Bluesky takes to the air
February 6, 2024 10:53 AM Subscribe
Previously limited to users by invitation only, the X (née Twitter) competitor Bluesky is now open to the public. The culture currently encourges aggressive muting and/or blocking of trolls, and there’s no single algorithm that promotes or popularizes any particular individual.
Like Mastodon, it was developed with an eye toward federation, though it’s not as far along in that regard, though the paper describing the AT protocol was just published. (Previously)
This seems to be an advertisement.
posted by mattiv at 10:59 AM on February 6 [12 favorites]
posted by mattiv at 10:59 AM on February 6 [12 favorites]
I dunno about other folks on Bluesky, but everyone I follow have pretty much just prepped their block buttons to be used without prejudice to ensure a continued stable environment.
posted by Atreides at 11:01 AM on February 6 [16 favorites]
posted by Atreides at 11:01 AM on February 6 [16 favorites]
This seems to be an advertisement.
"Blue" is literally in the name tho
posted by gwint at 11:04 AM on February 6 [27 favorites]
"Blue" is literally in the name tho
posted by gwint at 11:04 AM on February 6 [27 favorites]
I find Bluesky unbelievably boring, but I'm not sure releasing rabid dogs and zombies into the house was a very good solution.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 11:15 AM on February 6 [9 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 11:15 AM on February 6 [9 favorites]
Nitter has fallen, I figure it's time for Bluesky in addition to Mastodon.
posted by airing nerdy laundry at 11:17 AM on February 6 [2 favorites]
posted by airing nerdy laundry at 11:17 AM on February 6 [2 favorites]
I joined BlueSky and Threads at about the same time, and as dumb as Threads firehose feed is, it worked on me. I barely follow anyone on BlueSky and don't really know how to do the work to find people I might want to follow so I barely see anything interesting to comment on, while I am constantly on Threads.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:22 AM on February 6 [1 favorite]
posted by jacquilynne at 11:22 AM on February 6 [1 favorite]
I have found BlueSky so comfortable that I haven't had to block anyone. But god, the idea of a flood of noisy nonsense coming in without the ability to mute words is so scary.
posted by mittens at 11:25 AM on February 6 [8 favorites]
posted by mittens at 11:25 AM on February 6 [8 favorites]
I've been on Bluesky for a good eight months now, and the trans community on there is incredible. I'm subscribed to a bunch of mute and blocklists for bad actors, and because of both of these, it's been the most fun I've ever had on social media.
Hopefully it stays fun now that it's no longer a gated community.
posted by SansPoint at 11:27 AM on February 6 [25 favorites]
Hopefully it stays fun now that it's no longer a gated community.
posted by SansPoint at 11:27 AM on February 6 [25 favorites]
I really like Bluesky so far. I really do hope they implement the mute fuction soon, though.
posted by maryellenreads at 11:28 AM on February 6
posted by maryellenreads at 11:28 AM on February 6
I've followed about half of my Twitter follows on BlueSky (about ~100 some people) but the feed is pretty slow-going, and so far dominated by like the same 10 posters.
I'll probably start checking both and hopefully over time see the activity increase on BlueSky and decrease on Twitter, but honestly don't see that happening for a while - so many heavy Twitter users have big Group Chats going on in their DMs, and they probably won't migrate until BlueSky has that functionality. Kind of a botch I think to open it up without that.
posted by windbox at 11:29 AM on February 6 [1 favorite]
I'll probably start checking both and hopefully over time see the activity increase on BlueSky and decrease on Twitter, but honestly don't see that happening for a while - so many heavy Twitter users have big Group Chats going on in their DMs, and they probably won't migrate until BlueSky has that functionality. Kind of a botch I think to open it up without that.
posted by windbox at 11:29 AM on February 6 [1 favorite]
I definitely don't need another thing to scroll, but I made an account to save my name, as usual. I was heartened to see some of the people I missed from Twitter in my first few scroll downs. Still, Jack Dorsey is involved and that means it is bad on its face. Then again Twitter was the same way and the people turned it into something great for a while.
posted by ob1quixote at 11:36 AM on February 6 [2 favorites]
posted by ob1quixote at 11:36 AM on February 6 [2 favorites]
But... it's Jack Dorsey.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 11:37 AM on February 6 [14 favorites]
posted by Cardinal Fang at 11:37 AM on February 6 [14 favorites]
If you're going to try BlueSky, use "Feeds"
Add Dog Pics (does what it says on the tin), Quiet Posters (shows only folks you follow you rarely post), and OnlyPosts (it removes reskeets/retweets and replies). Pin those. Cycle between them. Dog Pics and the like are important because it'll include people you *don't* follow, but who post on the theme. I'm not sure how they do it, but it's magic, and it makes me smile. There's a good Astronomy feed, and lots of other ones, to fit all your needs, I'm sure. Once you use it for a while, unpin some of those default feeds
posted by DigDoug at 11:43 AM on February 6 [8 favorites]
Add Dog Pics (does what it says on the tin), Quiet Posters (shows only folks you follow you rarely post), and OnlyPosts (it removes reskeets/retweets and replies). Pin those. Cycle between them. Dog Pics and the like are important because it'll include people you *don't* follow, but who post on the theme. I'm not sure how they do it, but it's magic, and it makes me smile. There's a good Astronomy feed, and lots of other ones, to fit all your needs, I'm sure. Once you use it for a while, unpin some of those default feeds
posted by DigDoug at 11:43 AM on February 6 [8 favorites]
I've been enjoying it so far. I've had to follow tons of people to get an active timeline (and don't attract many followers with my ham-based humor). I hope it starts getting popular with the podcasts I listen to. So far, few of them or any of their hosts or producers seem to be on. I've found a few MeFites that I followed on twitter. I just added bsky to my profile if anyone wants to find me.
posted by slogger at 11:44 AM on February 6 [3 favorites]
posted by slogger at 11:44 AM on February 6 [3 favorites]
Is there some clever way I can read and post both on Mastodon and BlueSky (and maybe Threads) with the same app? For Android? I'm not sure I'm up for establishing an all-new social media presence, but if my friends who say Mastodon is too hard could read my posts and I could read theirs, that'd be good.
I realize the best solution is those sites being federated. But since that isn't a thing yet, if I could post to Mastodon and one or both of the other two from the same interface, cool. And if I could dump posts from different services into the same reader app, also cool.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:46 AM on February 6 [3 favorites]
I realize the best solution is those sites being federated. But since that isn't a thing yet, if I could post to Mastodon and one or both of the other two from the same interface, cool. And if I could dump posts from different services into the same reader app, also cool.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:46 AM on February 6 [3 favorites]
i post my art on bluesky, though little else, and get pretty good engagement for how comparatively few people follow me. i don't hate it. i'm just annoyed that the mastodon federation isn't working yet. i don't like having to open multiple apps to post things.
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:53 AM on February 6 [3 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:53 AM on February 6 [3 favorites]
I suspect twitter shall die since they killed visibility when not logged in, first at twitter.com and then by killing nitter. We linked to tweets before, mostly because they'd be short but include context, but no longer much reasons to do so.
