The 500 character limit is an interesting constraint. It feels more like writing the abstract to a scientific paper, whereas 140 characters is closer to writing the title. A title only needs to state what you believe, but an abstract also needs to state why you believe it. Writing a good title is easy; writing a good abstract is much harder. I hope this survives. It's kind of fun.
@danielle Yes. Another aspect of that, for me, is that it feels like there's space to acknowledge uncertainty. I believe lots of things that I can express in 140 characters, but the interesting parts are usually the fuzzy edges of the belief, not the hard centre. And people meet at our edges.
@howfar Very much so. There are a lot of topics that I'd feel uncomfortable tweeting about because they are personal and sensitive to many people (myself included), and where my experiences differ from theirs in important ways. Expressing uncertainty and allowing ambiguity or diversity is (to me) an important part of politeness in those situations. 140 chars doesn't allow for much of that.
@danielle And I think we've already seen how that, over time, has led to a discourse dominated by those who are not focused on politeness. Which isn't always bad - I think that there are times when it has helped marginalised groups on Twitter resist tone policing - but it often amplifies the worst tendencies of (in particular privileged) groups, by quietening those who are more concerned about other people than they with scoring points.
