Re:John Carmack: Career Advice
by loloquwowndueo on Friday December 18, 2020 @09:42AM
(#25467524)
Anyone who uses Twitter to post threads / long-form content is fundamentally misusing the platform - they should write a blog post (they’re free at Kmart) and link to it in a tweet. I don’t read Twitter threads because of this - how to trust the judgment and opinion of someone who misunderstands the medium they are using to such extent?
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Doesn't the fact that it's John Carmack doing this somewhat disprove your theory?
There's something to be said for writing where your audience is. Carmack isn't a blogger and doesn't often write longer posts.
Tweet threads are normalised at this point, with support from Twitter as well (using the + button). Besides people are more likely to read a thread than to click through to your blogpost.
I have to disagree. More often than not, when I send someone a link to a thread, Twitter decides to show only the first post or few. There's a link to see the rest of the thread but there is zero indication as to whether this link will reveal 1 or 2 or 1,000 further posts. I forget the exact text, but it's something small like "See replies" or similar. A plain link, no icon. For someone unfamiliar with Twitter, this is completely undiscoverable and it has caused me to no longer send Twitter threads to people I know that aren't on Twitter because of the confusion it causes.
For me, I have no problem reading threads on Twitter. I look forward to the daily one from Foone. But if you put someone who hasn't used Twitter much before in front of this interface it becomes apparent very quickly how poor the UX is for threads.
Right now, we're discussing the various symbols people put in their posts (which are severely space-limited!) to indicate that there is a thread. Why is this necessary?
> For someone unfamiliar with Twitter, this is completely undiscoverable and it has caused me to no longer send Twitter threads to people I know that aren't on Twitter because of the confusion it causes.
For sharing purposes, you might try using one of the "thread unroll" services to get around this issue.
Indeed. What kind of person would use an environment in a way it wasn't intended to be used, especially for their own intellectual curiosity?
There should be a word for people like that...
I think it is a different use, not a ”misuse”. I am ok with it