I downloaded all 1.6M posts on Bluesky • Hacker News Board

Re: I downloaded all 1.6M posts on Bluesky

#71

Post by snickerbockers » Sat, May 06, 2023, 10:43 PM UTC

mullingitover wrote: post #56

amelius wrote: post #25

What is Bluesky?

So far it seems to be Mastodon, with some tweaks, and the improvement that while it's federated in theory , right now there's only one server . This addresses the critical flaw people point out with Mastodon, which is that because it requires you to choose a server it's too confusing. The requirement to choose a hosting provider is why email famously never took off.

>the improvement that while it's federated in theory, right now there's only one server

has the federation even been implemented? Is it an open protocol? Why on earth should anybody trust them not to go back on their word once they've gotten enough critical mass that nobody wants to leave because that's where their friends are (the so-called "network effect")?

Re: I downloaded all 1.6M posts on Bluesky

#72

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, May 06, 2023, 10:43 PM UTC

brvsft wrote: post #65

SeanAnderson wrote: post #22

I would just like to say that I am excited for Bluesky to exist. It might go poorly, but I'm unwilling to write off weird attempts at innovation before the technology has had a chance to evolve in the wild. I've seen several posts lately that have made me feel like the HN sentiment towards Bluesky is negative. Throwing them under the bus for the domain validation mistake. Hatred at commercialization of a protocol. Qu…

[flagged]

You can just not click on Bluesky links, no one is forcing you to read articles you aren’t interested in.

Re: I downloaded all 1.6M posts on Bluesky

#73

Post by ZacnyLos » Sat, May 06, 2023, 10:43 PM UTC

Apparently Mastodon's decentralisation works better.

Re: I downloaded all 1.6M posts on Bluesky

#74

Post by est » Sat, May 06, 2023, 10:43 PM UTC

mikece wrote: post #4

The fact that someone can download all posts on a social network tells you how little usage it has attracted.

why would download posts be difficult to begin with?

You know in the past, the Internet were designed to be downloadablein the first place, like USENET, FTP, etc.

Re: I downloaded all 1.6M posts on Bluesky

#75

Post by barnabee » Sat, May 06, 2023, 10:44 PM UTC

snickerbockers wrote: post #59

SeanAnderson wrote: post #22

I would just like to say that I am excited for Bluesky to exist. It might go poorly, but I'm unwilling to write off weird attempts at innovation before the technology has had a chance to evolve in the wild. I've seen several posts lately that have made me feel like the HN sentiment towards Bluesky is negative. Throwing them under the bus for the domain validation mistake. Hatred at commercialization of a protocol. Qu…

TBH I haven't paid much attention to it, but as somebody who was already using Mastodon as their primary social network for years before Musk took over, I'm not sure I understand what niche BlueSky is even supposed to fill that ActivityPub/Fediverse doesn't already fill. It just seems like a bunch of guys who got ousted from their jobs trying to invent a new commercial social network. And one of the things that needs…

This tells me that you don’t actually want what Twitter is (was?) good at.

Mastodon is clearly not a replacement for me. It’s a different type of community/service, one that doesn’t have much value for me. (Not to say it’s bad! I just don’t care for it, it doesn’t do something I want.)

Equally, Twitter wasn’t (and mostly still isn’t) terrible for everyone. Everyone gets to choose what it is! I am particular about who I follow, I unfollow quickly, and I care not for celebrities and people’s “personal brand”.

Twitter is an incredible resource, if you want it to be.

That said, it could clearly be better, and any replacement that prevents a single entity controlling everyone’s algorithmic feed or deciding who can post or what they can say is worth exploring.

Re: I downloaded all 1.6M posts on Bluesky

#76

Post by wnevets » Sat, May 06, 2023, 10:45 PM UTC

detaro wrote: post #43

wnevets wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would just like to say that I am excited for Bluesky to exist. It might go poorly, but I'm unwilling to write off weird attempts at innovation before the technology has had a chance to evolve in the wild. Isn't it just a variation of mastodon?

no.

Then what is the biggest difference between the two besides the name of the protocol?

