I would like to give an update on "federation" on Bluesky
-
And that's why I say, TLDR:
- I am legitimately excited about the work being done by Blacksky Algorithms! I am using their frontend and happy with it.
- Northsky is an interesting development to watch
- If you're on a Bluesky PDS, I recommend migrating off with one of these tools https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:ii5jchdzlmcojjw4dqczcgkh/post/3lyt6t6qfa22u
- Everything Sucks. A LOT of things would have to change at a social level for *any* entity other than Bluesky to have power or independence in the ATP ecosystem. I still don't trust Bluesky.
@mcc I am very much waiting to see what Northsky does. I'm not at the point where I'm willing to run my own PDS, but I'd love to be on a relay and client combo that isn't run by the corp.
(I'd use their PDS instead of hosting my own.)
-
@mcc it really is a shame that there was all that racism happening. I've been seeing less and less of it, and hopefully it gets taken care of altogether soon so everyone (except bigots, they can fuck right off) feels welcome on fedi
@GroupNebula563 @mcc Would be nice! Won't happen though.
-
undefined julian ha condiviso questa discussione
-
If you sign up with https://blacksky.community you get:
- Blacksky's "appview"/web frontend
- Optionally, Blacksky's PDS
- Blacksky's moderation layer (and you can optionally enable Bluesky's too)Almost-complete independence! What I'm not clear on is to whether, or to what degree Blacksky relies on Bluesky's "relay":
@mcc Right now, its only Blacksky's feeds and moderation service that are using their own relay.
They're not currently running their own AppView (although a lot of people are confused about this -- I even saw Masnick get it wrong) . They're working on this and saying it should be out fairly soon, at which point I believe the plan is to have blacksky.community switch over (or maybe offer the choice of which AppView to use, the way deer.social currently does). I assume their AppView will use their own Relay but haven't verified this.
Another current dependency is on Bluesky's platform-level moderation, the automatied scanning for CSAM, malware, and spam. At the technical level it's easily replaceable -- Bluesky outsources it -- but it's not cheap (especially since video is supported); Rudy estimated $160,000/year.
-
@mcc I'm curious, but I haven't had any time to look into this, so if you know off the top of your head, cost aside, how much work/knowledge does it take to stand up the whole stack at this point? Does Blacksky, for example, or Northsky, have their software available and documented? I think that it would be fun to try to try, but I have limited time and this isn't really my specialization.
@alter_kaker I'm not the person to ask. I would join the Bluesky API Touchers discord (yes, it's really named that) and ask there.
Blacksky has all their software on GitHub (they are using a mix of original Bluesky software and their own stuff) but not instructions on how to deploy it as a whole stack.
-
@mcc Right now, its only Blacksky's feeds and moderation service that are using their own relay.
They're not currently running their own AppView (although a lot of people are confused about this -- I even saw Masnick get it wrong) . They're working on this and saying it should be out fairly soon, at which point I believe the plan is to have blacksky.community switch over (or maybe offer the choice of which AppView to use, the way deer.social currently does). I assume their AppView will use their own Relay but haven't verified this.
Another current dependency is on Bluesky's platform-level moderation, the automatied scanning for CSAM, malware, and spam. At the technical level it's easily replaceable -- Bluesky outsources it -- but it's not cheap (especially since video is supported); Rudy estimated $160,000/year.
@jdp23 "They're not even running their own appview"
I don't understand. What is the website I have been using to access bluesky for the last month, then?
-
And that's why I say, TLDR:
- I am legitimately excited about the work being done by Blacksky Algorithms! I am using their frontend and happy with it.
- Northsky is an interesting development to watch
- If you're on a Bluesky PDS, I recommend migrating off with one of these tools https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:ii5jchdzlmcojjw4dqczcgkh/post/3lyt6t6qfa22u
- Everything Sucks. A LOT of things would have to change at a social level for *any* entity other than Bluesky to have power or independence in the ATP ecosystem. I still don't trust Bluesky.
@mcc do you think this work (on Blacksky or northsky's part) will lead to more independent atproto towers showing up in the future?
-
@jdp23 "They're not even running their own appview"
I don't understand. What is the website I have been using to access bluesky for the last month, then?
@mcc it's a client (aka app) that uses an appview -- currently the Bluesky appview
-
@mcc do you think this work (on Blacksky or northsky's part) will lead to more independent atproto towers showing up in the future?
@aeva "Tower", that's a good word for it.
I think observably, the fact blacksky exists as a full stack (or at least end to end) example *is* inspiring more towers to stand up, and I'd put northsky as the example. (Or so I assume, I don't know for a fact the order of events.)
-
@aeva "Tower", that's a good word for it.
I think observably, the fact blacksky exists as a full stack (or at least end to end) example *is* inspiring more towers to stand up, and I'd put northsky as the example. (Or so I assume, I don't know for a fact the order of events.)
@aeva The question as always with ATP though is "why?". That is *why* would anyone bother splitting from bluesky. What we've seen so far is two demographic communities with reasons to distrust platforms they don't operate themselves.
So like who else would bother? You wouldn't see like, a fishing community standing up their own tower because they have no reason to expect Bluesky will target them specifically, and it costs so much more than running a Mastodon instance.
-
@jdp23 oh dear.
-
@aeva The question as always with ATP though is "why?". That is *why* would anyone bother splitting from bluesky. What we've seen so far is two demographic communities with reasons to distrust platforms they don't operate themselves.
So like who else would bother? You wouldn't see like, a fishing community standing up their own tower because they have no reason to expect Bluesky will target them specifically, and it costs so much more than running a Mastodon instance.
