Complaints about OPs that are just Twitter links are WAY overstated!

[MineralMan]

I just clicked on every one of the 80 threads listed in the GD thread list. Of those 80 threads, only two began with a post consisting only of a Twitter link. TWO. That comes to a whopping 2.5% of threads that met that criterion.

There have been a number of posts complaining that "every damn thread" was a Twitter thread, or some such statement. It is simply not true. Yes, some people do post Twitter links, and yes, some people cannot see those links as they are expanded in the post. But, it is not really a major problem in the General Discussion forum on DU.

I understand that some people are offended by such posts. OK. That's fine. But exaggerating the number of posts like that makes no sense at all. Overstatement does not a good argument make.

Real-Live Statistics: They matter.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

1. Just copy the tweet. Sometimes brevity is an example of creativity.

I copy the tweets I find creative.

[MineralMan]

2. I don't use Twitter, so I don't make such posts anyhow.

I agree that it's a good idea to copy and paste such posts, rather than just posting the link. But, it's not some huge problem on DU. Instead, it's a very minor annoyance for a small minority of DUers.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

6. I post the link for aesthetic and functional purposes and then copy the contents.

[MineralMan]

8. That is what I'd do, too, if I actually used Twitter.

In fact, if I start a thread that includes a link to a source, I always quote from that link with an excerpt, so that there is some information in the post itself. While I wish everyone did that, I don't complain if they don't, nor do I say that DU is not worth visiting because a few people don't do what I do.

The Back button is immediately available to me, regardless of what platform I'm using to browse DU. If I don't care for a thread opening post, I use the Back button to help me find another thread that is more interesting.

Lots of things on the Internet are mildly annoying. Some things on DU are also mildly annoying, too.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

10. What is more annoying is linked articles without links.

[MineralMan]

12. Well, yes, and I back away from those immediately.

However, even more annoying are the posts that don't even reference a source and consist of one sentence, like: "Did you hear what she just said?!?!"

There are annoyances on every discussion forum I've ever been on. They don't matter much, really. There's plenty on DU worth reading and plenty of reasons to reply to such posts. That's good enough for me.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

15. I am guilty of that

But if you put text without a link there is no way of finding it without copying the text and putting it into google.

[MineralMan]

21. I sometimes post something like "Context?" on

posts like that. Mostly, though, I just hit the Back button.

[yallerdawg]

3. Considering DU has added the feature...

it seems we should take advantage of it, yes?

[MineralMan]

4. I can see no reason why it shouldn't be used.

Some people don't see the expanded link, I understand. I'm not sure why, but maybe it has to do with their browser or something.

However, it doesn't seem to me to be worth complaining about. I don't use Twitter, so I clearly don't have a love affair with that website. If I click on an OP that is just a Tweet, I normally just hit the Back button and choose another thread. It doesn't really affect my life more than for a second.

My point is that the vast, vast majority of posts here are not Twitter links. It just doesn't seem worthy of complaints, especially exaggerated complaints.

[PatSeg]

16. I have Disconnect

ad blocker and there are things that I don't see in an occasional DU post. I believe that is why I only see Twitter Link on some posts.

[True Dough]

26. Never heard of Disconnect

I use the more common AdBlock. I'm noticing more and more that sites detect my AdBlock and they prevent me from viewing their content unless I disable the program (because being unable to display ads to browsers is bad for their business).

Just curious, PatSeg, whether you encounter that as well with Disconnect?

[PatSeg]

30. I used to use AdBlock

but a few years back I went with Disconnect. It seems to be more advanced. I haven't had any problem with any sites preventing me from viewing their content, but there are things that don't show up, like occasional graphics on DU posts. I'm not sure what is different about those graphics and the ones that I see.

[True Dough]

38. Good to know

Thanks! I'll look into Disconnect further. When it was just the rare site that would punish me for using AdBlock, I'd think, "Too bad. I just won't come back here again." But the list is growing and it's hindering my web surfing.

