I have a twitter account, so I haven’t seen first hand what it’s like when someone posts a twitter link in the comments.
Things I did not know that happen if you click on a link if you don’t have a twitter account:
- If the twitter link goes to a thread, it cannot be read without an account.
- Sometimes the links take you directly to the twitter sign-up page.
- Sometimes the links take you to a twitter page with a bunch of jumbled tweets with no rhyme or reason.
All of which are no doubt annoying as hell!
We all hail those who have given up their Washington Post or New York Times account because, well, let’s just say they have mostly turned into pieces of crap.
I know why I still check twitter, and why others do, too. But lots of BJ peeps have dropped their twitter accounts on principle, too.
Maybe we can make BJ a better place for people who dropped their twitter accounts? That way we can go back to annoying each other because we disagree with something that was actually said. :-)
Some ideas for how we could be better neighbors when linking to a tweet in the comments:
- Give us the gist of the tweet in your comment, rather than just linking to the tweet?
- If the tweeter isn’t a universally well-known person, maybe include a little background since people can’t go to twitter and click on their info to see who the hell someone is. (“well-respected in the black community” “head of the state party in NC” “this bozo writes for the Bulwark”)
- If it’s a thread, maybe include a direct link to one of the tweets, not just a link to the thread?
I bet the people who don’t have twitter accounts can supply more than just those three ideas, so jump in, please! Especially if i haven’t done a great job of articulating your frustrations.
P.S. Anybody besides me interested in being better neighbors to our non-twitter BJ peeps?
Update:
More ideas from commenters:
- Copy the body of the thing you’re linking too, put it in a quote block, and describe why you think it is relevant that someone should go follow a link to a fascist vanity site?
JaySinWA
I don’t link to Twitter anymore, I visit occasionally, but this is good advice in general. I have made an effort to not do blind links, to add a little description and generally a small excerpt with a link. I would appreciate others doing the same. YouTube links in particular could use a little explanation of what you are headed for.
Could you explain a bit more about Twitter/X links to threads as opposed to links to tweets? I didn’t know there was a distinction
ETA maybe we could do a “best practices” comment with links policy?
SiubhanDuinne
As a non-Twitterer and non-Threader, I approve this message! Thanks, WG!
Super Dave
I agree with this. I quit Twitter when it became X, some of the videos in tweets play here, so I watch those. Many link to X login page, so I never get to see them. Thank you!
Lumpy
I wish more Doug J Balloon content would be embedded by front-pagers. Like WG said, I can look at his X page and see posts, but they are not in any order. It would be great to be able to read his posts in a more timely way.
weasel
I know he goes to extra trouble, but I think the way Adam handles things from Twitter in his nightly posts is ideal. Scrapped text and/or Thread Reader links are the way to go.
WaterGirl
@JaySinWA:
I will let the non-twitter peeps take first crack at that.
And I totally agree about YouTube, particularly since you have to deal with 2 ads before you even know what the hell you clicked on.
Fun stuff is fun, but if it’s unrelated to the topic at hand, I am just too busy sometimes to stop and click on something that’s just “Fun”. I can’t be the only one.
WaterGirl
@Lumpy: I don’t see why we couldn’t do some of that. Thanks for the idea.
justsomeguy05
Prior to Elon, you could read a twitter page even if you didn’t have an account. Elon changed it so that you basically can’t see anything useful without having your own account. So now I don’t bother looking at any links to zitter. Reducing engagement & repelling potential customers. He’s a genius, I tells ya.
WaterGirl
@weasel: I try to do that if I have a tweet in the post, where you can’t see the whole thing unless you go to twitter. I think a lot of the front-pagers do that.
Erin
The more BlueSky we use, the better! Clicking through to Twitter makes me feel icky, and the discussion always devolves into Nazi-adjacent TFG worship.
dm
“One person’s ‘socialism’ is the next person’s ‘being a good neighbor'” — Tom Walz responding to questions about Republican charges that he’s “far left”.
Yet Another Haldane
Yes, please!
Links to Xitter don’t inconvenience me personally; I have a lurking account there, so click-through works for me. But the less entangled with Elmo’s Enshittified Folly, the better.
