Comment by anyfoo
7 years ago
I often enjoy foone’s discoveries, and this was a particularly interesting one.
I just wish it wasn’t all on Twitter.
Why not put the text, plus pictures and whatever else (links?), into a blog posting, or just some HTML page with basic formatting? And then link to it with just the first Twitter post. Provide an RSS feed if you feel extra charitable (which is the way I enjoy most of the content related to this that I read).
On Twitter alone, it’s just terrible.
That being said, while the format is terrible, the actual content here is brilliant, especially in that level of detail, and exactly what I’m looking for on Hacker News.
Heh, from foone themself: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1066547670477488128.html
Not to humblebrag or anything, but my favorite part of getting posted on hackernews or reddit is that EVERY SINGLE TIME there's one highly-ranked reply that's "jesus man, this could have been a blog post! why make 20 tweets when you can make one blog post?" CAUSE I CAN'T MAKE A BLOG POST, GOD DAMN IT.
The short story is they are quite open about having ADHD, and that's what causes the long twitter rambles, but also what makes it very difficult to assemble it into a blog post. Every once in a while foone's wife will edit a popular thread into a blog post, examples: https://foone.wordpress.com/
If this seems like a particularly good story to you, maybe you'd like to edit it into a draft for a blog post and gift that to foone?
Just copy tweets to post?
I've tried on multiple occasions to go on twitter, but it like trying to read a newspaper with strobe lights as a reading light. How this became a format will haunt humanity for generations. There is no difference in updating a blog versus being forced to open one of the worst applications known to humanity.
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Seems like something that could be scripted to publish to a blog.
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Yeah... Using ADHD is just an excuse for laziness at this point...
I've subscribed to threadreader so I can save posts as PDFs, but I really wish they'd allow me to dump the underlying data as well so it could be put into archive.org.
I wonder how many stories will be lost because of stuff like this.
In particular, text messages.
I can't tell you how many stories have been told between myself and family and friends that are just one lost device away from oblivion.
Apple should have an official app to let people save their text with photos and videos, because they are really family heirlooms.
I suspect they are one of the primary reasons for icloud, and the new apple seems pretty "practical" in this respect.
How many of those stories would have ended up somewhere more permanent without texting though? At least with how I tell stories in my life, text is usually only replacing what would have otherwise been a fully verbal story, not something that would have ever been written at all otherwise.
Before texting there were instant messenger apps that everyone used (ICQ, AIM, MSN Messenger). Less people used the internet then, but those who did used those. Back when those were a thing the chat logs could usually be saved automatically as text files. I still have a ton of chat conversations I go back to sometimes from when I was in high school.
It's a lot harder to go back and read text messages, and I only can because the old phones I kept still function. I started transcribing a few text conversations manually though because those phones won't last forever.
> I wonder how many stories will be lost because of stuff like this.
If you read his explanation, he'd actually never write it at all if you forced him to blog. So the answer is not as simple as you make it seem.
Actually the Twitter thread format is really innovative. For Twitter users it’s a new way to consume stories and the limitation of each tweet gives the opportunity to the writers to be concise and get to the point.
But I agree with you, I think it’s more enjoyable to read it on a single page. I built Threader, a Twitter client that allows you to read these threads in an article format, without advertising clutter and fake news suggestions at the bottom:
https://threader.app/thread/1126996260026605568
Yeah, I don't have the patience or interest in putting up with Twitter as a platform for information sharing or real discussion. It's terrible.
Agree. I dont even understand why people use what is essentially a system made for spreading SMS to write long form articles. Just laziness? Plus, no guarantee the content wont disappear at any moment's notice. Accounts can get banned, Twitter may change their archiving policy, etc.
I swear I can't understand why people use Twitter like this.
I can understand someone young and non-technical bring lazy and writing whatever it comes to mind on a series of Tweets, but someone with this level of technical knowledge not being able to understand how unintuitive it is to write a blog post on a series of 140 characters...?
Mind boggling.
Less clickthroughs = more engagement = better viral loop
Thats the why, since you asked
I can’t speak for foone as I’d never heard of him before today. But I have asked people why they post long threads on twitter (because they drive me crazy too) and this is the exact reason they give. A link to a blog post is far less likely to get clicked than a twitter thread is to get read. It’s right there in front of you and you’ve already read the first tweet after all.
Somehow I don’t think that’s foone’s motivation at all.
Why not?
There is a patreon page linked right on his twitter page. He may not be exchanging time for food and shelter, but he is playing the same marketing game as anyone else for a personal high score.
linking to a blog he has to maintain would drop engagement off a cliff
So money? Or exposure? I just don't get it. It is literally text messages.
Exposure to content is the reason HN exists and why you're reading it at all. If it wasn't posted on Twitter, OP may never have found it (even if a link to a private blog was posted to Twitter) and never shared it for you to read.
And a subscribe to his patreon link to monetarily support his other shenanigans
It's not terrible. Twitter just isn't your preferred venue so you find it unnatural. It's natural for me to read and for others to read and for the author to have written on Twitter.
Why not put it elsewhere? Twitter is our place. And we like when content is natively published there. I have no interest in Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn or Tumblr but I don't insist all the content in those places shouldn't be there. If all those people came to Twitter it would be a nightmare.
> It's not terrible
Low text density, atrocious typography, breaking of standard grammar, arbitrarily-spaced interruptions, no inline images (for mobile), limited external links and quotations, no headings, no custom formatting, random interruptions from other users.
I really can't fathom an argument that Twitter is in any way optimal for reading content of any length. Value added is exclusively in convenience and social factors.
Constraints can be a virtue. The barrier to entry for making a Tweet is very low, so there are a lot of people who do it. To get the features you've listed, you may need something like Wordpress, where the barrier is much higher. You also know everyone who reads your tweet will consume it in largely the same way for as long as Twitter exists.
All of these are priority and value judgements.
The author sees all that very differently from how you do.
Additionally, there are numerous others, myself included, who see it differently.
Frankly, I am quite happy to take it however an author feels they can share it. Often, that brings context of value to me as well.
Not all of us care about optimal when reading. It is just reading. No big.
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You're listing values or things that are specific to your client or your understanding of the platform. For example, I didn't see "random interruptions from other users" when I read that because I know the best way to consume that content isn't on my timeline.
And it's fine not to like Twitter or not be savvy with it or not be interested in becoming savvy with it. But when you see an absolute position that one's values are the only correct ones it should set off loud bullshit alarms in your head whether it's someone else making the argument or it's you. Especially if it's you, because you have more to gain by remembering your own humility than helping someone else find theirs.
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Imagine a feature length movie delivered as 300 webms.
Searching (2018) shows what can be accomplished for storytelling with hard constraints on the medium.
One could make another movie about all that transpired during the consumption of the original made this way.