I'd several extremely productive years when I abandonded twitter, after mostly abandoning metafitler years earlier. It's enough reason to stay off mastadon, bluesky, etc for several more years.
posted by jeffburdges at 11:57 AM on February 6 [3 favorites]
I'd several extremely productive years when I abandonded twitter, after mostly abandoning metafitler years earlier. It's enough reason to stay off mastadon, bluesky, etc for several more years.
posted by jeffburdges at 11:57 AM on February 6 [3 favorites]
Threads is in the process of embracing (extending? extinguishing?) the fediverse, but predictably there is dissent.
posted by credulous at 11:59 AM on February 6
posted by credulous at 11:59 AM on February 6
I can read posts chronologically in Bluesky, which I can't in threads. Bluesky just looks nicer than Mastadon. These are my hard hitting reasons for slowly pulling the leech of Twitter off to replace it with whatever Blue is. A deranged butterfly I guess.
posted by Atreides at 12:03 PM on February 6 [6 favorites]
posted by Atreides at 12:03 PM on February 6 [6 favorites]
BlueSky for me is Barbelith friends, MeFites, and cool comics people. Lots of folks on there are very good about not reposting shitty takes and encouraging others to blockity block block if someone is a Turd Hat. I am not a prolific poster but in the time I have had my BlueSky account I have yet to encounter a Shit Bird in the wild. Unlike Twitter before I made my account private.
posted by Kitteh at 12:10 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
posted by Kitteh at 12:10 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
Also, for those who were fans of TweeDeck back in it's heyday, there is deck.blue available for BlueSky!
posted by evilangela at 12:17 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
posted by evilangela at 12:17 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
I could see the good social media landscape settling on Mastodon for indepth topics (by default it has a much higher length limit, and individual instances can increase it even more), and Bluesky for an easier-to-use, more Twitter-like experience.
I think/hope that the Fediverse becomes bigger, and it's a lot more than Mastodon. It certainly has its problems. It's not that Nazis and spam don't exist there, it's that those users, and the instances that allow them, get blocked/defederated, so they get siloed off. That means you don't have to interact with them and they find it harder to harass you, but it doesn't mean they don't exist or can't talk to each other. There's also inter-instance drama and instances shutting down, sometimes unexpectedly.
As a result of things like that, it's a lot harder to say a single definite thing about Mastodon because it can look so much different to different people, which isn't so evident now but could become evident in the future. Also there's clunky UI. Trying to follow someone from a link outside of Mastodon results in a case where the official method is to copy their link onto the clipboard, go to your home instance, paste the link into the search box, then follow them from the results.
Conversely, Bluesky is much like a less feature-filled, much quieter Twitter. Bluesky is technically simpler than Mastodon, which itself is an advantage: less to go wrong. Mastodon is really quite a different thing from Bluesky, it's trying something much greater, but to someone who doesn't care about any of that, and doesn't mind that it's the original Twitter billionaire guy behind it, they might latch onto it.
In culture, I've seen more old Twitter big name people on Bluesky, with some notable exceptions, but more people I knew more personally on Mastodon. Some of those exceptions: Foone (device hacking), 4am (Apple II software preservation), Technology Connections (Youtuber) From my perspective at least Mastodon skews much geekier, but then I've intentionally followed more tech and retro computing people. Bluesky has Frank Conniff and Jon Bois.
George Takai is on both: I think he uses a tool to crosspost, or has a social media person who posts on each. Jason Scott (Internet Archive) is on both.
Mastodon had a history before Twitter's collapse, and has more substantial subcultures, and depending on who you follow (or who others on your server follow if you use the Federated feed) you might come in contact with retro computer Mastodon, furry Mastodon, trans Mastodon, or others. I haven't read enough Bluesky specifically to know if that's the case there, but because it's all one big thing, instead of a bunch of little things that interoperate, its groups aren't so siloed off. That isn't necessarily better or worse, just different.
If you want to try Mastodon, as I have frequently mentioned, Pronoiac here runs an unofficial Metafilter Mastodon server, and gives accounts to people who ask for them over MeMail. If you want to try Bluesky, well, there's nothing stopping you anymore!
posted by JHarris at 12:24 PM on February 6 [7 favorites]
I think/hope that the Fediverse becomes bigger, and it's a lot more than Mastodon. It certainly has its problems. It's not that Nazis and spam don't exist there, it's that those users, and the instances that allow them, get blocked/defederated, so they get siloed off. That means you don't have to interact with them and they find it harder to harass you, but it doesn't mean they don't exist or can't talk to each other. There's also inter-instance drama and instances shutting down, sometimes unexpectedly.
As a result of things like that, it's a lot harder to say a single definite thing about Mastodon because it can look so much different to different people, which isn't so evident now but could become evident in the future. Also there's clunky UI. Trying to follow someone from a link outside of Mastodon results in a case where the official method is to copy their link onto the clipboard, go to your home instance, paste the link into the search box, then follow them from the results.
Conversely, Bluesky is much like a less feature-filled, much quieter Twitter. Bluesky is technically simpler than Mastodon, which itself is an advantage: less to go wrong. Mastodon is really quite a different thing from Bluesky, it's trying something much greater, but to someone who doesn't care about any of that, and doesn't mind that it's the original Twitter billionaire guy behind it, they might latch onto it.
In culture, I've seen more old Twitter big name people on Bluesky, with some notable exceptions, but more people I knew more personally on Mastodon. Some of those exceptions: Foone (device hacking), 4am (Apple II software preservation), Technology Connections (Youtuber) From my perspective at least Mastodon skews much geekier, but then I've intentionally followed more tech and retro computing people. Bluesky has Frank Conniff and Jon Bois.
George Takai is on both: I think he uses a tool to crosspost, or has a social media person who posts on each. Jason Scott (Internet Archive) is on both.
Mastodon had a history before Twitter's collapse, and has more substantial subcultures, and depending on who you follow (or who others on your server follow if you use the Federated feed) you might come in contact with retro computer Mastodon, furry Mastodon, trans Mastodon, or others. I haven't read enough Bluesky specifically to know if that's the case there, but because it's all one big thing, instead of a bunch of little things that interoperate, its groups aren't so siloed off. That isn't necessarily better or worse, just different.
If you want to try Mastodon, as I have frequently mentioned, Pronoiac here runs an unofficial Metafilter Mastodon server, and gives accounts to people who ask for them over MeMail. If you want to try Bluesky, well, there's nothing stopping you anymore!
posted by JHarris at 12:24 PM on February 6 [7 favorites]
Is there some clever way I can read and post both on Mastodon and BlueSky (and maybe Threads) with the same app?
That'd be really nice if Dorsey doesn't kill tools that try it, which I could definitely see happening.
posted by JHarris at 12:29 PM on February 6
That'd be really nice if Dorsey doesn't kill tools that try it, which I could definitely see happening.
posted by JHarris at 12:29 PM on February 6
Is there some clever way I can read and post both on Mastodon and BlueSky (and maybe Threads) with the same app?
I thought they were all supposed to join the Fediverse at some point. Whenever that happens, you could use something like Ivory to do that. But who knows when that will happen.
posted by eekernohan at 12:33 PM on February 6
I thought they were all supposed to join the Fediverse at some point. Whenever that happens, you could use something like Ivory to do that. But who knows when that will happen.
posted by eekernohan at 12:33 PM on February 6
I think my default questions for any new media feed have become:
1) Are Nazis explicitly allowed/encouraged? If yes fuck off
2) Is there advertising baked in? See above
3) Can I read through my feed a few times a week, and hit the end of "new content" within a reasonable amount of time?
I mean advertising, I get it, not as hard a NO as "we welcome Nazis", but I'd really prefer not to be bombarded with content trying to monetize me.
