for some readers.

arrrg 11y ago

This is someone who doesn’t owe you anything or want anything at all from you tell an interesting story. If they were using morse code it wouldn’t matter – so no, you shouldn’t say that. (It’s always the same, boring, irrelevant talk about the presentation format. Who cares about such irrelevant things in cases such as these that are not the least little bit about presentation?! It’s so, so boring and so, so cliché. Wildly off-topic, too.)

aikah 11y ago

Twitter should allow article embedding like Facebook is about to.One can embed photos or video, so why not articles ? at least some part of it ?

jordigh 11y ago

I rather like how pump.io just went "to hell with it" and removed any length restriction, e.g. https://identi.ca/joeyh https://identi.ca/joeyh

Eric_WVGG 11y ago

Thus the beauty of Twitter, you can use it however the hell you want, and if you don’t like what you see, there’s this magical unfollow button.

normloman 11y ago
Nothing is immune to criticism just because you have the ability to avoid it.

yellowapple 11y ago

In this thread: folks who get snippy about other folks criticizing presentation choices without offering an alternative means to voice such criticism. Like it or not, folks, presentation is just as important as the content being presented in most cases. If the presentation style is so distracting as to cause threads (like this one) focusing on presentation rather than content, then one should probably strive to fix that problem instead of sitting on one's haunches complaining about the flood of criticism. In my book, therefore, presentation criticism is fair game, and I'm with the parent commenter on this. If you don't want to be criticized for using inappropriate presentation methods, then don't use inappropriate presentation methods. A more conventional blog post would have been far more appropriate for this sort of thing.