-
@mcc I'm curious, but I haven't had any time to look into this, so if you know off the top of your head, cost aside, how much work/knowledge does it take to stand up the whole stack at this point? Does Blacksky, for example, or Northsky, have their software available and documented? I think that it would be fun to try to try, but I have limited time and this isn't really my specialization.
@alter_kaker @mcc hmm, apparently not that much knowledge is required, and the cost dropped significantly, I still don't trust any of it though
-
@aeva The question as always with ATP though is "why?". That is *why* would anyone bother splitting from bluesky. What we've seen so far is two demographic communities with reasons to distrust platforms they don't operate themselves.
So like who else would bother? You wouldn't see like, a fishing community standing up their own tower because they have no reason to expect Bluesky will target them specifically, and it costs so much more than running a Mastodon instance.
@mcc @aeva I continue to be annoyed that whenever anyone brings up legitimate gripes with how bsky is operated, the staff claim "open protocol", "federation", and "user freedom", when the reality is that with only a handful of alternate towers that represent maybe a single digit percentage of users at best, for all intents and purposes it is not federated in any way that brings meaningful choice to the average user.
-
@cthos @aeva I don't have an answer to this question. I've seen various claimed attempts to ballpark this number, but I expect it will change month to month, so even if I trusted the numbers I saw (I don't) there's no guarantee they're still accurate.
The Big Problem as I see it is since every "tower" contains the entire network, if the amount of traffic on bluesky doubles, the operating costs of each tower doubles. The "oh shit this is harder than I thought" problem is even worse than fedi.
-
@cthos @aeva I don't have an answer to this question. I've seen various claimed attempts to ballpark this number, but I expect it will change month to month, so even if I trusted the numbers I saw (I don't) there's no guarantee they're still accurate.
The Big Problem as I see it is since every "tower" contains the entire network, if the amount of traffic on bluesky doubles, the operating costs of each tower doubles. The "oh shit this is harder than I thought" problem is even worse than fedi.
-
@mcc @aeva I continue to be annoyed that whenever anyone brings up legitimate gripes with how bsky is operated, the staff claim "open protocol", "federation", and "user freedom", when the reality is that with only a handful of alternate towers that represent maybe a single digit percentage of users at best, for all intents and purposes it is not federated in any way that brings meaningful choice to the average user.
because #bluesky operates on the #cryptoBro credo (since bluesky is run by crypto bros)
in #crypto, the con is:
1. promise a lot
2. don't deliver
3. but nevertheless generate adoring devotion off of the promisethis works like gangbusters
because people want to believe. they even get defensive and angry when you point out promise vs reality
it's a hack of human psychology
-
-
@mcc @aeva I continue to be annoyed that whenever anyone brings up legitimate gripes with how bsky is operated, the staff claim "open protocol", "federation", and "user freedom", when the reality is that with only a handful of alternate towers that represent maybe a single digit percentage of users at best, for all intents and purposes it is not federated in any way that brings meaningful choice to the average user.
@swetland @aeva Yeah. I am using the exact alternate infrastructure that the bluesky reps point to as proof their system works. And I *still* cannot tell, if Bluesky banned someone and Blacksky disagrees with the ban, if I would be able to see that person's posts or not. In response to this thread I've had one person tell me I'm underestimating Blacksky's stack coverage and another tell me I'm overestimating it.
-
@mcc well, it's incremental implementation. Having their own client lets them make different blocking decisions from Bluesky, so is useful in its own right even though it doesn't get all the way there. The real value of the appview will kick in once it's got the equivalent of local-only posts.
-
@mcc well, it's incremental implementation. Having their own client lets them make different blocking decisions from Bluesky, so is useful in its own right even though it doesn't get all the way there. The real value of the appview will kick in once it's got the equivalent of local-only posts.
@jdp23 "Having their own client lets them make different blocking decisions from Bluesky"
How?
Gli ultimi otto messaggi ricevuti dalla Federazione
-
@GustavinoBevilacqua almeno è un po’ meno impari 😉
-
Non credo ci saranno le moltitudini…
-
@GustavinoBevilacqua ah a braccio ? Usti…. Magari aperto a interventi live? Comunque sia credo che molti non conoscano Linux né il fediverso. Proporli come alternativa a Ms, ai software proprietari e ai social centralizzati secondo me apre un mondo. Non proponi solo un OS (tecnico), ma un ecosistema alternativo (tra l’altro già molto “costruito”, non serve partir da zero… ormai è facile da usare, molti usano il fediverso ecc.
-
Terrò presente per il mio intervento, per il quale non scrivo alcuna traccia: sarà una specie di dialogo platonico.
Ma Platone aveva il vantaggio di essere un ex-pugile…
-
La butto lì , magari l’idea (modesta) interessa a qualcuno : Linux , open-source e fediverso —> un’alternativa umana all’enshittification ? @GustavinoBevilacqua
-
@iftas hello, I am a blind Fediverse user and I could not fill in the survey about moderation because the form builder you used is not completely accessible -radio buttons aren't screen reader friendly-. It's a contraddiction, working to improve an open environment like Fediverse, cutting some people off. #11y #ccessibility #blind #disability #fediverse
-
mat@friendica.exon.name I am not opposed to a category discussing alternatives protocols.
-
@mcc @alter_kaker "I would join the Bluesky API Touchers discord"
But... why are they not using... no OK never mind.
I'm so glad for this thread! I've had a bazillion questions about AT but nowhere to ask them. I really think there should be an "other protocols" channel on activitypub.space though. This is not "Technical discussion about ActivityPub-related topics" and sooner or later someone's gonna get angry at us.