Scout211
Thank you WaterGirl. I’m a non-social media anything person, so all of your suggestions would be much appreciated.
Same goes for those suggestions regarding TikTok links. Sometimes I can watch a TikTok video without signing in, other times it requires a sign-in. But every time it asks you if you want to view the video on the TikTok app or not. Sometimes I tap the wrong answer (should be no) and then the app tries to load.
Also too, Bluesky links for non-subscribers are cleaner and easier and do show threads. So yay. But sometimes clicking a link will only get you to a sign-in page because the Bluesky user set their account up that way. That’s happened when I clicked Bluesky links here several times lately.
Mag
Maybe just stop giving X oxygen with clicks and eyeballs? Maybe stop pretending it is still Twitter and not a fascist billionaire’s platform? I don’t know? Maybe I’m just grumpy?
At the least, copy the body of the thing you’re linking too, put it in a quote block, and describe why you think it is relevant that someone should go follow a link to a fascist vanity site?
Really though, please stop giving oxygen to X and those who post on it propping up the fascists because they won’t leave.
Josie
I don’t like to click on any link unless I know what it’s about. I like the idea of a brief description of the subject, so I can decide if I want to click through. I am not on twitter or whatever it is now called, so don’t have an opinion on that.
Geminid
I appreciate how Rikrah simply writes out the content of the tweets she references. This is both effective and considerate.
JaySinWA
@WaterGirl: I usually skip the YouTube links until somebody comments positively on them later and they sound interesting. But generally I would rather read than look and listen anyway.
I generally skip Nitter bypass to Twitter links as well. It is hit and miss and takes more clicks.
WaterGirl
@Erin: A lot of BlueSky “tweets” also require you to be logged in to see them.
Scout211
When non-subscribers click on a Twitter link, we only get to see the original tweet, no replies and no further posts that the tweeter posts in a long thread. We just get one tweet. That’s all.
CaseyL
What Mag said. I do find it frustrating that so many people are still on X, and still link to it. Would they do it for RussiaToday? Fox News?
It ain’t easy – I still go to a functioning Nitter to see what (for example) Aaron Rupar is up to. But less and less as time goes on. I’m growing my Mastodon and BlueSky follows all the time. Many terrific news sites are on Mastodon, and plenty of specific-interest sites are on BlueSky.
JaySinWA
Okay, I think I knew that. What I don’t quite understand is this:
How does someone link to a thread instead of a tweet? And how do you avoid it?
BeautifulPlumage
Nitter still works & I use it to follow some folks (Molly Jong Fast, Michael D Weiss). It does take a bit to load and only lets you go back a couple of pages before giving an error message. Comment links to nitter do work for me.
Nitter.privacydev.net/
Put the user name after the slash:
Nitter.privacydev.net/mollyjongfast
Some of my fave posters are still over there, unfortunately.
WaterGirl
@CaseyL: We obviously can’t tell people what to read and link to, and I’m not trying to.
But we can ask that if they do link to twitter or YouTube, or anything else for that matter, they do it in such a way that it isn’t a constant frustration to the people who don’t have twitter accounts.
p.a.
I do miss Charles (LGF) Johnson’s Xeets.
Erin
@WaterGirl: Fair enough, I’m more concerned about the type of people that proliferate on Xitter, and don’t tend to on BlueSky.
BeautifulPlumage
I should also say that I agree with minimizing the twitter links and giving more information with the link so folks have an idea of context.
I also find that some video via twitter lets me watch in the post, some take me to the tweet to watch, and others make me click beyond that to watch. No idea what makes them different.
lamh47
I use twitter as much as I do FB…maybe even more.
Depending on the parameters of the web browsere software, I change up how I link to tweets.
For BJ, I always blockquote the tweet with the twitter name and exact language. Then I link to tweet either in the same block or directly underneath it.
If the tweet includes an article, I try to also link to the article. Twitter is still where most media is broken before it hits the web or the next or the broadcast media. Most news media orgs are public, but yes some folks have protected tweets so you can’t see them if u either don’t follow them or have an account.