[PatSeg]

39. You're welcome

I guess the best thing I can say about Disconnect, is I forget it is there for the most part. Once and awhile, I'll go to Internet Explorer and I am quickly reminded what a different Disconnect makes.

[littlemissmartypants]

5. With all due respect, Mineral Man...

The frequency of appearance was only part of the beef. Apparently there are some instances where the tweets are blocked by outide viewing sources, like workplaces, resulting in wasted viewing time with no results.

Having a heads up approach to tweets would be nice but I don't expect myself to be nice or really a smarty pants more than 85% of the time so I can't expect that here, though we are much more civil that the general Twitter crowd.

I'm all in for statistics though, Mineral Man, biostatistics are my favorite, in case you were wondering.

Hyperbole, not so much. But there's no shortage of that here either.

Keep up the great work!

♡lmsp

[MineralMan]

7. Again, it's a matter of a second or two.

When I enter a thread, if there's nothing there of interest to me, I simply use the Back button to return to the thread list I was browsing. One or two seconds.

I don't even notice such things, and there are so many interesting threads on DU that it's merely a brief delay until I find one.

As for workplace restrictions, I can't really address those. I work for myself, so I have no such restrictions. If I worked at a place that imposed such restrictions, though, I'd do exactly what I do when I encounter a thread that doesn't offer me any information. I just leave it and choose another thread.

[littlemissmartypants]

9. Completely concur.

I use the same click back technology. So factoring in for the complainers, adjusting for the silent, predicting a few outliers, I am going to guess that we are in the majority.

I'd love to see the numbers to back us up but I am really not that concerned about it.

Good effort on your part though.

Rock on!

♡lmsp

[Alice11111]

11. I like the Twitter links I'm not on Twitter & it keeps me up.

Very useful. Keep them coming.
Thank you.

[MineralMan]

14. See! There you are.

Not all threads on DU appeal to or are useful to everyone. What you or someone else likes or hates may not be the same as what I prefer. That's to be expected.

My problem is not with Twitter posts, although I don't much care for them if they don't include any commentary. My problem is with overstated complaints about them or about anything else on DU.

[Alice11111]

25. I don't really get this issue, if you don't like them, skip them

That's what I do, and I sometimes skip links to articles or movie clips if I'm not really interested. Mostly, I like the convenience, time saving aspect, and choice...when people offer any of those. By posting sources, it makes the thread more professional. Other times, someone may just need to scream with disgust over a new DT scam.

[Generic Other]

13. I try to use Twitter links when someone there says something clever

or dumb in Trump's case. I only just learned how to embed them on DU. I was not aware some might not be able to read them, so if I use them in the future, I will also paste the quoted material. And I will be more sparing of posting Tweets.

Sometimes, they are the news though as in @RealDonaldTrump tweets.

[MineralMan]

18. Many people see Twitter as an important source.

I'm not one of those, but I know that others see it that way, so I don't mind people posting bare Tweets. If DU was made up mostly of that, I'd go somewhere else, but it's not. I can deal with a small percentage of posts that don't appeal to me just fine.

It's nice to copy and paste Tweets if you post them, but that can be annoying, too, since the same thing shows up twice on my computer. I don't care, though. Such things just don't matter, really.

[OldHippieChick]

17. Facts! You want us to deal w/ real facts?!

What do you think we are? Democrats?

[MineralMan]

19. LOL!

Whatevs...

[LeftInTX]

20. I did learn from the thread that workplaces block twitter

So, I will now also copy the tweet if I link it.

[MineralMan]

22. That's the polite thing to do.

However, for most people, that means that the Tweet shows up twice: Once as an image and once as text. In any case, I don't linger on Twitter threads, unless the original poster takes the time to comment on the Tweet.

[LeftInTX]

24. I'm on twitter and I can retweet the tweet directly from DU

[MineralMan]

28. Cool, but I have no idea what my Twitter login password is.

I really never visit Twitter for anything. There's too much information with enough words to make it understandable for me to bother with Twitter, so I don't.

