Why We Should Move Away From Twitter

With only 140 characters available per tweet, it can be exceptionally difficult to form a coherent argument for or against something on twit-

Shit, okay lemme try again.

Due to the 140 character limit on twitter, I've noticed it's harder for people to get their whole idea on a subject when arguing over twitte-

Closer...

140 character limit is fucking retarded. If your argument is capable to be understood in that limit it must be simple as fuck and have no ra-

Fuck Twitter.

Hey everyone, on this first installment of my rants on the community, I'm going to tackle why I think we should move away from Twitter, and the potential effects it could have in fostering closer communication between new and old players.

1. Character limit is ass.

As I showed earlier, it can be tough to get a full thought out in that limit. You have to meticulously chose your words carefully, shorten things to u or 2 to save characters, limit punctuation, etc. While you may be able to get ONE thought across, imagine how difficult it is to fully communicate what you're trying to say when you're engaged in an argument, be it level headed or heated. You only are able to get one full idea across, if that. This leads to people not fully grasping the argument being presented by the other party, misinterpreting their points, and overall leads to less and less understanding and communication between parties. Honestly, if you are capable of wording a well thought out argument in 140 characters consistently, you're probably a god at the English language. However, you're one person, and the rest of us struggle with that bullshit and fail to get our points across.

2. Arguments often devolve into trying to be coolest / wittiest.

I'm gonna bring up a dead horse here because it perfectly shows my point: the whole Chuppa and JFlynn drama. If you completely missed it, you really need to come out from under your rock. There were several instances of people being overly aggressive to the other party, instead of trying to work out differences. I noticed Justin did it on two separate occasions when talking with Jonathan Evans (Ezrael), and Blake Hopper (Poison To This Community) [that's sarcasm, in case you're dumb] did it to Justin the next day when there were clearing things up. While I'm sure there are multiple other instances, these are very recent, sticks out as a huge blunder by the community, and clearly showcases why Twitter isn't healthy for us.

The first instance of this is when Jonathan used caps to emphasize his point, to which Justin completely ignored it, and made fun of him for using caps lock. While some people may find it funny, the problem is Jonathan is 100% trying to work out the issue and clear the air, but Justin wanted to be cheeky, and nothing is gained from the exchange other than everyone getting a little more pissed off and maybe a little smugness.

The second instance was when Jon replied to that, and called him out on avoiding discussing just to try and be funny, to with Justin had another snarky comeback.  This one bothers me more, because if he truly "[didn't] have to debate," then he wouldn't have been replying in the first place. But when Jon keeps asking to discuss things, he blows him off. Whether he truly was watching HBO is irrelevant, it's that he dodges after already ignoring him and trying to be funny.

Now I know I kind of said Justin is a bit of a prick, but I don't have anything against the guy. He does a lot of good to get new players interested, and I'm really not looking for more shit fests, I just used him as an example because it's fresh in our minds and I think it showcases the problem with Twitter as a social media platform when our community is in such an argumentative state. He is not what is wrong, but Twitter enables people to be snappy and snarky more easily.

With that, I'm going to call my good friend Blake a bit of a bastard and unnecessarily rude when providing proof to Justin about him not being rude to him. I think Blake was right to provide proof that he tweeted good things about the video, but I think him saying "since you're all about proof" is extremely unnecessary, a bit of a jab against Justin, and doesn't correctly run parallel to him trying to patch things up. I get in all of these situations people are frustrated and upset, but Twitter is all about choosing your words carefully, and that is not a way to do it. He is clearing the air, and then makes fun of him a little. Things worked out, but I'm sure Justin wasn't too excited to read that sarcastic comment from him.

Please for the love of God do not make that whole drama shit storm the only thing you take out of this post...

3. Choosing who you follow excludes new players in the community.

We've all got those followers. They have VGC at the end of their handle, or they say they're a VGC player in their bio, but you've never heard of them, they have like >100 followers, and follow all the big VGC players. These are new players, looking to get involved in the community. But are we gonna follow them back and make them feel accepted? No. It's your feed, you follow people who tweet things you want to see. I doubt they feel like no one likes them, I mean they probably accept they're just new people in the community, but the problem is we don't communicate with them. Any communication is good communication, and they just read what we say and don't reply, or we ignore what they say. 

I'm not saying we go to constant communication with them, as we choose to follow our friends and communicate primarily with them for a reason, but increasing dialogue with newer players can and will foster them to be better players, posters, and people. Twitter does not allow for that.

4. When things get sour, people turn to a better outlet to communicate.

Again I'm going to bring up Chuppa, because he is a prime example. When he started drama with JFlynn, he immediately got on IRC and Skype and talked with numerous people to see if he was justifiable with his response, to explain his point of view, and to discuss things. The NB Admins who primarily sided with Justin in that debacle were on IRC, and he talked with them about it privately. But why there? Maybe it's because there, he isn't limited by a character limit. He can elaborate on his thoughts and why he did what he did, and can explain his point of view. None of these things happened on Twitter. And there's a reason. Chuppa knows, his friends he talked with know, the people he PM'd know. It's easier to communicate when you're not restricted the way Twitter does.

Solution:

So I hope you realize that Twitter is absolutely not the place to discuss things, but where do we go if not there? IRC was a decent option maybe in 2013, but the NB IRC channel is just the old farts who have been around forever, have their own social circle and inside jokes, and honestly probably wouldn't be too excited if the floodgates were opened to the masses. There's already a massive Skype call of like 84 people, and that seems to be a good number since not everyone is active, but again it's mainly old farts and we splinter into our own personal social circles even there. So where do we go?

To me the solution is simple. We've had a place to discuss things the whole time: Nuggetbridge forums. Yes, they've really gone to shit lately, but you're not limited to 140 characters, everyone's voice is heard there, or at least seen and read by some, and while people may still go to private to work out differences when things get bad, it still is a much more positive environment to go to. The limited discussion we've had on NB this past season is a great indication of why things need to go there. When AZ posted the feedback thread, we had several people give terrific insight on their season, what they think needs to change, and why it should be changed. You don't get that on Twitter! However, when he tweeted the proposed changes to CP distribution on Twitter, we got Zach simply saying "I will not play next year" Zach at least had the foresight to say, this deserves a thread post, but still, to anyone who reads that he comes off aggressive, rude, and dead serious. Yes, it clearly indicates to AZ that he thinks there is a serious problem with his proposed changes, but that is 100% not the way to do it. The way he went about it on the forums is the way to do it, and that's why we should move back.

Also: I will be making a thread on NB so if you want to reply to me, I would greatly prefer if you did it there for all to see! I am trying to make a difference, so help me out!