The last point though? From a mental health perspective, an endless feed of content to doomscroll is a bad thing. What with Mastodon not pulling in anything I didn't explicitly ask to see, I have found that I can browse for a bit but feel no pressing compunction to obsessively check it daily and stay buried in the feed for hours. I truly feel better not having my attention constantly demanded.
(If someone made it like 1-click-install easy to roll out a "friendstodon" instance where I can ensure it's literally only the 8-10 friends and family members I actually want to talk to, I'd set that up stat, but that would require convincing them to join Masto and that seems to be a hard sell for those already addicted to Facebook/Insta etc.)
posted by caution live frogs at 12:35 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]
1) Are Nazis explicitly allowed/encouraged? If yes fuck off
2) Is there advertising baked in? See above
3) Can I read through my feed a few times a week, and hit the end of "new content" within a reasonable amount of time?
I mean advertising, I get it, not as hard a NO as "we welcome Nazis", but I'd really prefer not to be bombarded with content trying to monetize me.
The last point though? From a mental health perspective, an endless feed of content to doomscroll is a bad thing. What with Mastodon not pulling in anything I didn't explicitly ask to see, I have found that I can browse for a bit but feel no pressing compunction to obsessively check it daily and stay buried in the feed for hours. I truly feel better not having my attention constantly demanded.
(If someone made it like 1-click-install easy to roll out a "friendstodon" instance where I can ensure it's literally only the 8-10 friends and family members I actually want to talk to, I'd set that up stat, but that would require convincing them to join Masto and that seems to be a hard sell for those already addicted to Facebook/Insta etc.)
posted by caution live frogs at 12:35 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]
I'm glad that there are a few alternatives to Twitter for people that want them, but I have successfully excised Twitter from my life and don't really need what this type of social media does to my emotional state, so I signed up to reserve my name and then I plan to never use it.
posted by rhymedirective at 12:38 PM on February 6 [6 favorites]
posted by rhymedirective at 12:38 PM on February 6 [6 favorites]
If Mastodon is any example, all these new people will notice that 99% of their interactions are people telling them they are "Blueskying" wrong, and in short order the "too many people on here now!" people will have their problem solved for them.
Of course, that might mean Bluesky as a whole might then be on a path to shutting down. Because unlike Mastodon, you can't just run your own Bluesky server using your own money. So, having enough users is a requirement to keep things running.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 12:43 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
Of course, that might mean Bluesky as a whole might then be on a path to shutting down. Because unlike Mastodon, you can't just run your own Bluesky server using your own money. So, having enough users is a requirement to keep things running.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 12:43 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
I'm enjoying Bluesky (am Silversprite on there - say hi if you want) in a similar though not identical way to 2012 Twitter. Some of my Twitter circle are also on there, as are a bunch of MeFites, some druids, and a recent increase in climate change scientists and researchers. The academic games community comes over in waves and is partially there (gradually linking a few of them through replies), though the bulk who are active on social media are still largely on Facebook (historical reasons).
Bluesky is far from perfect; it has regular tiny glitches, there's no DMs or similar, nested threading doesn't look good. But am finding the content and people pretty much to my liking, the conversations fun (yesterday discussing American cuisine such as chicken rings) and I've met some new people on there who I've subsequently met IRL.
How it'll handle a US and UK election year will be ... interesting. (The same goes for every other social media, and MetaFilter).
posted by Wordshore at 12:45 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]
Bluesky is far from perfect; it has regular tiny glitches, there's no DMs or similar, nested threading doesn't look good. But am finding the content and people pretty much to my liking, the conversations fun (yesterday discussing American cuisine such as chicken rings) and I've met some new people on there who I've subsequently met IRL.
How it'll handle a US and UK election year will be ... interesting. (The same goes for every other social media, and MetaFilter).
posted by Wordshore at 12:45 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]
Be very careful mentioning Mastodon/the Fediverse in a Bluesky thread, as people will occasionally go fucking nuclear about that. Even the most milquetoast stuff can result in someone angrily putting up their fucking dukes and getting pissed off over every bad experience they've ever had with it. Ask me how I know.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:47 PM on February 6 [3 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:47 PM on February 6 [3 favorites]
American cuisine such as chicken rings
As an American, I'd never even heard of "chicken rings" before you mentioned them in the free thread yesterday.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:53 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]
As an American, I'd never even heard of "chicken rings" before you mentioned them in the free thread yesterday.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:53 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]
I was going to take a peek but I am not giving my phone number to a social media company. I am quite happy on Mastodon so no big loss. Maybe I will take another look when they actually get federation working.
I also don't care for the identity protocol thing. If there is anything I've learned in the past few years it's that it feels good to let go of your online "identities".
posted by donio at 1:02 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
I also don't care for the identity protocol thing. If there is anything I've learned in the past few years it's that it feels good to let go of your online "identities".
posted by donio at 1:02 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
Not In My Blue Sky
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:03 PM on February 6
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:03 PM on February 6
Can they really enforce a "class action lawsuits cannot apply to us" clause?
posted by maxwelton at 1:06 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
posted by maxwelton at 1:06 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
I'm more comfortable on Mastodon (where I am @cstross@wandering.shop) but you can also find me on Bluesky as @cstross.bsky.social.
And, as of today, and the invite-free account setup, I am behind @dilbert-stark.bsky.social: because "Dilbert, but thinks he's Tony Stark" is a win until they decide it's an impersonation account. So take that, Elon Musk!
posted by cstross at 1:11 PM on February 6 [9 favorites]
And, as of today, and the invite-free account setup, I am behind @dilbert-stark.bsky.social: because "Dilbert, but thinks he's Tony Stark" is a win until they decide it's an impersonation account. So take that, Elon Musk!
posted by cstross at 1:11 PM on February 6 [9 favorites]
Jack Dorsey is on the board of Bluesky, but has seemingly washed his hands of it.
posted by SansPoint at 1:18 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
posted by SansPoint at 1:18 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
I just signed up and made a test post and... it's... a 300 character limit? With no editing? Man I do not want to go back to having a little process in the back of my head that is constantly trying to edit every clever thought down into something that can fit in an inhumanly tiny box like that. It felt so nice when I raised the character limit on dragon.style to 77777 characters and just stopped worrying about that shit.
Enjoy your "twitter from fifteen years ago" recreation, if that's what you want, I guess. I'm not putting my thoughts back into that Procrustean bed any more. I'm staying on Mastodon at @anthracite@dragon.style.
posted by egypturnash at 1:31 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
Enjoy your "twitter from fifteen years ago" recreation, if that's what you want, I guess. I'm not putting my thoughts back into that Procrustean bed any more. I'm staying on Mastodon at @anthracite@dragon.style.
posted by egypturnash at 1:31 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
If Mastodon is any example, all these new people will notice that 99% of their interactions are people telling them they are "Blueskying" wrong, and in short order the "too many people on here now!" people will have their problem solved for them.
Good news, there aren't many of those people on Bluesky, as they're on Mastodon instead where the inherent gatekeeping of making it so hard to understand how to sign up appeals to those people.
posted by evilangela at 1:33 PM on February 6 [5 favorites]
Good news, there aren't many of those people on Bluesky, as they're on Mastodon instead where the inherent gatekeeping of making it so hard to understand how to sign up appeals to those people.
posted by evilangela at 1:33 PM on February 6 [5 favorites]
A lot of hot takes on what Mastodon was like in 2019 here.
