After Calls For an Edit Button, Twitter Says it is Considering a 'Clarification' Feature (mashable.com) 71
Despite years-long calls from power users for an "edit" button, Twitter is considering how it could enable 'clarifications' of tweets, CEO Jack Dorsey said Thursday at Goldman Sachs' tech conference in San Francisco. From a report: "One of the concepts we're thinking about is clarifications," Dorsey said, saying that it could function similarly to a quote tweet. "Kind of like retweet with comment.. to add some context and some color on what they might have tweeted, or what they might have meant."
People already often use the quote tweet option for this kind of thing, but the two tweets may not always have the same reach, Dorsey noted. But if the person had opted to "clarify" that tweet, then the original tweet could always appear with the subsequent clarification. Dorsey cautioned that the feature is still just something the company is thinking about, not necessarily something that would launch. But he said such a feature could help people feel more comfortable with Twitter.
People already often use the quote tweet option for this kind of thing, but the two tweets may not always have the same reach, Dorsey noted. But if the person had opted to "clarify" that tweet, then the original tweet could always appear with the subsequent clarification. Dorsey cautioned that the feature is still just something the company is thinking about, not necessarily something that would launch. But he said such a feature could help people feel more comfortable with Twitter.
covfefe (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
They are plenty of times, where I have wrote something where someone irreverently got insulted, due to the fact the tone of my message, wasn't properly convayed.
Granted I try to reread, and rephrase my messages.
Re:People Want to be Insulted (Score:4, Insightful)
Something I have learned over time, it is generally a bad idea to try to bate people to get angry at you, or worse a false persona of you. A sarcastic comment, could lead to some guy actually taking you seriously.
Where do you think these flat earthers came from? Probably from some guy trying to use sarcasm to explain the flaw, in some Anti-Science policy that is popular at the time, so they made the most crazy statement they could think of "The earth is flat" and fill it with flawed logic. There will be someone who doesn't pick it up, and followed it. Just because someone is an idiot, it doesn't mean they are not influential.
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Re:covfefe (Score:4, Insightful)
Sarcasm aside, I think Twitter's proposal is the right one here given the way shitstorms have been kicked off by social media posts. Yes, you should be able to "correct the record" for honest errors, etc., but equally people need to be able to see the original unedited post where it's already triggered responses and the correction might alter the tone of those responses. Being able to say one thing, provoke a response, then subtly edit the original to make the initial repliers look like jerks is definitely not the way to go - you might as well roll out the red carpet and put a mat at the end with "Trolls Welcome" on it. I dare say someone could leverage it into a libel suit under the right circumstances as well (whether they'd prevail or not is another matter entirely).
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or remove arbitrary size limits and give people enough room to actually explain in depth what they wanted to say.
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or remove arbitrary size limits and give people enough room to actually explain in depth what they wanted to say.
Then it would no longer be Twitter. It would be Facebook.
If you go to Facebook, you can see how well the absence of arbitrary limits leads to deep and thoughtful discussion.
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With THAT argument you can discredit any improvement.
Like, if Coke hadn't that much sugar it wouldn't be Coke.
And still, people buy Coke zero because they think it's better without sugar!
Pastebin (Score:2)
Longer posts are what Pastebin, TwitLonger, GitHub Gist, and your own blog are made for. Post the whole thing elsewhere, and summarize to Twitter with a link.
Re: (Score:3)
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Amending a comment (once) is cool. Editing is not. It's far too easy to abuse. People just have to learn self control.
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Amending a comment (once) is cool. Editing is not. It's far too easy to abuse. People just have to learn self control.
I like the way this part of Slashdot works now, but if it had to change, having the option to add a well-marked (and timestamped) postscript to one's comment would be a reasonable change. Ideally, child comments would also be marked somehow (color?) to denote whether they were left before or after the edit.
Editing is fine (Score:2)
Editing is not. It's far too easy to abuse.
Editing cannot be abused if you can easily see history of the edit including the original text.
The crystal clear goal of whatever Twitter does should be to make correcting simple typos as simple and easy as possible. That is the vast majority of why people really want editing. The Clarification feature fails this single simple test.
Editing should not be erasure, but it's also not simply clarification in the large majority of cases.
Re: (Score:1)
Amending the comment serves the same purpose. It can be indented beneath the original. It's the only logical way to do it. It's not a problem.
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Do you fix all your typos by writing on the next line "oh that should have been a Y instead of an E"? Or do you correct the mis-typed letter?
You are a fucking idiot.
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Or do you correct the mis-typed letter?
Yes, I do correct it, before I post it! Once it's sent, too damn bad, under the right conditions it can be amended. That's what you should live with. Kinda jumpy, aren't ya?
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Everything's not about you, your majesty. I'm thinking of the vast majority of twitter users, while you seem curiously focused on only yourself.
I'll let you have the last response since you seem to just be talking to yourself anyway.
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Unless they were slinging antisemitic slurs.
Well, I guess not. Nancy will always be willing to give a them a pass for that, won't she.
Jack Dorsey is not in control (Score:2)
I don't like it (Score:3)
Where will the 'smocking guns', 'covfefe' and the 'muderers' come from in the future?