[Denzil_DC]

23. They are, and it's getting very tiresome indeed.

Some folks have complained to Skinner in Ask the Administrators, and there's no sign of any policy about them being changed. Moans like this used to be classed as meta and were a no-no in the main forums.

As a matter of etiquette, it helps if people can copy and paste the tweet text, and any graphic it contains where that's possible, but good luck anyone who wants to enforce that as a hard and fast rule.

This is a good idea anyway, because tweets can be deleted or Twitter can sometimes go down (as happened a month or so ago), in which case all that anybody will see is the bare link.

As a Brit on these forums, I'm used to quite often seeing cryptic posts to "turn on so-and-so NOW" when whatever program (sometimes even unnamed) the OP's watching isn't available where I am, and other minor annoyances like that (such as OPs that are just bare links to a story with no explanation), so it's not a problem unique to tweets.

I don't have a Twitter account (too many other ways to waste my time online without getting embroiled in spats with total strangers, which I probably would despite my best intentions - I can get quite enough of that here), but I do check it out every day and have developed a string of lists and accounts that help me keep abreast of developments better than the MSM can nowadays.

I often post breaking news based on tweets I've seen, but almost always use the actual article the tweeter's found for me rather than the tweet itself.

That's Twitter's beauty - there's so much information out there nowadays, you need some way of curating it, and I'm afraid I don't find the editorial policies of traditional media do a good enough job of this. I use Twitter to crowdsource my newsgathering, relying on people I've learned through observation are generally reliable or have interesting takes on events and issues (I also get a chance to read opposing views I wouldn't bother seeking out otherwise, which can be educational).

If you're not into it, that's fine, but I don't see it going away or tweets being confined to a designated forum, as some have demanded, so the moaning just wastes everybody's time and energy and sometimes creates ill feeling.

[dchill]

27. Overstating statistics is so Trumpy.

It's also dishonest. Also, I don't mind linked Tweet posts.

[yallerdawg]

29. ICYMI

From "Announcements" :

You can now embed Tweets directly into DU posts

People have been asking for this for a while now, and since Twitter is President Cheetoface McShitgibbon's preferred method of communication we decided it was finally time to program our software to allow automatic embedding of Tweets.

How?

Simply enter the URL of the tweet into the body of your post, and our software will do the rest.

Where's the Tweet URL?

To find the URL, go to the tweet you want to embed and click the small drop-down arrow in the top-right. One of the options will say "Copy link to Tweet" -- grab that link and paste it into your post, and you should get the following result:

Link to tweet

[MineralMan]

31. Yup. It's a DU Feature, Not a Bug.

So, people are using that feature. People do that on DU. I think my least favorite DU feature is the ability to imbed animated GIFs in your signature line. Some DUers go a little overboard with that, I think. However, I don't complain about it, because it's allowed by the admins of this website, of whom I am not one.

If I designed a discussion forum, it would work exactly as I think it should. I'm not in any way interested in do that, though, so I use other people's discussion forums. I let them design them as they see fit.

[cwydro]

32. Didn't Earlg post this identical OP a few days ago?

Deja vu.

[MineralMan]

34. Did he? I must have missed it.

He did post in another thread that was complaining about this, though. I think I gave his reply a +1000.

[L. Coyote]

33. We shouldn't all move back to a cave and read glyphs just because

a few people haven't left the cave yet

[MineralMan]

35. Well, it's sort of the same thing as people who complain

about posts with multiple images in them, because they load too slowly when you're using a 9600 baud modem. Now, I realize that not everyone has a broadband connection, but technology does march on. The Back button works for those people, too.

[L. Coyote]

36. I was on a dail-up modem for a while. Easy solution is multiple tabs open.

I'd start a download and switch tabs, then go back to play a youtube after it was ready, for example.

