A new way to follow BikePortland comments – UPDATED

UPDATE, 10/20 at 12:45 pm: Given reader feedback, I’ve decided to discontinue this feature. The @bikepdxcomments account has been deleted/deactivated and all the posts it once displayed are gone. Thanks everyone for your input. I’ll look for other ways to broaden and amplify our conversations. – Jonathan.

It’s no secret that we love our comment section. Now it’s easy to follow all of them using one of the most popular social media tools available: Twitter.

We’ve set up a new Twitter account that automagically posts every new BikePortland comment. If you’re on Twitter, just click over and follow @bikepdxcomments. That’s it! Once you follow that account you’ll see the new comments come into your feed. The Twitter posts will have the title of the BikePortland post, the name of the commenter, an excerpt of their comment, and a link that will take you directly to the comment in the thread on our site (note that when viewing BP on a cell phone, comments aren’t visible until you click “Leave a Comment”).

Speaking of our comments, we’re getting pretty close to the huge milestone of 500,000 approved comments! Right now we have 497,313 and at our current pace I estimate we’ll hit the 500K mark by February of 2022 or so. Maybe we’ll throw a party or something. At our 10th Birthday party, one of my favorite moments of the night happened when we invited folks on-stage to leave live comments.

Also keep in mind that we are still holding back every single comment until it can be read by either Lisa Caballero or myself. We are doing this to ensure that discussions on here are as productive as possible. If you have an issue with a comment, please let me know and we’ll take a second look.

Below is a preview of the new @BikePDXComments account on Twitter. Follow it if you want to stay engaged with our collective community wisdom!

https://twitter.com/bikepdxcomments

— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org
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Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Founder of BikePortland (in 2005). Father of three. North Portlander. Basketball lover. Car owner and driver. If you have questions or feedback about this site or my work, feel free to contact me at @jonathan_maus on Twitter, via email at maus.jonathan@gmail.com, or phone/text at 503-706-8804. Also, if you read and appreciate this site, please become a supporter.

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X
X
2 years ago

X is taken

X
X
2 years ago
Reply to  X

Or is it?

X
X
2 years ago
Reply to  X

Good luck with that

mcl pedaler
mcl pedaler
2 years ago

I agree with Maddy. I have resisted social media for about 20 years and don’t want to start now.

David Hampsten
David Hampsten
2 years ago
Reply to  mcl pedaler

I’ve entered the twittershere, a realm I’ve never been a part of by intent, but immortality is thine. Stuff happens. Long live the revolution.

David Hampsten
David Hampsten
2 years ago

You are my handle.

 Jason
 Jason
2 years ago
Reply to  David Hampsten

The thing is, you actually haven’t. If I follow, you’re saying that you accept your comments will be displayed in Twitter, but you don’t have a Twitter account yourself?

Your comment is being replicated to Twitter, but you aren’t – you aren’t forced to use Twitter. Once you put your comment in cyberspace, it’s no longer in your control. Anyone can screenshot anything on the internet and put it in another platform. JM is keeping the context and continuity for the sake of reaching a wider audience. I see nothing wrong with that.

David Hampsten
David Hampsten
2 years ago
Reply to   Jason

You are correct, my comments once released are no longer in my control – that is true for everyone else too. It’s the same thing for Facebook and Linkedin, two other platforms I do not subscribe to. Very likely others have made comments about me and my comments on other platforms are widespread in those. I accept that – not that there’s anything I can do about it other than being completely silent, which goes against my nature. IMO, part of what make public advocacy so exciting is how one’s comments can be taken out of context, twisted, and otherwise modified, be it written comments, video, TV interviews (I’ve done a few), survey feedback, comments at hearings and commission meetings, and so on – it’s all part of the public sphere, it’s what many of us community advocates and organizers do – and on the long term, I think it’s ultimately better for an open society and democratic processes.

And no, I don’t have accounts with Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, and most other platforms other than email. Instead of getting sucked in to such bottomless black holes of time wasting, I prefer to go outside and work with others to actually change my world.

 
 
2 years ago

Same. This is the last comment I’ll be posting until this feature is removed. There’s a reason I don’t have social media.

 
 
2 years ago

I philosophically disagree with too much about social media. It’s so toxic towards especially our younger generations, painting a picture of life that is not based in reality and resulting in many forms of mental distress. I was becoming an adult right at the time when social media was becoming popular, so got to experience this firsthand. It’s not really about my own privacy, but rather about how I disagree with the premise of social media as a whole.