I'm sorry to anyone who had a bad experience in the wider Fediverse. But Pronoiac's MeFi instance is easy to get started on and very chill. I don't know why that would be surprising to anyone.
Hearing people rage against the viciousness and impossibility of the Fediverse gives me the same vibes as when my middle school teachers would explain how D&D groups were nihilistic thrill kill cults. I mean, I'm there and that's... silly.
All of this said, the number one goal for anyone should be that other people find their place and are happy and get to socialize in a way they enjoy. Wishing all the BlueSky people the finest vibes.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:47 PM on February 6 [10 favorites]
I'm sorry to anyone who had a bad experience in the wider Fediverse. But Pronoiac's MeFi instance is easy to get started on and very chill. I don't know why that would be surprising to anyone.
Hearing people rage against the viciousness and impossibility of the Fediverse gives me the same vibes as when my middle school teachers would explain how D&D groups were nihilistic thrill kill cults. I mean, I'm there and that's... silly.
All of this said, the number one goal for anyone should be that other people find their place and are happy and get to socialize in a way they enjoy. Wishing all the BlueSky people the finest vibes.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:47 PM on February 6 [10 favorites]
Okay, just created an account to keep someone from poaching my handle. Just create an account, and log out. And... wow, did I have to hunt around for how to log out. Congratulations, bluesky, for making a dril tweet a mission statement.
posted by phooky at 1:51 PM on February 6
posted by phooky at 1:51 PM on February 6
Can they really enforce a "class action lawsuits cannot apply to us" clause?
This like the third app/service I've heard of recently that is banning class action suits.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 2:01 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
This like the third app/service I've heard of recently that is banning class action suits.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 2:01 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
I'm on BlueSky (thanks to a kind Mefite a couple of months ago who shared an invite code through an AskMe thread) and Mastodon both. I like BlueSky better for the entertainment/shitposting value, but Mastodon (at least so far, at least as much as I've been able to find) has a better collection of mathematicians / mathematical artists etc. And I get a ton more engagement on Mastodon. OTOH, I surf more on BlueSky. So go figure. I'd follow more of all y'all above if I could figure out who you are on BlueSky...
posted by leahwrenn at 2:48 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]
posted by leahwrenn at 2:48 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]
Just signed up with Bluesky. Very unlike Mastodon, which I abandoned because I am not smart enough to figure it out, but Bluesky is very much a clone of Twitter, in a good way.
I haven't yet deleted Twitter but I might as well. I deleted my bookmark and haven't checked it for weeks. Pre-Elon, when I posted or commented I usually got some likes and comments. Now I mostly get *nothing*. I don't know if my account has been flagged somehow (I'm very far left) or if there's just that fewer people on Twitter now. Either way, it sucks.
posted by zardoz at 3:28 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
I haven't yet deleted Twitter but I might as well. I deleted my bookmark and haven't checked it for weeks. Pre-Elon, when I posted or commented I usually got some likes and comments. Now I mostly get *nothing*. I don't know if my account has been flagged somehow (I'm very far left) or if there's just that fewer people on Twitter now. Either way, it sucks.
posted by zardoz at 3:28 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
In a way, Elon Musk destroying Twitter gave me a kind of gift. I got to make a clean break from a site that had brought me a lot of benefits but also was deeply problematic even before. I was presented with a choice between a site owned by Facebook, a site owned by Jack Dorsey, and a site that’s unownable and supported through the efforts of its member community. That seemed like a really obvious choice to me and I am glad to have cast my lot with Mastodon.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 3:36 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]
posted by Horace Rumpole at 3:36 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]
I understand that people are frustrated that whatever new thing they tried last year wasn't Exactly Like Twitter or whatever, but I had hoped that more folks here would be in the "No more social media sites run by libertarian billionaires!" camp.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 3:45 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 3:45 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]
I did just check again, and I see the biggest thing that kept me off of Mastodon has been addressed. Just searching for "Mastodon" and going to that site allows a signup that doesn't push you into making a decision without giving you any idea of how to make that decision. It used to tell you that you had to pick an instance, would give a list of seemingly random instances (often over half not even in my language), and give no guidance as to how to choose an instance or how important that decision was.
Now it's just signing users right up onto Mastodon.social.
So credit to them for addressing that huge hurdle.
posted by evilangela at 4:09 PM on February 6 [5 favorites]
Now it's just signing users right up onto Mastodon.social.
So credit to them for addressing that huge hurdle.
posted by evilangela at 4:09 PM on February 6 [5 favorites]
From the cartoon explaining what Bluesky is:
'It's the last social account you'll ever have to create'
Apart from the MIB reference, that's cute!
I did sign up after finally deleting my Twitter account, despite again being annoyed at not being able to use my two-character username.
posted by dg at 4:27 PM on February 6
'It's the last social account you'll ever have to create'
Apart from the MIB reference, that's cute!
I did sign up after finally deleting my Twitter account, despite again being annoyed at not being able to use my two-character username.
posted by dg at 4:27 PM on February 6
John Scalzi compares Threads, BlueSky, and Mastodon.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 4:31 PM on February 6 [5 favorites]
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 4:31 PM on February 6 [5 favorites]
Bluesky is supposed to be federated, but it's not, yet. I hear a lot of promises, and these days I treat them as just mouth noises until they are delivered upon. When they are federated, then I might run my own instance, if there's a lightweight one. But until then, well, the fediverse is nice.
posted by novalis_dt at 5:25 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
posted by novalis_dt at 5:25 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
Several central people are ex-blockchain nuts, it's taking venture capital, and Jack Dorsey's involved? No thanks. I won't be joining another one of those, I'm still holding out hope for Mastodon really taking off (it's grown and improved a lot over the last year or so, but I don't think it's hit critical mass yet).
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 5:27 PM on February 6 [3 favorites]
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 5:27 PM on February 6 [3 favorites]
I'm on both Bluesky and Mastodon (on the Metafilter instance!) but I hang out more on Mastodon. I notice that's where I go to file notes about the perils of modern life, which is what I think those short-form social media are for. I have a fair number of friends on both sites--different sets, which is why I'm on both--but I currently get more response on Mastodon, which is a self-reinforcing cycle. (I also worry about where BlueSky is going based on all the things that are making people here say !!!!, so there's that too.)
Note to self: now that BlueSky is open, need to check whether the account pages are visible when we're not logged in so we can get those linked on our Metafilter profiles. I do like the Metafilter list but it would be nice to be able to check on the profile whether a specific person is on BlueSky.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 5:33 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
Note to self: now that BlueSky is open, need to check whether the account pages are visible when we're not logged in so we can get those linked on our Metafilter profiles. I do like the Metafilter list but it would be nice to be able to check on the profile whether a specific person is on BlueSky.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 5:33 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
I sense that the Mastodon people are happy with what they have, and that they don't particularly feel like they need to get bigger. And because it doesn't have shareholders to satisfy, it doesn't even need to. Mastodon was doing fine before the Twitter exodus. It's certainly possible that it loses steam, but it doesn't have anyone to please but its users. Which also means it can't die all of a sudden--it might fade, but so long as the last instance is running, Mastodon will be around.
posted by JHarris at 5:34 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
posted by JHarris at 5:34 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
Mastodon took a lot of heat that really belongs with Twitter and people's frustration with even having to leave. Are you telling me that when I leave Twitter, the alternatives won't be as active or populated right off the bat? Man, fuck Mastodon. Are you seriously telling me that a community-powered alternative to Twitter isn't as densely developed with ten years less lead time? Man, fuck Mastodon. I spent fifteen years developing my follows and followers and you're telling me, I can't match that by Friday? Man, FUCK MASTODON.