The big complaint with Twitter seems to be blocking at work. Hey, get back to work. Who gets paid to be on DU?

[MineralMan]

37. Yeah, what right do those evil corporations have to control

what you do during work hours? Why, I oughta...

Since I've been self-employed since 1974, and have never had an employee, I'm not sure how I'd feel about people working for me hanging out on DU, Twitter or Facebook. I'm guessing that I wouldn't like it very much, really. As the boss and only employee of my business, I can do whatever I damned well please, of course. That's maybe why I've never hired anyone in any of the businesses I've operated. I'd probably be a lousy boss.

The old business card I used to have for my little one-person shareware company had a list of my titles on it, along with the phone number of my BBS system and my Compuserve address. The list was something like this:

CEO, CFO, IT Director, Publications Director, Janitor, Shipping Clerk, Customer Support Representative, Maintenance Technician, Etc.

It was a funny business card, and got a number of chuckles when handed to people.

[L. Coyote]

40. Plus, employers can see every keystroke you make on their system.

[MineralMan]

41. They can, if they want to, of course.

I don't know how common that really is, nor how much it is used as a way to watch what employees are doing. That would take a lot of time, I'd think. More likely, it would be used when there is a problem and for a specific employee.

It's also easy for a business to monitor Internet usage and to log site visits on an individual basis. I'd think that would be more common.

Here's the deal for me: If I were working for a company, I'd be following that company's guidelines. If someone's paying me, I'm going to do whatever work they're paying me for. Even though I became permanently self-employed in 1974, I had worked for several companies before then. I always gave the effort the payment I got was worth, and probably a little more. If I was poorly paid, I delivered work that was worth about what I was being paid. If I was better paid, I delivered better work.

I remember a short-term job I had as a gas station attendant. It paid $2.00 per hour. One time, the owner of the station chided me for not selling more tires to customers who came in for gas. It was a full-service station, so checking air pressure was part of the service, especially if a tire looked low. We were supposed to look at tread depth, too, and sell tires fairly aggressively.

When the owner said that to me, I explained that if I sold a tire to a customer, I had to get it installed as quickly as possible, while still pumping gas and doing all those other services for gas customers. That meant running back and forth from the pumps to the shop area and busting my ass. "Why would I do that, for no additional monetary gain for me?" I asked him. I went on to say, "You pay me $2 an hour to show up and pump gas, along with the other gas lane stuff. I am happy to do that for that pay. If you want me to sell tires for you, then you're going to have to compensate me for the extra work added onto my other duties. About $2 per tire would get me selling tires for you."

He got it. From then on, I got $2 for each tire I sold and installed. I still didn't aggressively sell tire that weren't needed, but I sold and installed tires to customers who did need them. I had to educate the owner, though, so he'd understand what it was that he wanted might cost him a little more in my paycheck. He got it.

[Eko]

42. You darn youngin twitter'ers!!!!

GET OFF MY DU LAWN!!!!!!

[hlthe2b]

43. There was a thread on this yesterday (which I can't locate) where you asked what happens when...

the OP (who stated she/he could see nothing more than a link) clicks on the twitter link. DId they say that it is possible to see it then or were they saying that twitter in general was blocked (probably at a workplace)?

Did they state what they see when the tweet is actually embedded into the DU post?

I try to give (at least) the context of the tweet in the subject line AND generally copy the text, but yes, I've been curious as to what the issues were with some posters not being able to view them.

While I am not on twitter, I do find a lot of tweets to be a quick (and often funny) way to highlight a linked news story or piece of media video. I will likely never register on twitter, but I do like to occasionally google someone's twitter feed to see what they are posting...

I do feel for those who can't view what is posted though. I frequently can not view embedded jpgs or other graphics of some specific type. I'm not sure if it is a browser issue or my anti-viral software, but even giving "rights" to some graphic locations within browser or anti-viral program does not seem to fix the problem. So... I guess we all have some frustrations...