I put the link to give the correct attribution
BR
Thank you for saying this. I am hoping twitter’s days are numbered. I mostly use Mastodon now (I’ve found it to be best for everything except US politics, because not many reporters are there), and check bluesky for some political content.
BR
@CaseyL:
Aaron Rupar now posts first on Threads.
BeautifulPlumage
@p.a.:
he’s on bluesky!
Kelly
@BeautifulPlumage:
https://nitter.poast.org/
works the same way
Mousebumples
@p.a.: pretty sure he’s on Bsky, I think. (Eta – @BeautifulPlumage got it first)
I try to note when a bsky user needs you to login to view their posts. I think I always (?) post the quote/context since I don’t want to click through on everything either! And I love when images have useful alt-text for those that don’t see the full skeet/image.
I don’t need as much about why person who says X is an authority, but I don’t ascribe extra much weight to anything, generally.
trollhattan
Keep looking for the link in the OP. :-)
Do not have an account, am limited to viewing in a browser. Always accessed Twitter pages and posts this way, until Musk broke it. After, used Nitter until the Nitter guy threw in the towel.
Today: Link to a POST will display correctly in my browser, it matters not which browser. Link to an ACCOUNT will display the account’s banner at the top, then a pinned tweet if present, then a random tweet with no regard to post date, followed by random-chron order tweets below.
There are rare exceptions in which the account displays correctly, with the latest post on top followed by reverse-chron posts, down to an arbitrary end, past which I cannot navigate. Example:
https://x.com/thornsfc
IDK if it is a “special” account paying extra to display within a browser, an anomaly, or what.
CaseyL
@BR:
I did a search and Rupar is also on BlueSky!
Two new BlueSky follows: Charles Johnson and Aaron Rupar.
lamh47
@lamh47:
For example:
This has video, usually I try to find the video clip in YT format as well, in this case here’s the full video: https://youtu.be/3x-zOAfP0MA?si=nZtu9Hbio32bP-Oq (BTW, I post entire clips when I can cause twitter only allows clips and clips don’t always tell context)
Unfortunately, even with alternatives, X/Twitter is STILL the primary way news is broken nowadays…until Elon finally tanks it all, that’s just the facts right now.
WaterGirl
@BeautifulPlumage: I did at test some time ago.
If it’s a video put up by person A, then people on Bj could watch the video.
If person B retweets the original tweet with the video, then people on BJ could NOT watch the video on BJ.
If you can send me links to all 3 situations, I can try to discern what makes a difference.
pacem appellant
I actively block Xitter. Can front pagers also please screen-cap and/or block quote the twoot?
Probably a bigger ask, but can we not do news-via-Xitter either?
p.a.
Bluesky, k! Tks!
BR
@CaseyL:
I’m not sure why but Rupar’s bluesky posts are delayed. He seems to post first on Threads. My guess is that Threads has built in video support and that’s why. You can follow him from Mastodon because of the Threads/Mastodon integration.
TBone
Get off my lawn! 😆
WaterGirl
@lamh47: @lamh47:
I agree with you on Twitter still being the quickest way to catch breaking news.
I will add your tips of how you share twitter on Balloon Juice to the post up top.
WaterGirl
@pacem appellant:
I either copy the text or do a screen cap ifI have a tweet in the post where you can’t see the whole thing unless you go to twitter.
Are you asking that we do that even if the entire tweet is visible on the front page, as is, because you have chosen to block twitter?
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
ActBlue has now raised $501,261,888 dollars in the past 21 days
half a billion here, half a billion there and pretty soon you’re talking real money
UncleEbeneezer
Meh. Anyone who choses not to use Twitter, cool. But that’s YOUR decision. I don’t think our comment norms should revolve around it. You are all free to not click on things. Twitter still has very vibrant communities of Black and Transgender voices you can’t really find almost anywhere else. Many of them depend on Twitter to make their livings by promoting their other outlets (Substack etc.) Amplifying those voices is more important imo, than making sure people who decide not to use it feel like they aren’t somehow missing something. We are all missing out on stuff based on the apps we chose not to use. I can’t look at Instagram or Tik Tok videos. That’s my decision. I’m not about to ask Rickyrah to stop sharing all the great links she shares. She often brings up really important perspectives that would otherwise get completely overlooked by our predominantly-white commentariat.