Re: I downloaded all 1.6M posts on Bluesky

#77

Post by capableweb » Sat, May 06, 2023, 10:45 PM UTC

OJFord wrote: post #49

Last time I saw bsky on HN a maintainer shared a skip-waitlist invitation code ('anyone on HN is probably better behaved than some of the trolls we've dealt with', or something to that effect) - which was unfortunately dead by the time I found it। Any chance of an encore? Or I am on the waitlist: something I don't recall at username dot com।

Re: I downloaded all 1.6M posts on Bluesky

#78

Post by naet » Sat, May 06, 2023, 10:45 PM UTC

snickerbockers wrote: post #59

SeanAnderson wrote: post #22

I would just like to say that I am excited for Bluesky to exist. It might go poorly, but I'm unwilling to write off weird attempts at innovation before the technology has had a chance to evolve in the wild. I've seen several posts lately that have made me feel like the HN sentiment towards Bluesky is negative. Throwing them under the bus for the domain validation mistake. Hatred at commercialization of a protocol. Qu…

TBH I haven't paid much attention to it, but as somebody who was already using Mastodon as their primary social network for years before Musk took over, I'm not sure I understand what niche BlueSky is even supposed to fill that ActivityPub/Fediverse doesn't already fill. It just seems like a bunch of guys who got ousted from their jobs trying to invent a new commercial social network. And one of the things that needs…

Maybe some folks like yourself thought Twitter was terrible before, but plenty of people were happy enough until certain changes by Musk. Mastodon itself had a large growth recently as people left Twitter in response.

I had an automated bot running for a long time on Twitter that I was happy with, until recently when API access was cut off. Now I'm looking for a new platform for my bot to run on as a direct result of recent controversial policy change. Maybe it will be Mastodon or Bluesky, or maybe something else. I think I prefer something more similar to how Twitter was than Mastodon currently is for my needs.

Re: I downloaded all 1.6M posts on Bluesky

#79

Post by brundolf » Sat, May 06, 2023, 10:49 PM UTC

btown wrote: post #46

Given that Bluesky makes it this easy to download data, it's quite alarming that the graph of who blocks & mutes who is fully public and easy to extract into a database: https://atproto.com/lexicons/app-bsky-graph#appbskygraphgetb... On Twitter, blocking a toxic user does not notify them - while they can query the block status of one profile at a time, they can never get a full list of people who block them. But it w…

(Saying this as an excited bluesky user and someone who really really hopes all of this succeeds long-term)

I think possibly their biggest challenge ahead will be making parts of it non-public. Private mutes/blocks, having some analogue of Circles for whitelisting post viewers, etc.

Having a truly open and public database - especially once signups no longer require invite codes - is going to mean a cambrian explosion of tools and clients the likes of which we've never seen before in social media (which is already sorta happening even with closed signups). But that might include malicious apps that take advantage of that same openness to stalk, spam, and harass (especially given it's coinciding with a huge leap in AI technology). It might be AT Protocol's biggest test.

Re: I downloaded all 1.6M posts on Bluesky

#80

Post by VancouverMan » Sat, May 06, 2023, 10:49 PM UTC

btown wrote: post #46

Given that Bluesky makes it this easy to download data, it's quite alarming that the graph of who blocks & mutes who is fully public and easy to extract into a database: https://atproto.com/lexicons/app-bsky-graph#appbskygraphgetb... On Twitter, blocking a toxic user does not notify them - while they can query the block status of one profile at a time, they can never get a full list of people who block them. But it w…

Maybe it'd be better to just not have any blocking/muting built into such a system at all.

If User A doesn't want to see posts from User B, that's fine. User A can have his client filter them out locally, prior to when they'd otherwise be displayed. Nobody else has to know this is happening.

I don't think that User A should be permitted to prevent User B from replying to User A's posts, which in turn prevents User C (or all other users) from discovering what User B thinks about whatever User A posted.

User A trying to prevent his otherwise-public posts from being visible to User B seems pointless to me, as User B could log out, or use another account that hasn't been blocked, or ask somebody else who hasn't been blocked to screenshot it, or use some other way around it.