And then Bluesky starts and it's all "Have patience! It just started." Hey there, give Threads a chance.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:31 PM on February 6 [10 favorites]
And then Bluesky starts and it's all "Have patience! It just started." Hey there, give Threads a chance.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:31 PM on February 6 [10 favorites]
Does anyone remember how Jack Dorsey personally protected and promoted right-wing and anti-vax conspiracy theorists when he was Twitter CEO, and has continued doing so as a Bluesky board member after the sale of Twitter?
We don’t have to keep putting this man in charge of our online media! We have choices that don’t have Jack Dorsey in control!
posted by mbrubeck at 7:11 PM on February 6 [11 favorites]
We don’t have to keep putting this man in charge of our online media! We have choices that don’t have Jack Dorsey in control!
posted by mbrubeck at 7:11 PM on February 6 [11 favorites]
I was pleasantly surprised to see how easy it was to migrate my @emelenjr Twitter follows over to @emelenjr on Bluesky, and doubly so to see that so many more of them were using Bluesky than the number using Mastodon. Curated public lists are fun, too.
posted by emelenjr at 7:27 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
posted by emelenjr at 7:27 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
I'm sorry to anyone who had a bad experience in the wider Fediverse. But Pronoiac's MeFi instance is easy to get started on and very chill.
DirtyOldTown
Is it easy for a regular person or how tech-people tell you it's easy to set up your own email server and can't understand why everyone doesn't?
posted by star gentle uterus at 7:44 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
DirtyOldTown
Is it easy for a regular person or how tech-people tell you it's easy to set up your own email server and can't understand why everyone doesn't?
posted by star gentle uterus at 7:44 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
Is it easy for a regular person or how tech-people tell you it's easy to set up your own email server and can't understand why everyone doesn't?
On Mastodon.social there is a button that says "Create Account." If you click it, there will be a page where you can create your account. Other instances have similar buttons. On MeFi.social, there is a link to Pronoiac's MeMail. It says MeMail him and he will help you make an account. MeMail him and he will help you make an account.
It's choose a username and password, provide an email, then click.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:59 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
On Mastodon.social there is a button that says "Create Account." If you click it, there will be a page where you can create your account. Other instances have similar buttons. On MeFi.social, there is a link to Pronoiac's MeMail. It says MeMail him and he will help you make an account. MeMail him and he will help you make an account.
It's choose a username and password, provide an email, then click.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:59 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
Best advice I have is: make a very easy mastodon.social account, use it for a few days, seek out people who share your interests, then set up your permanent account on an instance that suits you. I like the MeFi one, but there are queer ones, ones for scientists, ones for labor activism, all kinds of things. You can follow people from anywhere, but it's nice to start from a place where people share some of your interests.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:06 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:06 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
Star gentle uterus, it depends on what part of using Mastodon is confusing to you.
Setting up an account is very easy once you have decided which instance you want to join, it's no different than setting up any online account.
Knowing what instance to choose is genuinely tricky, which is why I went with mefi.social. Once that decision was made, that problem went away.
Understanding who's posts & comments you can see and who can see yours (depending on what instance they're on) can be confusing at first, but you don't necessarily have to understand that right away in order to have a good experience.
People are genuinely helpful, many people will give you tips on how to improve your experience.
I think the divide might not be so much between the "so techy they don't realise that it's hard for normal people" and "normal people".
I think the divide is between people who are made incredibly uncomfortable by that first experience of "ok what the hell is this, can I accidentally break things and make a complete fool of myself, nope I'm out" before you realise "no, it's cool, I can't break anything, I'm safe here, I can relax"
As in any place with humans in it, some of them are assholes and you might encounter scolding or be patronised, but my experience has been that the overwhelming majority of people are kind, helpful, and patient with newcomers.
posted by Zumbador at 8:08 PM on February 6 [3 favorites]
Setting up an account is very easy once you have decided which instance you want to join, it's no different than setting up any online account.
Knowing what instance to choose is genuinely tricky, which is why I went with mefi.social. Once that decision was made, that problem went away.
Understanding who's posts & comments you can see and who can see yours (depending on what instance they're on) can be confusing at first, but you don't necessarily have to understand that right away in order to have a good experience.
People are genuinely helpful, many people will give you tips on how to improve your experience.
I think the divide might not be so much between the "so techy they don't realise that it's hard for normal people" and "normal people".
I think the divide is between people who are made incredibly uncomfortable by that first experience of "ok what the hell is this, can I accidentally break things and make a complete fool of myself, nope I'm out" before you realise "no, it's cool, I can't break anything, I'm safe here, I can relax"
As in any place with humans in it, some of them are assholes and you might encounter scolding or be patronised, but my experience has been that the overwhelming majority of people are kind, helpful, and patient with newcomers.
posted by Zumbador at 8:08 PM on February 6 [3 favorites]
I agree with all of that.
I'd also add that it takes a bit to appreciate that needing to build up the number of accounts you are following to make your feed interesting is only a hassle if a) you have forgotten you got started on Twitter the same way; and/or b) want an algorithm to do that for you.
I consider the more deliberate growth to be a feature, not a bug.
I absolutely get why folks feel choosing their instance is a hassle (particularly if they part of a group targeted by trolls) and why they'd like moderation handled from top down, though. So I get the appeal of Bluesky
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:14 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
I'd also add that it takes a bit to appreciate that needing to build up the number of accounts you are following to make your feed interesting is only a hassle if a) you have forgotten you got started on Twitter the same way; and/or b) want an algorithm to do that for you.
I consider the more deliberate growth to be a feature, not a bug.
I absolutely get why folks feel choosing their instance is a hassle (particularly if they part of a group targeted by trolls) and why they'd like moderation handled from top down, though. So I get the appeal of Bluesky
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:14 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
So, stupid question: I already have a Mastodon account (it's @JoakZieg@mstdn.social if anyone's interested), and so I don't have any need or desire to sign up for one on the MeFi instance, but I would like a list of MeFites on that instance so I can follow the ones that interest me. Is there a way to get that?
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 8:55 PM on February 6
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 8:55 PM on February 6
The profile directory isn't visible without an account, but you can browse mefi.social’s local timeline to discover active users.
posted by mbrubeck at 9:07 PM on February 6 [5 favorites]
posted by mbrubeck at 9:07 PM on February 6 [5 favorites]
Jack Dorsey is on the board of Bluesky, but has seemingly washed his hands of it.
Let me know when it has washed its hands of him.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 12:40 AM on February 7 [6 favorites]
Let me know when it has washed its hands of him.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 12:40 AM on February 7 [6 favorites]
Is it easy for a regular person or how tech-people tell you it's easy to set up your own email server and can't understand why everyone doesn't?
I'm a tech-person and I'm happy to tell you that it's brutally hard to set up your own email server - if you do it properly.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 12:44 AM on February 7 [3 favorites]
I'm a tech-person and I'm happy to tell you that it's brutally hard to set up your own email server - if you do it properly.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 12:44 AM on February 7 [3 favorites]
Threads is in the process of embracing (extending? extinguishing?) the fediverse, but predictably there is dissent.