Twitter has 'the best words' as we know.
I wonder where he got that idea! (Score:1)
I don't suppose that they got the idea from me, but it surprises me that it has taken this long to consider doing it this way.
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Maybe they got the whole idea from slashdot. There are lots of things wrong with this site (I can't even submit a journal entry and/or story submission any more... WTF) but the one thing it really has correct is the preview-no-edit paradigm. No one should be allowed to edit anything without it being made very clear that it has been edited, AND HOW. Barring immediately obvious edit history, no one should get to edit. You want that, you run your own site. Even on my own site, I only tend to fix spelling or fo
Twitter edit button is a stupid idea (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Post a tweet that will elicit certain reactions.
2. Wait for those certain reactions to pour in.
3. Edit original tweet to make reactions look evil/racist/ignorant/etc.
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Solution:
Be like everyone else and allow people to click "edits" and see all versions of the tweet.
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Everyone else? The only place I know of where you can see the entire history of a post is stackexchange. It's a great idea, but definitely not mainstream
Re: Twitter edit button is a stupid idea (Score:2)
Yeah, the right balance seems to be: allow editing, but keep edit history; display only latest version, but with an "(edited at )" label that links to the history; no hotlinking to old versions, but they're available.
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3. Edit original tweet to make reactions look evil/racist/ignorant/etc.
I'm struggling here to think of a reply that might look racist following an edit to the post to which it responded, that didn't look racist anyway.
How many times can you "Clarify"? (Score:4, Funny)
I can see something like this happening:
Original Tweet: "Contrary to what's being reported by the lying MSM, I did not have relations or even spend time with that woman."
Clarification 1: "After reflection and prayer with my wife and my pastor, I realize that the interactions I had with that woman were inappropriate."
Clarification 2: "I have consulted with my attorney and I can confidently say that at no time during our time together did I have any reason to think that woman was a member of the Russian government."
Clarification 3: "I realize that the police report says otherwise, but because I met the woman in the hotel bar, I naturally assumed that she was over 18."
Clarification 4: "To be completely honest, the skimpy dress lead me to originally believe the person that I spent time with in my hotel room was a woman."
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If only Bill Clinton had had twitter.....
Boycott Trump's Propaganda Outlet (Score:2, Interesting)
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Just do it like a wiki (Score:4, Interesting)
Let a user edit once, for five minutes.
Indicate the tweet was edited, with a link to see a diff.
Then you get the benefit of people being able to edit typos, with still the fiery aspect of the full hot take for all to see.
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I wish I had mod points for this.
The "clarification" idea is a good idea, but it also misses the point. People want to be able to fix typos without manually copying, deleting, recreating, pasting, and editing the tweet. Hell, the "edit" button could just be a shorthand for deleting and recreating the tweet. Fixing typos on twitter is far more annoying than it needs to be. (Which is why a lot of people don't bother fixing them.)
I'll ask a stupid question... (Score:2)
...why does anyone use this SHITTY platform?
It doesn't have any real modern functionality, it doesn't understand emotes, emojis, or even standard markup languages, it's like it was written in the fucking dark ages.
I mean seriously, really all it is is a mechanism for blurting ones' random thoughts to a bunch of people that either a) don't really give a shit, or b) give WAY TOO MUCH of a shit about what you're saying.
I mean, with slashdot comments, you at least have to go to a WEBSITE to do that.
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...why does anyone use this SHITTY platform? [...] all it is is a mechanism for blurting ones' random thoughts to a bunch of people that either a) don't really give a shit, or b) give WAY TOO MUCH of a shit about what you're saying.
Welcome to the internet, you must be new here.
Alternately: Who gives a shit?
What is do damnt difficult, ..? (Score:2)
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Long term editing.
There's no excuse as I've mentioned elsewhere.. Facebook lets you edit things eternally, and shows an "edited" link that brings up a changelog.
Twitter Sucks!!! (Score:2)
Twitter Sucks!!!
* To clarify, I didn't mean everyone on twitter. Obviously.
** Update: I wasn't referring to any specific individuals or twitter workers. I meant that twitter as the service is currently provided has non-salient aspects but not due to any specific persons.
*** Note: I was talking about Twitter brand Vaccuum cleaners which are sold in Morocco.
**** OK I lied.
Prufe yuo dont nead it (Score:2)
Imagin what wud happin if Slahsdot let us fix are typos.
Two words: Auto correct (Score:2)
I find that 90% of the errors in my tweets are auto-correct related. It does the most insane blunders, and also butchers their/there/they're to/too are/our etc. Pretty much any word that sounds the same it will make you look like an illiterate fool who triggers grammar nazis on the daily.
You don't always have time to proofread tweets two or three times just to make sure you don't miss some stupid auto-correct blunder.
And now-- if it's not bad enough desktop OS's have auto-correct built into them as well.
Or how about just an edit button? (Score:2)
You know, to do the things that people do with edit buttons, like fix a typo. Does anyone really care about "clarifying" that "oops I spelled that wrong. I meant potato"?
*sigh*
Abuse (Score:1)