Baud
I thought this post was going to be an ad for State Farm insurance.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I toyed with joining Twitter for the news but Musk keeps deterringe me.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: I follow Middle East news on Twitter, and lately I’ve been reposting some of the reports here. But I just say, “so-and-so posted this about [blank]:” and give the date. I figure if someone wants to look up Ragip Soylu or Noga Tarnopolsky for more they can find them.
WaterGirl
@UncleEbeneezer: Do you have suggestions for how we can share twitter links in the comments without frustrating the hell out of the people who don’t have twitter accounts?
That’s what I’m looking for here. I’m not suggesting that people not use twitter. People have already landed where they are going to land on that.
Bill Arnold
– For threads, I give a threadreader link (making one if there isn’t one already, since I have a twitter account). Usually with some text.
– Sometimes I give nitter.poast.org links, which are just a replacement of “x.com” with “nitter.poast.org” in the url. Usually with at least some text.
– Sometimes I’ll use twitter embeds, though less so now. This captures the text, and it remains even if the tweet is deleted or if X.com fails. It is mildly annoying to transform the links in a twitter embed to a nitter.poast.org link. (As in I haven’t written an editor macro for it yet.)
Not perfect; we’re working with Musk’s transformation of twitter.com to 4chan, and potentially with Musk doing major political ratfucking in the leadup to the election. This is one reason why including as much text as possible is important. Adam has been noticing that sometimes Ukraine videos are not embed-able; this indicates that the tooling is in place at X.com for political ratfucking.
WaterGirl
@Baud: wow, if only we still did ads here. we could have made a bundle on this one. :-)
Missed opportunity!
edit: I think it took two years for me to get Cole to take the leap on ads. If nothing else, I am persistent. (I hope that’s not spelled “annoying”)
trollhattan
@UncleEbeneezer:
Our public safety agencies–local-state-federal–all provide useful and important information on the platform. They generally also have facebook and instagram–which have myriad access hurdles of their own–and websites, which are typically updated far less often and do not feature news crawls.
It can be literally life and death during a crisis getting to the information and I do not know how all that communications can be seamlessly moved somewhere else that does what Twitter did five years ago.
WaterGirl
@Geminid: That works, too! thanks
WaterGirl
I’m appreciating the suggestions here, and the reports of how various peeps do it so that the information in the comments is accessible to more people. Hope the people who are annoyed are appreciating this also.
trollhattan
@WaterGirl:
Does the link not automatically open in a new browser tab?
https://x.com/CAL_FIRE/status/1821677126451634618
I do not need to view this from “inside Twitter” whatever that implies on a PC.
BR
@trollhattan:
No longer a big problem — there’s a famous Ham Radio dude who set up all the public safety and National Weather Service feeds on Mastodon in a way that pulls directly from the government sites. No need to go to twitter anymore for this stuff:
https://m.ai6yr.org/public/local
https://m.ai6yr.org/@ai6yr
He literally figured out where a lost hiker was and saved the guy’s life from a blurry cell phone photo of the guy’s legs from right before his phone battery died. He’s a good dude and is doing the work to make sure nobody has to depend on twitter ever again.
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: when I clicked on that, it opened in a new window. But I have a twitter account.
I have no idea what that does with people who don’t have an account.
Would someone want to click the link at #54 and let us know?
eclare
@trollhattan:
I follow my local public utility on Twitter, it’s very useful when storms come through. I am sure they are also on FB, but I don’t do FB.
TBone
@WaterGirl: I don’t have an account (or any social media whatsoever) and the way people post it here has never bothered me (except for the fact that fElon gets clicks). I get plenty of information and, if I can’t see the whole thread, it’s usually information that is easily obtained by doing a quick search.
Plus that way I never run into ugly fascist responses.
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
@Baud:
That’s why I joined Onlyfans. For the articles.
TBone
@WaterGirl: it opens a new window for me without an account.
pacem appellant
@WaterGirl: I block the whole site. No traffic from my computer goes to X. It’s a complete black hole. I make choices, I know they have consequences. On the whole, life is better sans Xitter.
