Hello!
The comments on this profile are unclaimed and thus are unverified.
Do they belong to you? Claim these comments.
Marjolein Katsma
Is this you? Claim Profile »
10 months ago
in Farewell to the ‘@’ - We Welcome the Meta Revolution on Stay N' Alive
SMS is a protocol - there's no such thing as an "SMS client" that could do something like "parsing". all there is is a field to enter a message in and a way to send it on its way.
All semantics needs to be inside that message - and remain there. And the same applies to any context where a message can be posted that is not a "microblogging client".
All semantics needs to be inside that message - and remain there. And the same applies to any context where a message can be posted that is not a "microblogging client".
1 reply
10 months ago
in Farewell to the ‘@’ - We Welcome the Meta Revolution on Stay N' Alive
So sorry to find you still don't get it, Jesse.
Twitter and identi.ca are not broken at all for embracing a useful convention: a @ to directly address a person (multiple ones in a single message) is not "clutter" at all, it's useful markup that allows any reader of a message to see at a glance who a message is addressed to - in any medium the message is rendered. Even if their interface doesn't support linking, the addressing remains clearly visible by means of this markup.
That's not broken; that's useful and very powerful. Auto-linking enhances that, but remember not all contexts where a message may be read may support linking: the @ stands on its own as useful markup for the reader, including all readers who are not addressees. Replacing @ by tagging addressees loses this advantage because it doesn't "travel" with the message itself and is application-dependent. At the poster's end, having the addressing part separated from the message makes it much harder to quickly fire off a message to one or more poeple - nothing beats to type one a few phrases and hit Enter.
No matter what "micro blogging clients" may be able to do - don't forget that not everyone uses a microblogging client. For instance, a Jabber client is not that - all it does is transport the *messages*. Same for SMS. And how on earth woudl I use SMS or Jabber to "tag" addresses? All I have is a field to enter a *message*, and a button or Enter to send it on its way.
The basic semantics needs to be in the message itself, not outside it - and addressees are very much part of the basic semantics. For this reason, tagging also doesn't fix the ambiguity problem that is /created/ by doing away with @ to directly address someone - @ already does that perfectly and no workaround does it as well as the original and widely-used markup convention (widely-used outside microblogging for years already, don't forget that - it was simply adopted, for a good reason).
I'm on the fence about hashtags though they are useful inside a message; if a message is about something already, just mention that and the meta layer won't be missed all that much in contexts that don't support this layer and have only the message content.
But giving up on @ is simply very, very shortsighted: it breaks what is not broken in the first place. You need to think wider than "microblogging client" - there are way more contexts in which our messages are created and more contexts even in which they appear (don't forget search engines!); and for some of us our major UI is not a microblogging client at all.
Twitter and identi.ca are not broken at all for embracing a useful convention: a @ to directly address a person (multiple ones in a single message) is not "clutter" at all, it's useful markup that allows any reader of a message to see at a glance who a message is addressed to - in any medium the message is rendered. Even if their interface doesn't support linking, the addressing remains clearly visible by means of this markup.
That's not broken; that's useful and very powerful. Auto-linking enhances that, but remember not all contexts where a message may be read may support linking: the @ stands on its own as useful markup for the reader, including all readers who are not addressees. Replacing @ by tagging addressees loses this advantage because it doesn't "travel" with the message itself and is application-dependent. At the poster's end, having the addressing part separated from the message makes it much harder to quickly fire off a message to one or more poeple - nothing beats to type one a few phrases and hit Enter.
No matter what "micro blogging clients" may be able to do - don't forget that not everyone uses a microblogging client. For instance, a Jabber client is not that - all it does is transport the *messages*. Same for SMS. And how on earth woudl I use SMS or Jabber to "tag" addresses? All I have is a field to enter a *message*, and a button or Enter to send it on its way.
The basic semantics needs to be in the message itself, not outside it - and addressees are very much part of the basic semantics. For this reason, tagging also doesn't fix the ambiguity problem that is /created/ by doing away with @ to directly address someone - @ already does that perfectly and no workaround does it as well as the original and widely-used markup convention (widely-used outside microblogging for years already, don't forget that - it was simply adopted, for a good reason).
I'm on the fence about hashtags though they are useful inside a message; if a message is about something already, just mention that and the meta layer won't be missed all that much in contexts that don't support this layer and have only the message content.
But giving up on @ is simply very, very shortsighted: it breaks what is not broken in the first place. You need to think wider than "microblogging client" - there are way more contexts in which our messages are created and more contexts even in which they appear (don't forget search engines!); and for some of us our major UI is not a microblogging client at all.
1 reply
jessestay
You and I will simply have to agree to disagree on this one. I've
stated my points.
stated my points.
10 months ago
in With Threaded Replies, Do We Really Need the ‘@’? on Stay N' Alive
Jesse,
IRC is a poor comparison, because you can address someone only by starting a message with their nick. At least I know of no IRC client that somehow automatically shows who a message is addressed to other than by the fact a msg starts with a nickname, followed by a comma or colon. Everything else is ambiguous.
In Twitter, I found the necessity to start a reply with a @nick a poor and needlessly limited implementation of the idea - even a tweet starting with 2 @nicks is still a reply only to the first.
