I stopped using Twitter a year back and finally deleted my account a couple of months back. I mostly used Twitter to connect with tech folks and learn from all of these shared experiences. I am glad more tech folks are moving to Bluesky .... On Threads I am still struggling to get the tech vibe.
BlueSky has the potential to become an Agora where tech people gather for friendly banter. If we stem off the status seekers, clout chasers and engagement farmers, it can maintain its course.
It's very clear now from what has happened at twitter that it's the people that use it... not the platform. Glad to see my feed filled with people talking about real things that matter again over here :)
Absolutely. This time we do it by contributing to the platform and not just consuming it. I love seeing all the starter packs, custom feeds, and the ability to own our content in a way that was never possible on Twitter.
Well they took a complicated concept of the protocol and made it easy for users to digest and consume unlike mastodon. It is an amazing testament to the blood sweat and tears we have all put into this app!!!
bluesky isn't twitter; it has different tools and a different culture. when you block someone that also blocks the visibility of the interaction even for people who don't also block them and the culture is to block and move on, not stay and dunk. you can also remove yourself from a quote skeet.
there is drama here of course, but the different tools, the different culture, the fact that reporting *works* mean that bluesky is its own thing and if people take the time to absorb the culture, it will stay that way.
early on, I realised I was seeing people here disagree, then apologise and go on to productive discussion when it would not have happened like that on twitter and it was so refreshing to realise there was a different culture and actively choose to try and be part of that
I don't mind it. On Twitter there was a big incentive for engagement farming, I'm not sure the same thing exists here. You can always ignore people. Especially those engaging in bad faith.
If I'm being honest, it's all engagement farming, or none of us would post anything.
that's a totally fair, it does seem so far like it's quite a bit easier to ignore such discourse here, and focus on the communities/discussions you more closely align with! even though i'm not always a fan, i think it's healthy that the option is there for those who are interested
*dance music*
We can block if we want to
We can leave those people behind
'Cause they don't dance and if they don't dance
...
More seriously, the 'immediate block' culture here is much more healthy.
Don't feel like you have to engage with anyone because they're here. It's up to you.
One characteristic that I like is the ability to create a list/feed w/out following someone. It allows me to track lanes of content depending on mood. Twitter did this but UX was clunky and the algo driven TL kind broke this use case at least for me.
I’m just really grateful that the community seems to be establishing itself over here. I was hoping people would relocate to Threads, but none of the folks I followed over on Twitter really moved over there for longer than a few days
Bluesky has so much potential. The AT Protocol and the level of transparency from the Bluesky team feels unmatched right now. If we even get close to the full vision the ecosystem is going to be much bigger than a single platform.
Hah. Glad to hear others are seeing the same junk. I literally selected “tech, software development, movies, and tv”. Don’t know how that translated into the endless torrent of anime and weird furry stuff I’m getting.
Yeah something's gotta be done abt the Discover feed. I think best practice is to familiarize yourself with RegEx and make your own feeds with https://skyfeed.app
you can use the menu to tell discover what you do and don't like but don't be a passive consumer! go out and subscribe to feeds and use lists and starter packs to follow people and switch to those feeds instead of discover (which yes, has a bug at the moment). there isn't 1algorithm, there are 1500+
Once subscribed, you can toggle the setting in Following Feed Preferences to have them show up in your Following Feed so you don’t even have to switch back and forth.
So glad to see everyone trying out all the features!
I miss my infosec community from Twitter so much. A lot of them went to mastodon and didn’t bother with Bluesky. I’m hoping that changes but seems like it won’t.
Threads: people, without the features
Bluesky: features, just starting to get the people
Mastodon: the Linux Desktop of microposts
I'm rooting for Bluesky. One would think that Threads has the resources to do what we pine for (twitter clone, without the Elon), but they dont seem interested.
I want more than a Twitter clone. I'm rooting for the AT Protocol as much as I'm rooting for Bluesky. I want the ability to control my own identity and the ability to host and publish my own content. https://atproto.com
There were two kinds of people on tech Twitter - the first kind who believed in open source & went to Mastodon, and second kind who wanted an audience went to Threads. I think we are seeing people coming from Threads but not from Mastodon.
It was never about the platform for me. It was and still is about the conversations, engaging in the recorded history of the community. Burning the community history/context, shared content, seeing empty search results and inval links. Prefer a migration strategy if nec. over burning the library.
Comments
Tech twitter were the friends we made along the way.
Typically it's a natural decay but not Twitter.
It's fascinating to see it happening in accelerated time frame on Twitter
I wonder if we can research this through online eras.
Anecdotally I have seen a massive drop in quality of content being surfaced . Primarily because the top layer has left
This is where I had read about this effect -
https://blogs.cornell.edu/info2040/2015/10/14/the-evaporative-cooling-effect-in-social-network/#:~:text=The%20Evaporative%20Cooling%20Effect%20describes,the%20quality%20of%20the%20community.
Tech stuff was one of the bigger things I've been missing over here
https://bsky.app/starter-pack-short/QEhPG3P
I really hope this becomes and stays a good platform for connecting with the tech community.
Most people still stayed on Xitter, some left for Threads, others for Mastodon, others yet migrated to Discord communities.
We need some key people here.
That hole is now getting plugged by Bluesky
If I'm being honest, it's all engagement farming, or none of us would post anything.
We can block if we want to
We can leave those people behind
'Cause they don't dance and if they don't dance
...
More seriously, the 'immediate block' culture here is much more healthy.
Don't feel like you have to engage with anyone because they're here. It's up to you.
im mortified
Once subscribed, you can toggle the setting in Following Feed Preferences to have them show up in your Following Feed so you don’t even have to switch back and forth.
So glad to see everyone trying out all the features!
Also a lot of the art community uses alt and tags so you can mute some of the keywords to reduce frequency of stuff you don't want to see
Remember when Facebook and Twitter pledged their support for open protocols and portability?
Bluesky: features, just starting to get the people
Mastodon: the Linux Desktop of microposts
I'm rooting for Bluesky. One would think that Threads has the resources to do what we pine for (twitter clone, without the Elon), but they dont seem interested.
do i count as making tech twitter what it is
If bluesky somehow moves all of tech twitter here, it still isn't enough, there are no sports, no international news (not U.S. please) and so on.