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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Hi Maddy,
I hear what you are saying. Sorry that this doesn’t feel right to you. But to be clear, the only thing that appears in the Twitter post is your username and an excerpt of your comment. There’s no other data or user information shared whatsoever. If that bothers you, you could always change your username.
X is taken
Or is it?
Good luck with that
I agree with Maddy. I have resisted social media for about 20 years and don’t want to start now.
Thanks for the feedback. I’ll think a bit more about it. If it’s problematic I can turn it off. I just thought it’d be a cool way to share comments. But it’s not worth it to me if it hurts participation here.
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.
What’s your handle David?! Would love to follow you.
You are my handle.
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.
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.
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.
Hi anonymous. Can you explain a bit more about your concerns? This doesn’t make you “have social media”… It simply puts part of your comment on Twitter. You don’t even have a username, so I’m having trouble understanding why you are concerned. There would be literally zero of your personal data or anything posted to Twitter except a few of the words you type in your comment and then there would be a link back to this site. Thanks for helping me understand your concerns.
and if you don’t feel comfortable commenting, I’m happy to connect with you directly … you can text/call 503-706-8804 or email me at maus.jonathan@gmail.com
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.
I agree with what you say here, but I don’t think it applies to Twitter. Instagram and FB are horrible in that way, I totally agree and have teenage daughters so I’m a reliable source. But Twitter is a different animal completely. There are no young people on it and it’s more about sharing news and information and not fake versions of people’s lives. But if you disagree with the premise of social media in general, than I hear you. Thanks for sharing. I’m taking all this feedback into consideration.
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.
ok Marc. I’m not going to defend Twitter. Was making a point that I still believe is true that it isn’t the same as IG or FB, in terms of its ethics or its user demographics. Thanks for the feedback.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
thanks for the feedback soren.
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.
I agree Rudolph. But this has nothing to do with “joining” Twitter. Unless you mean that in your mind, posting your comments in this fashion, is the same as joining (which I interpret as having an account and thereby supporting the platform). Which I can totally understand, I just want to be clear about what’s going on.
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.
Do i remember Williams? Absolutely. Seared into my brain and I think about it a lot. I assume other people remember it too. They should, but I can understand why not everyone does. I’ll never forget it.
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.
I hear that Watts. I’m going to nuke this feature.
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.
Not really, no. I mean, we don’t really make any significant money from clicks/page views so it’s not something I really take into consideration when adding features to the site.
OK folks, I have heard enough and upon further thought I’ve decided to delete this feature. The @bikepdxcomments Twitter account is no longer active and all the posts that it made have been deleted along with it. I appreciate everyone’s feedback! I’ll continue to look for other ways to broaden our conversations, without broadcasting your words to other platforms without your permission.
Thanks for taking the feedback to heart.
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.