Posted at 2020-07-23
Today I woke up, opened my mail client hoping for something interesting from geminauts. I checked spam because, well, my mail provider puts all interesting emails there. Wow, there was a message from Hannu!
Thanks for the response to my twinlog post! I saw it yesterday and posted another response today.
gemini://hannuhartikainen.fi/twinlog/2020-07-23_re-microblogging.gemini
It's an easy way to make me excited indeed. Turned out, Hannu is not the only one who replied! Acdw has also written a post regarding this topic.
gemini://gemlog.blue:1965/users/acdw/1595431992.gmi
In case anyone forgot here are the original posts:
It's time to have wholesome conversations.
First off, yes, I was convinced that microblogging is useful for something.
I feel so successful.
The concept of public, final, interactive conversations on very specific details sounds interesting to a nerd. If this is the good, I think I've only seen the bad and the ugly. Sounds like there's potential when you follow the right people (and don't read posts by the wrong ones). I might have to see if I can find the right people on the Fediverse or twtxt.
Good luck with that!
Still, I don't think I have anything worthwhile to say in the micro format.
You still can post worthless posts like I do on Twitter!
If the beginning of this post was cut down to a couple of distinct ideas, what would they look like as tweets?
* True, microblogging has its potential uses. I was wrong!
* I wonder who to follow on Fediverse and twtxt.
* Long-form writing still seems to convey something these micro posts cannot.
With tweets like this I wouldn't follow myself. (That sentence would fit in a tweet, and is actually a worthwhile point!)
These messages sure are distinct but for some reason I think I wouldn't subscribe to you as well. They lack... personality, I guess?
I agree on the necessity of traces, of something to be remembered for.
Cool.
For most people the most important trace is their children. And so we have no chance to remember most people because their children are nobodies. Until they aren't.
Interesting thought.
And yes, as you can see, your post had an impact on me. Thank you, bouncepaw.
PS. With regard to your critique of modern society: I agree and am careful for exactly that reason.
You are welcome <3
I like bouncepaw's points about the interactivity and finality aspects of microblogging.
I like that you like my points.
That being said, I've also considered something along the lines of some article I read, which of course I can't now find, about automatically deleting tweets older than 2 years.
Hm, an interesting idea. Perhaps I'll consider using it.
Twitter et al. is good for public, quick discussion -- it's easier to use than IRC and more "normal" people (aka, non-techies) are on there.
I consider myself to be a techie yet it's hard for me to use IRC. Happens.
On that last point, a final thought: sometimes an idea might start as a tweet and morph into a blog post, or a magazine article, or even a book. I think that's happened plenty of times in the past, even before Twitter. Ideas don't reveal their full breadth until they're examined and interrogated.
Agreed! I often write something in a chat and then decide that it'd make a good article (this is how my recent gemini keyboard protocol article happened, for example).
Note how my article was basically just a list of quotes and some replies to them. Discussions like that would be perfect for a forum, a wiki or a microblog :)
Still, I'm very happy to have conversations like that.
P.S. It's cute how acdw puts two spaces after dots and Hannu and I use just one. Are you from the Western hemisphere, acdw?