(You're also incorrect addressing with @ was somehow "mostly a Twitter-invented custom": it's long been a wide-spread custom in forum and blog-comment discussions, a custom Twitter users simply - and quite logically - continued to use in a new context.)
The advantage of identi.ca's implementation is that you can address (without any ambiguity) anyone and "anymany" by @-addressing them anywhere in your post. Sentences can be more natural that way.
And, of course, the more people sign up, the greater the chance of ambiguity. Whether some word is a "common English word" is no argument here, of course - not all conversation is in English, and people may sign up who do not even know English: how could they "think twice" about that? - how would you know the difference between a nick and a word in /any/ language?
I really don't care that it takes all of 5 characters when one is addressing 5 people - and I'm an advocate of limiting to 140chars at the same time. There's no "clutter" in using @ - just clear intent that isn't present without it: without the @ in front of the nick of all you're addressing one simply can no longer see who you are addressing (if anyone at all).
You won't see me dropping any of my @s!
IRC is a poor comparison, because you can address someone only by starting a message with their nick. At least I know of no IRC client that somehow automatically shows who a message is addressed to other than by the fact a msg starts with a nickname, followed by a comma or colon. Everything else is ambiguous.
In Twitter, I found the necessity to start a reply with a @nick a poor and needlessly limited implementation of the idea - even a tweet starting with 2 @nicks is still a reply only to the first.
(You're also incorrect addressing with @ was somehow "mostly a Twitter-invented custom": it's long been a wide-spread custom in forum and blog-comment discussions, a custom Twitter users simply - and quite logically - continued to use in a new context.)
The advantage of identi.ca's implementation is that you can address (without any ambiguity) anyone and "anymany" by @-addressing them anywhere in your post. Sentences can be more natural that way.
And, of course, the more people sign up, the greater the chance of ambiguity. Whether some word is a "common English word" is no argument here, of course - not all conversation is in English, and people may sign up who do not even know English: how could they "think twice" about that? - how would you know the difference between a nick and a word in /any/ language?
I really don't care that it takes all of 5 characters when one is addressing 5 people - and I'm an advocate of limiting to 140chars at the same time. There's no "clutter" in using @ - just clear intent that isn't present without it: without the @ in front of the nick of all you're addressing one simply can no longer see who you are addressing (if anyone at all).
You won't see me dropping any of my @s!
1 reply
jessestay
Marjolein I use IRSSI and it doesn't require a ':' or ',' following the
username. In fact it will highlight a message and notify me if my username
is mentioned anywhere in someone's comment.
'@' was made popular by Twitter - I did admit it was around before Twitter
though.
The common-English words are the only reason I can see a need for "@"'s. I
still think there can be ways around that with well-written technology
though.
username. In fact it will highlight a message and notify me if my username
is mentioned anywhere in someone's comment.
'@' was made popular by Twitter - I did admit it was around before Twitter
though.
The common-English words are the only reason I can see a need for "@"'s. I
still think there can be ways around that with well-written technology
though.
10 months ago
in With Threaded Replies, Do We Really Need the ‘@’? on Stay N' Alive
Yes, the @ is still really necessary, for three reasons:
1. it addresses people: you can address other people than just the writer of the dent you're replying to
2. you can address one or more people without necessarily replying to anything/anyone at all, just starting a conversation
3. it is necessary for disambiguation: any word could be a nickname but you're not necessarily addressing that person (or even aware that it might be an existing nickname) when using that word
1. it addresses people: you can address other people than just the writer of the dent you're replying to
2. you can address one or more people without necessarily replying to anything/anyone at all, just starting a conversation
3. it is necessary for disambiguation: any word could be a nickname but you're not necessarily addressing that person (or even aware that it might be an existing nickname) when using that word
1 reply
jessestay
Marjolein 3 is the only one that really has any merit. For 1 and 2 I can
still address someone by simply posting their username and no @ symbol. For
#3 you'll have a few ambiguities, but the majority of mentions of a nickname
by your circle of friends will be actual nicknames - it will also make
people think twice before choosing a nickname that is a common English
word. This has been around in IRC clients for ages and no one has
complained. And again, that can all be solved by technology - there really
is no reason for the '@' symbol if the microblogging client just handles it
right. The @ clutters up Twitter and takes one character out that you could
be using in the 140 char allotment you already have.
Jesse
still address someone by simply posting their username and no @ symbol. For
#3 you'll have a few ambiguities, but the majority of mentions of a nickname
by your circle of friends will be actual nicknames - it will also make
people think twice before choosing a nickname that is a common English
word. This has been around in IRC clients for ages and no one has
complained. And again, that can all be solved by technology - there really
is no reason for the '@' symbol if the microblogging client just handles it
right. The @ clutters up Twitter and takes one character out that you could
be using in the 140 char allotment you already have.
Jesse
in fact that has some great uses. However, at the end of every SMS
request (on the server) is a client that can parse SMS requests. Just
as I mention it could easily parse out all @addresses and #hashtags,
and leave the body of the message so only pure content is left and the
remainder is sent as meta information back to the microblog service.
SMS should be treated like any other client, just as XMPP would be
treated as well.