Marc Visnick
Marc Visnick
2 years ago

With the greatest of respect: Twitter is not “a different animal completely,” and most certainly *does* have young people on it (see e.g. https://www.statista.com/statistics/283119/age-distribution-of-global-twitter-users/). I certainly respect your desire to increase mindshare & work with a more diverse array of communications platforms, but at day’s end Twitter is just as brutally toxic as Instagram and Facebook, both in the original tweets, and the replies to those tweets. Case in recent point: Donald Trump +Twitter. A match made in hell, sharing a dangerous, misguided, often fake version of news, information and people’s lives.

 Jason
 Jason
2 years ago
Reply to   

So, let’s get on Twitter and represent! Set up a place where we can demonstrate kindness. Also, the comments on this page are better than they used to be, quite toxic in the day, but still not warm and fuzzy by any means. So, that’s a strawman.

 Jason
 Jason
2 years ago

Once you post on this site, you relinquish control of that comment. Your comment is now in cyberspace, I can take a screen shot of it and post it to Facebook, or someone else might screen shot it and post it to Reddit. That is not in your control and that is the previous state. Now, JM is simply replicating that comment to another platform with the same branding your comment was made with originally. I don’t see anything wrong with that.

David Hampsten
David Hampsten
2 years ago
Reply to   Jason

Many people like to eat sausage, soy sauce, and tempeh, but they don’t like to have a detailed explanation of how they are made. Everyone is going to die – eventually, somehow – but generally it’s not something that people like to discuss. What you are pointing out is totally true and has always been true, but most people don’t want to hear it, nor do they want to learn the gory details of why it is true. Out of sight, out of mind.

 Jason
 Jason
2 years ago
Reply to  David Hampsten

No one wants to see the sausage being made.

At some point though, there is an increased risk to ignoring the world around us. Certainly, being well informed allows an individual to make better decisions.

Granpa
Granpa
2 years ago

I recently posted a comment on the sad state of Portland and another commenter had posted my comment on Reddit to gloat over the city’s failures. That was not my goal or sentiment. And doubtful the editorial stance of BikePortland. I am a retro-grouch and don’t Twitter. I look back at the last 4 years of the Trump administration with his manic tweeting, and know the platform can have a destructive outcome. I fail to see how embracing Twitter will further a positive bikey vibe

soren
soren
2 years ago

Twitter and other social media are fundamentally immoral due to their algorithmic-inducement of hate, shallow division, health-endangering shame, paranoia, and conspiracy theories. I intentionally deleted all of my social media accounts several years ago and I will not participate in a venue that feeds my comments into this pathological industry.

Rudolph Schmidt
Rudolph Schmidt
2 years ago

Don’t get me wrong – by no means is Twitter as bad an actor as Facebook. But this does not mean that they’re actually a good actor. I won’t join any platform that’s harmful to democratic norms, and that includes Twitter. So they banned the evil orange clown, at the very end of his term – great. By that time he had already done immense damage not just to our constitutional framework, but also to the environment.

X
X
2 years ago

You’re kind of getting shelled here, but maybe it’s just another Williams St. flap. Remember Williams St? I barely can.

That said, I abhor Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Watts
Watts
2 years ago

Also not a fan. I don’t like the idea of people having a conversation based on my comments that I am not, and cannot, be party to. Sure, it can happen anyway, but why automate it?

I don’t like people talking behind my back. And I also don’t want to feed the outrage beast that Twitter has become.

Austin
Austin
2 years ago

Would this take away ad revenue you generate from multiple page views/clicks/counts?

If folks can follow a thread on Twitter, they may not come back here to see what the latest comments have been.

 
 
2 years ago

Thanks for taking the feedback to heart.

Bicycling Al
Bicycling Al
2 years ago

Thanks for changing your mind, Jonathan. I was going to have to abstain from Bike Portland comments because of this. I do appreciate that I can continue posting here. Thank you.

Remember that the product of facebook and twitter are YOU! You are their product. Facebook makes $32 a year for every account. THAT is what they sell. Your data harvested whether you agreed to it or not. Yes, they actually gather data behind your back and without your knowledge. Even those who don’t participate are involved however. facebook keeps shadow profiles of people they know exist but haven’t actually signed up yet. Their “friends” are the ones divulging this information whether willing or not. We really need to get a handle on this. It’s a cancer.

But thank you for taking community feedback to heart.