But... it's Mark Zuckerberg.
Seriously, folks: Dorsey and Zuckerberg. Two people who took the internet, and fucked it beyond repair. Why on earth are they now being given another chance to do the same thing all over again?
Goering imagined he could get the Americans to give him a role in the post-war German government. They sentenced him to death instead. Times have changed.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 12:49 AM on February 7 [11 favorites]
But... it's Mark Zuckerberg.
Seriously, folks: Dorsey and Zuckerberg. Two people who took the internet, and fucked it beyond repair. Why on earth are they now being given another chance to do the same thing all over again?
Goering imagined he could get the Americans to give him a role in the post-war German government. They sentenced him to death instead. Times have changed.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 12:49 AM on February 7 [11 favorites]
I've seen a lot of fediverse admins talking about preemptively blocking Threads, either at the unsolicited-communication level because Zuckerberg is exactly the poison they don't want to allow influence over the evolution of the community, or at the network level to prevent facebook from hoovering up every bit of their users' data to extend their shadow profiles.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 1:42 AM on February 7 [4 favorites]
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 1:42 AM on February 7 [4 favorites]
I find discoverability is much better on Bluesky than on Mastodon, where I was never really able to, like, find anyone interesting, and all my posts went absolutely into the void. I still don't really post on Bluesky - I'm a bit reluctant since, soon after setting up my account, I found someone from MetaFilter describing what a fucking asshole I was - but the way its Lists feature works makes it a lot easier to find interesting people without being beholden to everyone using a hashtag.
I still 100% expect it will be overrun. Their approach to moderation is effectively is providing full support to block lists and the hacky workarounds that were used on Twitter so that people who need more aggressive moderation than Bluesky is willing to provide can do so. I don't think this will work, and it'll be used to drive coordinated harassment campaigns. However, I'm heartened by the fact that most of the people I'm following feel a responsibility to lead by example to build a community kinder and less hostile than Twitter, and to relentlessly shitpost by "reminding new users" of random facts.
One of the problems with Mastodon's moment was that the community that existed was largely hostile to new people coming in unless they were willing to engage with the existing community on its terms, and that existing community wasn't attractive to a lot of people. Bluesky's community is still forming.
posted by Merus at 2:26 AM on February 7 [3 favorites]
I still 100% expect it will be overrun. Their approach to moderation is effectively is providing full support to block lists and the hacky workarounds that were used on Twitter so that people who need more aggressive moderation than Bluesky is willing to provide can do so. I don't think this will work, and it'll be used to drive coordinated harassment campaigns. However, I'm heartened by the fact that most of the people I'm following feel a responsibility to lead by example to build a community kinder and less hostile than Twitter, and to relentlessly shitpost by "reminding new users" of random facts.
One of the problems with Mastodon's moment was that the community that existed was largely hostile to new people coming in unless they were willing to engage with the existing community on its terms, and that existing community wasn't attractive to a lot of people. Bluesky's community is still forming.
posted by Merus at 2:26 AM on February 7 [3 favorites]
I find discoverability is much better on Bluesky than on Mastodon, where I was never really able to, like, find anyone interesting, and all my posts went absolutely into the void.
Yeah. There are ways to overcome that, but it doesn't guide you along the way. It is easy to tell someone "you have to work for it!" I mean I've done something like that and gotten some pushback for it, maybe rightfully. How precisely do you do that? How do you find initial people to follow? How do you get people to follow you?
Here is one idea. I have made a list of Mastodon addresses of (what I think are) known MeFites. (To users: if your address is on the list and want it removed for some reason let me know.) I haven't connected any MeFi account names to usernames to the list, but in many cases you can tell who they are from the name part of the address.
Some of these accounts will have been abandoned, sure, but many aren't. To follow someone from a typed address, you have to enter it into the search box from your timeline page. It's clunky but is how Mastodon does things, for the time being at least.
Some people report much higher engagement on Mastodon than on other services, possibly because algorithms have buried them elsewhere. I have no proof, but I feel that's something that possibly happened to me on Twitter.
Many instances, if you go to their site, will allow you to view much of their local feed without an account, and that might be a place to look to find cool people to follow. The one for mastodon.social is here, and the one for mefi.social is here.
posted by JHarris at 3:18 AM on February 7 [3 favorites]
Yeah. There are ways to overcome that, but it doesn't guide you along the way. It is easy to tell someone "you have to work for it!" I mean I've done something like that and gotten some pushback for it, maybe rightfully. How precisely do you do that? How do you find initial people to follow? How do you get people to follow you?
Here is one idea. I have made a list of Mastodon addresses of (what I think are) known MeFites. (To users: if your address is on the list and want it removed for some reason let me know.) I haven't connected any MeFi account names to usernames to the list, but in many cases you can tell who they are from the name part of the address.
Some of these accounts will have been abandoned, sure, but many aren't. To follow someone from a typed address, you have to enter it into the search box from your timeline page. It's clunky but is how Mastodon does things, for the time being at least.
Some people report much higher engagement on Mastodon than on other services, possibly because algorithms have buried them elsewhere. I have no proof, but I feel that's something that possibly happened to me on Twitter.
Many instances, if you go to their site, will allow you to view much of their local feed without an account, and that might be a place to look to find cool people to follow. The one for mastodon.social is here, and the one for mefi.social is here.
posted by JHarris at 3:18 AM on February 7 [3 favorites]
(I wonder if it was wise making that list available on the open internet? Maybe I should make it private again after a couple of days?)
posted by JHarris at 3:25 AM on February 7 [1 favorite]
posted by JHarris at 3:25 AM on February 7 [1 favorite]
The place doesn't seem ready yet. I saw a post on twitter yesterday: "Hey friends come follow me on twitter: [link to their bluesky profile]"
- OK! click on the link and it brings me to the bluesky login
- oh ok, I haven't logged-in in a while, here's my login and password
- sure let me get that confirmation code out of my email
- and I'm in ... to my profile
- oh, I guess now that I'm logged in I can just go to that bluesky profile link
- ... and it brings me back to a new login page
- try it again, and again, and again (cause I'm definitionally insane)... same result
- ok, well let's just copy the username out of the bluesky profile url and search for it in the search bar of my profile page...
- returns one result: someone mentioning the user last year, no posts by user
- aha, let's switch over to the "users" tab of the search page ... "no users found"
- but wait, if I again type the name in the search box, I see it autocompletes to the user in the suggested results
- ok, *don't* press enter to complete the search, but click on that and ... I'm finally at said users page.
posted by pjenks at 3:52 AM on February 7 [1 favorite]
- OK! click on the link and it brings me to the bluesky login
- oh ok, I haven't logged-in in a while, here's my login and password
- sure let me get that confirmation code out of my email
- and I'm in ... to my profile
- oh, I guess now that I'm logged in I can just go to that bluesky profile link
- ... and it brings me back to a new login page
- try it again, and again, and again (cause I'm definitionally insane)... same result
- ok, well let's just copy the username out of the bluesky profile url and search for it in the search bar of my profile page...
