I must be the only one who thinks this is a good idea (not the 10,000-char limit in specific, but something much higher than 140-char).
Some of the most interesting ideas I've seen on Twitter were in tweetstorms, which is a pretty nasty and ugly hack itself. Proponents of the 140-char limit usually cite some notion of terseness and thought-density, but I see more half-formed ideas and deliberate grammar/spelling mangling to make things fit. That's not terseness, that's gray-matter-powered lossy compression.
But I'm also one of those crazy people who uses Facebook like others use Twitter - I don't write whole essays but 140 chars is like thinking through a straw.
(Side note: I also have a pet theory that Twitter's problems with epic shitstorms/political flamewars stems from the fact that you have people arguing politics/economics/important things with each other in 140 chars or less)
>I also have a pet theory that Twitter's problems with epic shitstorms/political flamewars stems from the fact that you have people arguing politics/economics/important things with each other in 140 chars or less
I'm pretty sure those arguments and "shit-storms" are occurring everywhere there is written text on the internet, regardless of character limitations.
Sure, though I feel like it's worse on Twitter than in most places for a few reasons: it's really easy to retweet and disseminate someone's post, and the public nature of accounts/tweets makes it very easy to dogpile.
On Facebook you might get some flak from your uncle, on a forum you might get into a tussle with another poster, but there are natural limits to the severity and the scale. On Twitter many of these limits are stripped away - it's very easy, and very common, to retweet someone "look at this fucking idiot" and invite your circles to pile on, many of whom will have never heard of the offender before.
This is also how harassment and abuse on Twitter is worse than other platforms - on Facebook you might get into a flamewar with your uncle and face awkward family dinners for a while, but on Twitter a dogpile is millions of users large, and you're statistically guaranteed to get a few people with legitimate screws loose in that bunch who might actually SWAT you or stalk you or otherwise take things way, way too far.
Add this to the fact that Twitter's length limits discourage nuance and encourage soundbites and you get IMO the worst intersection of soundbite culture, outrage culture, and massive built-in virality.
Some of the most interesting ideas I've seen on Twitter were in tweetstorms, which is a pretty nasty and ugly hack itself. Proponents of the 140-char limit usually cite some notion of terseness and thought-density, but I see more half-formed ideas and deliberate grammar/spelling mangling to make things fit. That's not terseness, that's gray-matter-powered lossy compression.
But I'm also one of those crazy people who uses Facebook like others use Twitter - I don't write whole essays but 140 chars is like thinking through a straw.
(Side note: I also have a pet theory that Twitter's problems with epic shitstorms/political flamewars stems from the fact that you have people arguing politics/economics/important things with each other in 140 chars or less)