How Twitter replies *acutally work*. With proof.

gistfile1.md

<+elliottcable> fotoverite ⁓ Basically, there’s two situations in which a tweet from @A will not show up to
                person @C, who follows @A
<+elliottcable> 1. if the tweet *starts* with an @ character as the very first character, followed by at
                least one legal username character
<+elliottcable> 2. if the tweet is marked as a “reply̦” to another tweet, with the in_reply_to_status_id
                property
<+elliottcable> now, neither of the above apply *if* @A is *also* following the third person, @B (for
                instance, if the tweet *started* with @B, or if the in_reply_to_status_id was a tweet by @B.)
<+elliottcable> That is the *entirety of how it works*.
<+elliottcable> It’s a very long-standing belief that if you stick something before the @ at the start of a
                tweet after clicking reply, it will make it *no longer a reply*.
<+elliottcable> This is not true.
<+elliottcable> It still has an in_reply_to_status_id set, and it still WILL NOT SHOW UP to people not
                following the person you’re replying to, but whom follow *you*!
< mordof> elliottcable: have you tested that out before?
<+elliottcable> If you truely want to mangle the conversation-chain and annoying your followers, you need to
                *manually create a new tweet from scratch* (not clicking reply!), and *type the name out* (or
                copy-paste it in, or tab-complete it … whatever you use in your client.)
<+elliottcable> That is how you create a tweet without an in_reply_to_status_id.
<+elliottcable> Of course, you still have to avoid starting it with an @ symbol, which means doing .@this
                (or, if you have half a fucking ounce of style and taste, you’ll re-word the tweet to fit the
                @name in the middle instead.)
<+elliottcable> mordof ⁓ yes, multiple times. It’s been that way since day one; it’s never changed, that has
                *always* been a myth.

Proof of the above. Only the fourth and last of the following tweets is visible to somebody following @elliottcable, but not @notelliottcable:

• Tweet with both in_reply_to_status_id and an initial @ character: https://twitter.com/elliottcable/status/107731902466756608
• Tweet with in_reply_to_status_id, only: https://twitter.com/elliottcable/status/107731957508603904
• Tweet with an initial @ character, only: https://twitter.com/elliottcable/status/107737458128596992
• Tweet with neither, the only one to show up to the non-follower: https://twitter.com/elliottcable/status/107732178791706626

My huble suggestion: instead of mangling the @‌reply chain (which is terribly annoying to those people who follow you, and want to follow it with their client’s “conversation” feature), and instead of having to do weird backflips with creating new tweets and copy-pasting over names, simply do the following when you want all of your followers to see some of your @‌replies.

Create a second account, @‌reply from the second account, and retweet those replies from your first account. Then, everybody will see them.

It’s not perfect, but it works much better for everybody (you, the conversation participants, and your followers.)

+1

This is great info. But I hope you read over your suggestion and realize how ridiculous it is. Requiring people to maintain 2 accounts and jump through hoops just to... share a tweet with their followers? Haven't we gone astray somewhere?

What you've done is tell us that the one hacky workaround we had for accomplishing something we all want to do sometimes is completely invalid. And there's no good alternative. That sucks.

yeah the 'get a new account' portion -1

@polotek, @csanz: Not disagreeing that it sucks, but we’re stuck with it. I was one of the most outspoken advocates of reverting the Reply Nerf of 2009, way-back-when; it became obvious that @twitter has no plans to do anything whatsoever about this. They like-and-want it this way.

Given that we’re stuck with it, an extra account (which most clients make trivially easy to manage) for holding (and then retweeting-from-your-main-account) conversations is the best solution for all involved.