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I've just asked What does this tweeted Astronomy Plot of the Week mean? What does it represent?

I'm totally confused by twitter and its re-twittering practices and formats. I've done my best here but this post seems to be two or three tweets deep. I'm not sure if I've got it right or not.

But the main question here is to ask for answers that provide general guidelines for how to write and format tweet-based questions in Astronomy SE?

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Now that I understand your request better. Here's what's become the de facto standard for citing the text of a tweet elsewhere (using the tweet you used as an example):

From Twitter user BenneHolwerda (@BenneHolwerda):

And I think @SabineBellstedt and @_jessthorne summary graph deserves a spot for sure.

Jorge Villa
@Jurgenvilla ยท Mar 9
If you work on #SED fitting you definitely must have this figure. Thanks to @_jessthorne who took the time to make it!. I've been writing a paper introduction and let me tell you it's extremely useful to develop comparisons between the different fitters ๐Ÿ˜Š๐Ÿ”ญ๐Ÿค“

Source

In other words, pretty close to what you have but also credits the user who posted it.

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    $\begingroup$ Thanks! From time-to-time it's a challenge to articulate certain things such as cognitive "blind spots". Twitter and social media in general fall into my cognitive penumbra; this is a flashlight. $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Commented Aug 17, 2021 at 22:01
  • $\begingroup$ The first sentence in my question (i.e. before rather than after the tweet) is the same url as "Source" is here, I include the additional information "August 10 Astronomy Plot of the Week" to provide additional context, so I think that "crediting the user who posted it" was there already. I've adjusted the wording of that sentence a bit. The big difference is that I reproduced all of the links embedded in the text and you've left those out. Is that just a difference in our styles (or you're just a lot busier than I am) or should I not have done that? $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Commented Aug 21, 2021 at 22:40
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    $\begingroup$ @uhoh Looks fine to me, though you still don't really credit the user directly, just link to their tweet. Not worth nitpicking over though. The links in this case were all users and a hashtag, which can be easily found without a link, so I see them as optional. $\endgroup$
    – called2voyage Mod
    Commented Aug 22, 2021 at 1:33
  • $\begingroup$ Oh, "credit them" = "name them" rather than "cite them" with a link. Yes I see now, got it. Edited again. Thanks for your persistence. $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Commented Aug 22, 2021 at 1:43
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I feel like, in general, the fact that the question was inspired by a Tweet shouldn't be relevant to how the question is presented. In this case, your question boiled down to "Can you explain this plot?", and for a typical question of that form, we'd expect the asker to link to the paper (here, Thorne et al. 2021, mentioned in this Tweet) and explain what they do and don't understand about it. Even if none of the Tweets in the thread link to the paper, it might be possible to track it down the same ways you'd try to find the source of any other diagram.

It would certainly be good to link to the Tweet if it provides additional necessary context or is unfortunately the only source you're able to find for the diagram, but those both feel like edge cases.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks! Part of my question is about formatting the post properly, and this retweet is two or three levels deep so I'm not sure I've cited it correctly. So some advice about proper citing of retweets will be helpful to me as I'm totally befuddled by social media. $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Commented Aug 17, 2021 at 6:53
  • $\begingroup$ But certainly all of this is well-taken as well $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Commented Aug 17, 2021 at 10:26

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