- returns one result: someone mentioning the user last year, no posts by user
- aha, let's switch over to the "users" tab of the search page ... "no users found"
- but wait, if I again type the name in the search box, I see it autocompletes to the user in the suggested results
- ok, *don't* press enter to complete the search, but click on that and ... I'm finally at said users page.
posted by pjenks at 3:52 AM on February 7 [1 favorite]
Bluesky is just dull. Threads is a bit better but not enthralling. I am very happy with what I have on Mastodon.
posted by bifurcated at 7:24 AM on February 7
posted by bifurcated at 7:24 AM on February 7
I had hoped that more folks here would be in the "No more social media sites run by libertarian billionaires!" camp.
I just assume that the people who would be receptive to that message have, for the most part, already heard and acted on it.
posted by fedward at 8:08 AM on February 7 [1 favorite]
I just assume that the people who would be receptive to that message have, for the most part, already heard and acted on it.
posted by fedward at 8:08 AM on February 7 [1 favorite]
i just want to know where the new good place to shitpost is, because i’m a little bored of shitposting on metafilter and linkedin
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:35 AM on February 7 [1 favorite]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 8:35 AM on February 7 [1 favorite]
butts
posted by SPrintF at 8:47 AM on February 7 [3 favorites]
posted by SPrintF at 8:47 AM on February 7 [3 favorites]
it's true, if you drink too many blueskies, you may encounter a butt
posted by rhymedirective at 8:50 AM on February 7
posted by rhymedirective at 8:50 AM on February 7
I am interested in Bluesky despite my reservations because I want to see what the latest iteration of social media at scale looks like. For certain things, like journalism, that matters. Maybe it'll be the death blow for X/Twitter and the baseball writers I like will finally leave and can move there. That would be cool. They are mostly not on Mastodon/the Fediverse (I keep using both because I am not 100% sure everyone knows what the Fedi is, and people generally think about "Mastodon" first). And if you follow social media to know the trends, to be in on things, that's a factor, sure. I probably undersell these points sometimes because I want to be a cheerleader for the Fedi. But they do matter. With these shortcomings, why do I like the Fediverse?
As an individual user, I like the Fediverse because it sort of ran the odometer back to the days when the internet was a little smaller, a little more organic. It's a bit less track and be in on the BIG! NEW! TOPICS! and bit more like getting up a quorum of friends and chatting, bumping into the people they know and making friends with them. A bit less "Have you encountered the person of the day?" and a bit more "You like [thing]? I also like [thing]!" I don't think it's a coincidence that the MeFi.social instance has drawn in so many Gen X/OG blogger types. It's that kind of vibe in some ways.
Starting with people whose vibe you just sort of get helps a ton. That's why I think the way to join the Fediverse is to find a niche but active instance that you feel personally drawn to and start from there. I would not send a person to mastodon.social. Join one on climate justice. Or horror films. Or for train enthusiasts. Or for guitarists. Or MeFites. Or whatever. People will be kinder to you in a smaller pond and you can get started with more grace from your new neighbors.
You can then add in other folks by following hashtags for your interests and seeing who you come across. People also publish lists related to interests/occupations/regionality. Those are great, too. It does take a little work, but I will only remind you that you're doing that work to prevent a tech billionaire's algorithm from attempting to do it for you.
The Fediverse is growing slowly. I don't know that it's ever going to be the place to have your official account if you're a national journalist. It's probably not ever going to be the vibrating edge of the zeitgeist in the way Twitter once was. But if you want to make little jokes for nice people and share links and opinions, without Nazis or ads, it's a good place. Lower numbers, but more engagement. Less "big moments," more new friends with shared interests.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:50 AM on February 7 [5 favorites]
As an individual user, I like the Fediverse because it sort of ran the odometer back to the days when the internet was a little smaller, a little more organic. It's a bit less track and be in on the BIG! NEW! TOPICS! and bit more like getting up a quorum of friends and chatting, bumping into the people they know and making friends with them. A bit less "Have you encountered the person of the day?" and a bit more "You like [thing]? I also like [thing]!" I don't think it's a coincidence that the MeFi.social instance has drawn in so many Gen X/OG blogger types. It's that kind of vibe in some ways.
Starting with people whose vibe you just sort of get helps a ton. That's why I think the way to join the Fediverse is to find a niche but active instance that you feel personally drawn to and start from there. I would not send a person to mastodon.social. Join one on climate justice. Or horror films. Or for train enthusiasts. Or for guitarists. Or MeFites. Or whatever. People will be kinder to you in a smaller pond and you can get started with more grace from your new neighbors.
You can then add in other folks by following hashtags for your interests and seeing who you come across. People also publish lists related to interests/occupations/regionality. Those are great, too. It does take a little work, but I will only remind you that you're doing that work to prevent a tech billionaire's algorithm from attempting to do it for you.
The Fediverse is growing slowly. I don't know that it's ever going to be the place to have your official account if you're a national journalist. It's probably not ever going to be the vibrating edge of the zeitgeist in the way Twitter once was. But if you want to make little jokes for nice people and share links and opinions, without Nazis or ads, it's a good place. Lower numbers, but more engagement. Less "big moments," more new friends with shared interests.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:50 AM on February 7 [5 favorites]
I made a bluesky account at some point and never followed anyone at all, and they just populated my feed with basically a set of cat and dog accounts, and also jon bois and dril. Turns out this is more than sufficient, as I never used social media for anything other than "something insane to laugh at for 3 minutes so I forget what my job is like long enough to not quit it."
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:57 AM on February 7 [7 favorites]
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:57 AM on February 7 [7 favorites]
I was already weaning myself off Twitter by the time Turd Hat purchased it---I was a super heavy user during the years I was in permanent resident status hell because I couldn't legally work and I couldn't speak the languge of the province I was living in at the time and it was a lifeline--and definitely reduced my time during the Trump administration (I did this here too because it was too depressing to watch the constant threads of how awful it was). But honestly, no social media has a hold on me anymore. Yes, I am on BlueSky but none of this feels vital. No social media account has got my attention in a chokehold. My IG lies fallow except when the cats are being super cute. (And even then, I just text my bestie and my husband those pics directly.) I definitely think people who are super fussed about a Twitter replacement or using Mastodon have way more desire to engage that way than I do. I just don't. Even on BlueSky, things move so slowly or not at all, that it's fine that it exists, it's fine I have an account, and I can make dumb jokes on there a few times a week, but I don't feel the urge to be on it constantly. I don't feel the urge to be anywhere except the Blue, and at some point, I will likely button again if the US election goes the way I suspect.
posted by Kitteh at 9:14 AM on February 7 [3 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 9:14 AM on February 7 [3 favorites]
I've made a Bluesky account so that I can more easily follow a bunch of SFF writers, comic artists and other creators who are only active there and whom I miss from Twitter. I don't want to miss out on their book announcements and recommendations (and all the post-Hugo drama). But I have very carefully curated my follows to these people *only* -- no generic Big Name accounts; nobody that I want to interact with. I only want to read stuff. I don't want one big flat social network which is a stream of all the things mixed together. I don't miss that from Twitter, and I don't want it back.
For interaction, I prefer Mastodon, occasional reply guys notwithstanding. I've accumulated an interesting network there -- there's some overlap with people I followed on Twitter, but also a whole bunch of random people I'd never heard of before, and I like it. It feels very different to Bluesky, and I feel a lot more comfortable posting there than I ever did on Twitter. (Not about Bluesky, though; that really brings out the worst spicy takes.) I realise as I write this that it seems to contradict the previous paragraph, but Mastodon feels... smaller? More informal because it's a bit rough around the edges? More nerdy?
