Mar 8, 2020

Tweet 2020

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I occasionally blog about Twitter because the wikifiction blog began at the same time when I starting using Twitter, back in April 2009. I began crafting this blog post (Tweet 2020) on the day when I'd sent out my 2000th tweet. However, I'm not going to publish this blog post until I have sent tweet number 2020.

I last blogged about Twitter back towards the end of 2018, at a time when I had endured a series of annoying Twitter bugs.

I'd reached 1500 tweets back in August of 2017, so I have been averaging a tweet almost every other day during the past two and a half years.
twit icons


Sorry if I've blocked you

Ever since Twitter removed some of the buttons that once allowed users to control what tweets we see, I've sometime had to block the creators of unwanted tweets that show up in my feed. That does not mean that your tweet was horrible or that I dislike you, only that I don't want to read your tweets. It astounds me that the people in charge of Twitter think it is good for their service when they force people to see tweets that they do not want to see.

Unfriendly user interface
I despise the user interface for Twitter.
Why?
I understand that many users of Twitter are using their phones, but why does that mean that a desktop computer user like me has to suffer with a crummy user interface? The "smart" phone revolution has brought horrible changes to the internet and website user experience. Companies like Twitter dominate the internet and exist only to make money off of users.

Twitter knows I'm on a Mac
What annoys me most about the Twitter interface is that I can't mouse-over these absurd icons and get a little pop-up explaining what the icon represents. Twitter knows that I use a Macintosh, not a phone, so they could easily provide me with a more informative user interface. If they cared. Thanks for not caring, Twitter.

                                              2020 on Twitter

source
Sadly, here in 2020, Twitter continues to function as one of the outlets for fake news and lies from internet trolls. I ignore most of what happens on Twitter.

Most of my tweets continue to relate to my science fiction-related blogging here at the wikifiction blog. Tweet 2020 was no exception.

in the Ekcolir Reality

My tweet #2020 was about my Nov 17, 2019 blog post called "A Phari Tale". Yes, I'm almost 4 months behind in tweeting about my blog posts. That does not bother me because I'm often still weaving together my blog posts several months after I write them. "A Phari Tale" contains a short story in which I tried to restrain myself from my usual habit of making hypertext links for all of the people, places and technical concepts in the story. I had considerable fun creating illustrations for the Lost World Trilogy in "A Phari Tale".

Special report on the Twitter User Interface in 2022
UPDATE: eventually Twitter decided to start using words again... I suppose the folks in charge of the user interface for Twitter got tired of seeing a steady decline in users, so they compromised on their obsession with icons and actually once again provide users with words.

The most desired feature, the ability to easily fix errors in tweets is now available by subscription only.

As of May 2022, Twitter is still aggressively inserting crap into my tweet feed that I don't want to see. Will this disgusting "feature" of Twitter change as the service goes under new ownership? I fear the changes that will come in the future will only make things worse.

Related: the end of Twitter.

Next: playing death dominoes


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