KatKapCC
@JaySinWA: If you link to the first tweet in a thread, anyone who isn’t logged in will only see that first tweet, since you cannot see any replies. So I guess this line meant that if there are specific tweets in the thread you want people to see, link directly to those tweets individually, since no replies will show.
I would also add that it is easy to simply embed a tweet in a comment rather than link to it. Of course it won’t show photos or videos, but at least people can see the text.
Layer8Problem
@WaterGirl: Thank you for this post. It’s long been an irritant over here.
BeautifulPlumage
@WaterGirl:
sorry, not a complaint about this blog, I find this phenomenon on other places, also, like Joe.My.God. and don’t actually care. Save your time for more important things!
WaterGirl
@TBone: I would love it if you would tell us what your YouTube and other links are going to.
WaterGirl
@pacem appellant: I can totally believe that’s true.
Nukular Biskits
Watergirl, I’m late to the game and this is just a fly-by (been in yard working & about to pull up carpet in bedroom) but being able to post screen caps of tweets, etc, would be helpful.
Of course, that would be a real PIA for you guys who do all the blog’s heavy lifting, not to mention require more server/bandwidth, so the ROI may not be worth it.
XeckyGilchrist
Some ideas for how we could be better neighbors when linking to a tweet in the comments
Love these!
Could the front-pagers follow these guidelines, too? Lots of posts are just a string of Elmo’s Nazi Bar embeds that take forever to render, if they do at all.
WaterGirl
@KatKapCC:
Yes, it strips out video and images, but you get all the text nicely formatted with the @person and everything.
JaySinWA
@WaterGirl:
Never the less, she persisted. With good results.
WaterGirl
@BeautifulPlumage: I don’t know about that… knowing that you guys can’t see the video if it’s a repost – it takes a single click to get to the original and embed that.
Super easy, and I always do that, or at least I try to .
So if there’s another thing like that that’s super easy, it’s totally worth my time to figure it out.
WaterGirl
@Nukular Biskits: Yeah, if we let commenters post images, in the blink of an eye, the site would be unusable.
So that’s not gonna happen. Sorry. :-(
JaySinWA
@KatKapCC: @WaterGirl: Here’s what I get from the X three dot menu embed option in visual mode:
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>What are the odds this ages poorly? <a href=”https://t.co/peI1Nq2uI9″>pic.twitter.com/peI1Nq2uI9</a></p>— Mark Hamill (@MarkHamill) <a href=”https://twitter.com/MarkHamill/status/1821593169991279046?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>August 8, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
Switching to text I get this.
Note that the link contains an image of a Trump supporter with Trump either painted or tattooed on her forhead.
WaterGirl
@XeckyGilchrist:
That’s a nope!
Cole gives you the keys, you post what you want, the way you want. Unless it’s a big drag on the whole site, which is a different issue than it being slow for a person to load.
WaterGirl
@JaySinWA: Oh, yep. If you are going to embed a tweet, you have to click on the TEXT tab and then paste it in.
That’s just the way it works.
The TEXT tab understands HTML. The visual mode just sees characters, not commands.
Bill Arnold
For youtube links, I provide a link with the title, and the length of the video, maybe a date.
The title is helpful when going through old archives, on this site and others, and finding dead links; youtube links often die, but the title can often be used to find a current link.
Same with other links; a link, title, maybe subhead, byline(s) if any, date, maybe the journalistic outlet and usually some additional quoted text.
The bylines can be fun because journalists with unique names often search for them with search engines. Drop a name, and you may summon the named one to read the context.
WaterGirl
@JaySinWA:
Ugh. That doesn’t even look like a real person. She looks like a plastic doll, all painted up. She can’t be real, right?
But if it is a person, yeah, I predict a lot of regrets. ragrets?
WaterGirl
@Bill Arnold: That sounds really helpful. I’m a visual girl.
Can you do a couple of comments where you show us exactly what that looks like?
Maybe one for YouTube and another for some other link?
WaterGirl
@Bill Arnold: Also, completely unrelated. I have no idea what to do with the file you sent me to make it useable.
TBone
@WaterGirl: since I use Duck Duck Go, almost everything I click on opens to a new window, no ads, just one click and I’m there. Rarely do I have to use the “back” button to return to BJ but it happens.