(I agree that vanilla Mastodon isn't visually appealing. I highly recommend the Phanpy web interface, which also looks pretty good on mobile, which is a lot more polished and makes opinionated decisions that I generally like. It doesn't just look prettier; it has features that really improve usability for me.)
posted by confluency at 10:38 AM on February 7 [3 favorites]
For interaction, I prefer Mastodon, occasional reply guys notwithstanding. I've accumulated an interesting network there -- there's some overlap with people I followed on Twitter, but also a whole bunch of random people I'd never heard of before, and I like it. It feels very different to Bluesky, and I feel a lot more comfortable posting there than I ever did on Twitter. (Not about Bluesky, though; that really brings out the worst spicy takes.) I realise as I write this that it seems to contradict the previous paragraph, but Mastodon feels... smaller? More informal because it's a bit rough around the edges? More nerdy?
(I agree that vanilla Mastodon isn't visually appealing. I highly recommend the Phanpy web interface, which also looks pretty good on mobile, which is a lot more polished and makes opinionated decisions that I generally like. It doesn't just look prettier; it has features that really improve usability for me.)
posted by confluency at 10:38 AM on February 7 [3 favorites]
I forgot: I find the custom feeds feature on Bluesky genuinely intriguing, and what I've heard about the (as yet hypothetical) customisable moderation sounds a lot like some showerthoughts I had about features missing from Mastodon. So I'm interested to see how all of that develops, and if it will catch on.
posted by confluency at 10:53 AM on February 7 [2 favorites]
posted by confluency at 10:53 AM on February 7 [2 favorites]
I've found Bluesky a lot simpler to use than Mastodon.
To give a personal experience, when I originally made my exit from Twitter, I tried to recreate something of my previous social network, which was a mix of MeFites, Icelanders, Finns, science ficton fans and various other communities I belong to or am adjacent with. On Mastodon I had some success connecting up with MeFites, thanks to people sharing their handles here. Finding anyone in the other communities was a real pain, even if I knew what instance they'd headed to. So I gave up. Tried again. Gave up. Tried yet again. Gave up yet again.
When a Twitter mutual, who's an Icelander and a MeFite, shared a Bluesky invite with me, I had a seed for two of those communities at the ready, and managed to find a bunch of people from those circles immediately, and that was when Bluesky's membership was still in the thousands. In a single hour I had come closer to recreating what I liked on Twitter than my many days of trying on Mastodon. Some exploring over the next few days turned up people I knew from my various communities. The big shift that fully confirmed to me that Bluesky would be my social media of choice was when most of Icelandic-language Twitter migrated over in one weekend, because when herds move they do so all of a sudden.
I mostly read my home feed, which I have set to no reposts, no replies, no posts from my feeds, but yes to quote posts. That garners me a very manageable amount of posts, and if I want more I drop into some of my other saved feeds, most often the ones that hover up Icelandic-language or Finnish-language posts. My home feed is fairly placid, and it's mostly random musings and the occasional slice of someone's life, and that suits me just fine.
posted by Kattullus at 2:53 PM on February 7 [4 favorites]
To give a personal experience, when I originally made my exit from Twitter, I tried to recreate something of my previous social network, which was a mix of MeFites, Icelanders, Finns, science ficton fans and various other communities I belong to or am adjacent with. On Mastodon I had some success connecting up with MeFites, thanks to people sharing their handles here. Finding anyone in the other communities was a real pain, even if I knew what instance they'd headed to. So I gave up. Tried again. Gave up. Tried yet again. Gave up yet again.
When a Twitter mutual, who's an Icelander and a MeFite, shared a Bluesky invite with me, I had a seed for two of those communities at the ready, and managed to find a bunch of people from those circles immediately, and that was when Bluesky's membership was still in the thousands. In a single hour I had come closer to recreating what I liked on Twitter than my many days of trying on Mastodon. Some exploring over the next few days turned up people I knew from my various communities. The big shift that fully confirmed to me that Bluesky would be my social media of choice was when most of Icelandic-language Twitter migrated over in one weekend, because when herds move they do so all of a sudden.
I mostly read my home feed, which I have set to no reposts, no replies, no posts from my feeds, but yes to quote posts. That garners me a very manageable amount of posts, and if I want more I drop into some of my other saved feeds, most often the ones that hover up Icelandic-language or Finnish-language posts. My home feed is fairly placid, and it's mostly random musings and the occasional slice of someone's life, and that suits me just fine.
posted by Kattullus at 2:53 PM on February 7 [4 favorites]
We've seemingly no thread on how Elon Musk buying Twitter helped Saudi Arabia continue tracking down dissidents, after the DOJ rolled up their earlier inflitration on Twitter, not even mentions when the news broke. That's worth posting.
I doubt Bluesky or Mastadon provide any defense against such inflitrations.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:40 PM on February 8 [1 favorite]
I doubt Bluesky or Mastadon provide any defense against such inflitrations.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:40 PM on February 8 [1 favorite]
That's why all I ever post on social media are crap jokes.
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:31 PM on February 8
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:31 PM on February 8
Heard a little earlier today that Bluesky's plans for federation are continuing, the day may come where a choice between Mastodon and Bluesky is academic, although it could also be the source of problems, and I mean going either way. Is Bluesky going to look like one gigantic server that each instance will have to defederate from individually and entirely? Will Bluesky themselves defederate from problematic Mastodon servers? Will users be able to do server-level blocks themselves? And in ten years will Bluesky just shut the bridge down, claiming "oh, no one used it anyway,"/priorities have shifted/that was the old world let's usher in the new/we forgot to pay the interoperability people/we sold this one to Elon Musk too lol.
Hopefully they won't do any of those, but you know, Twitter started as an SMS bridge tool, and you used to be able to get an RSS feed of your Twitter timeline. Let's hope for the best and expect the worst.
Also, since I posted the list of Metafilter members on Mastodon, here's an automatically updating spreadsheet of journalists there, which lists their follow counts and date of most recent post.
posted by JHarris at 4:18 PM on February 9 [2 favorites]
Hopefully they won't do any of those, but you know, Twitter started as an SMS bridge tool, and you used to be able to get an RSS feed of your Twitter timeline. Let's hope for the best and expect the worst.
Also, since I posted the list of Metafilter members on Mastodon, here's an automatically updating spreadsheet of journalists there, which lists their follow counts and date of most recent post.
posted by JHarris at 4:18 PM on February 9 [2 favorites]
Semi-related: remember how Threads was going to be the gentler, friendlier alternative to Twitter, and how, to accomplish this, they were not going to be actively promoting political posts/topics?
They're doing that anyway now. And just in time for the election!
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:58 AM on February 12 [2 favorites]
They're doing that anyway now. And just in time for the election!
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:58 AM on February 12 [2 favorites]
So ... for those who're into it, the Hugo Award news sure has been great for Bluesky engagement.
Coincidentally, I've found the Metafilter Social Explorer for Bluesky has issues:
posted by Wobbuffet at 9:58 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]
Coincidentally, I've found the Metafilter Social Explorer for Bluesky has issues:
- You don't need to enter bsky.social as part of your username, but at one point or other, a bunch of people did (maybe it used to be necessary?)
- On the other hand, if you have a whole domain name as your username, the Social Explorer doesn't get that right, because it adds bsky.social
- A few people somehow got some URL-encoded stuff in their usernames, especially an initial "%40" for some reason
posted by Wobbuffet at 9:58 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]
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