Oh, you meant add a description. I thought I was getting better at that.
currants
This is really for front pagers, maybe, but I can watch videos in tweets (on my iphone, through the BJ site’s post) if and only if they’re NOT retweets; that is, if the person who wrote the tweet posted the video in that same tweet. If it’s anything else, I get one of the options Watergirl listed above.
It’s probably the same in comments, but I don’t often have time to hang out in the comments, sorry to say.
JaySinWA
@Bill Arnold: Adding the YouTube title is a great idea to avoid link rot. Is there a tool for formatting the link with all this info?
trollhattan
@BR:
That’s a very impressive, Herculean even effort. Thanks for the link.
Bill Arnold
@pacem appellant:
I have a few browsers where the twitter/X embeds on a front page just show as text, as it does in a non-FP-comment. Have not figured out what plugin is doing this, perhaps uBlock Origin with extra options.
Are you saying that you block somehow so that the tweets embedded in a FP post do not show at all, not even the text?
WaterGirl
@TBone:
Not that I’ve noticed. But I appreciate it if you are making an effort.:-)
Bill Arnold
@JaySinWA:
I just do it in a text editor (emacs), and often compose the comment there too. (and always save it there when done, anyway.)
A tool to turn web links into html, scraping the title/byline(s)/date/etc would be nice, agreed.
WaterGirl
@currants: I think Anne Laurie and I are both aware of that from the testing I did some time ago. Not sure about any of the others.
One can share information with front-pagers but you can’t tell them what to do!
WaterGirl
@Bill Arnold: I believe that FireFox defaults to something that blocks formatted tweets.
I don’t use Firefox but I think it was something about “social media’ in the setting.
Bill Arnold
@WaterGirl:
Like this:
<a href=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l90fLPal198″>How Trump Has Incited Violence for Years</a> (YouTube 4:44, 2021)
which looks like
How Trump Has Incited Violence for Years (YouTube 4:44, 2021)
JaySinWA
@WaterGirl: New York Post article on Trump Girl British influencer https://nypost.com/2024/08/09/world-news/onlyfans-model-claims-to-have-huge-trump-tattoo-across-her-forehead/
Not clear if its real or fake, but it was covered in several places.
stinger
Not about embedded links, but it does relate to the post title, Being Good Neighbors:
It makes me so happy to see the NC Black Alliance thermometer continue to rise even though we’ve met our goal! Good peeps, here!
JaySinWA
@WaterGirl: How are front pagers like Norwegians?
You can always tell a Norwegian, but you can’t tell them much. /Norwegian-American
The Up and Up
I don’t have an online presence with the site formerly known as Twitter. As a friend said before ditching their account, “If people want to get a hold of me they know how.”
Anyways just thought I stop by the Balloon Juice Proving Grounds to say, “Hi.”
Hello DanB, Opie, CaseyL, Satby, Cole, et al
eclare
@WaterGirl:
How do you embed? I’m guilty of linking.
Omnes Omnibus
I can quit linking to anything if that would make people happy.
WaterGirl
@stinger: Well, about that.
NC Black Alliance Phase I dollars went to the 501(c)3 organization.
Safety & Security went to the 501(c)4 arm of the organization.
When I put up NC Black Alliance Phase II, I should have set it to the 501(c)3 organization, but I sent it to the 501(c)4 organization.
Luckily, I caught my error when we were less than $2,500 in. So in order to get $30,00 for the 501(c)3 arm, we had to get to $32,500 in the Phase II thermometer.
Luckily, we had an angel who was supposed to be adding $2,500 to the Safety & Security thermometer, but since I caught my mistake early, I was able to have them add the $2,500 to the Phase II thermometer.
So in the end, the right flavors of money all landed in the right place. Even if one thermometer looks $2,500 over, and the other looks $2,500 under.
So the extra $2,625 looks like it’s extra, but it’s not. :-)
More than anyone wanted to know, surely.
JaySinWA
@eclare: How do you embed?
In my windows browser, I go to the tweet and select the three dot menu. Pick “embed post” from the drop down. In the new “Twitter Publish” page that opens, select “embed post” (or “embed video” if it’s a video I guess) and then “copy code”/
Back at BJ select the text tab in your “Leave a Comment” and paste the embed code.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Not helpful! :-)
WaterGirl
@JaySinWA: If we were all lost in a flash flood, there might be a run on tombstones that say “you’re not the boss of me”.
WaterGirl
@The Up and Up: Don’t just stop by, stay awhile! :-)
stinger
@WaterGirl:
Then I guess I haz a slight sad. Still, yay us! And thank you, WaterGirl.
Bill Arnold
@Omnes Omnibus:
No. Links are life. (They give a place like this “wings”, roughly,
more influence than it would otherwise get.)
Another Scott
I haven’t read all the comments yet.
My philosophy, such as it is:
Twitter is actively evil now. Lots and lots of other “social media” sites just republish Twitter stuff, so I’m not sure that posting Mastodon or BlueSky or Threads or whatever links is all that much better if the stuff came from Twitter.
Change is hard. I feel for folks who built up a presence on Twitter only to have Mellon destroy everything good about the place (and accentuate everything bad about the place). I appreciate that Twitter is still the biggest arena for news.
But I’m going to work harder to cut down my even indirect accentuation of Twitter stuff.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Bill Arnold
@WaterGirl:
edited
Jay
https://www.bylinesupplement.com/p/unmusked-how-elon-musk-is-using-x?r=cfim4&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
WaterGirl
@Bill Arnold: I was trying to be vague in my original comment. Could are discuss this by email instead?
charon
I have accounts at Bluesky and Twitter. I will not click on Nitter, Mastodon or Threads links because these are all too ugly and hard to read for my tastes.
I have noticed that usage at Bluesky seems to be growing fairly rapidly lately.
Opening a Twitter account generates exactly zero revenue for Musk so I really don’t get why so many people are so adamantly opposed, Musk only gets revenue from ad clicks or impressions.
Another Scott
@charon:
In my case, I don’t want to contribute to Melon’s “network effects”. As long as users keep going there and clicking on stuff, news people will keep posting stuff there. And After-Twitter will continue to be farther off in the future.
Cheers,
Scott.
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
There’s an old Jack Lemon movie titled “Good Neighbor Sam“. My parents just loved it. Back in the ole days when everyone only had one tee vee in the house me my siblings and I were stuck watching it. I wasn’t old enough to understand it, but I did like the instrumental score by Frank de Vol
nickdag
Thread Reader App is a great option, as well.
Reply or quote the tweet you want, and add (no quotes needed): “@threadreaderapp unroll”
This (good) bot will reply with a link to a webpage that has the entire thread unrolled for you. There are ads on the site, but it’s a great alternative to both read an entire thread all at once and to share with people who don’t use Twitter.
eclare
@JaySinWA:
Thanks! I’ll try that next time.
WaterGirl
@eclare: The comment box defaults to Visual, so it’s clicking on the Text tab that’s key.
Searcher
I thought Twitter got rid of threads/replies?
jayne
@WaterGirl: I do respect this in theory. In practice, the page-long string of Nazi Bar embeds frequently breaks the site if I’m on my phone and I sincerely wish that they were behind a “read more” so I could scroll to the next post.
minachica
Count me in as someone who appreciates Twitter links, in addition to others. I follow topics that are not yet covered much on newer platforms, and I also prefer the ability to easily check out sources in original tweets. I’ve also been using it for a long time and have my feed so tightly curated that I avoid the worst of the downsides. So I personally prefer a direct link to Twitter.
I understand that this is not the case for most, but I would hate to see them disappear entirely as long as Twitter has good content not available elsewhere. But I’m all for clearly labeling them as Twitter links, so that non-Twitter users know not to click.
::shrug::
WaterGirl
@jayne: Sadly, READ MORE doesn’t help.
Even with READ MORE, WordPress loads EVERYTHING up front. It just doesn’t display the stuff under read more until you click. That’s why it’s instantaneous when you click to read the whole thing.
I did talk to Cole a day or two about the issue with the phones. I have done enough testing that I can definitively show what’s going on, we just have to figure out where to go from here.
That’s why I wrote: