I would like to give an update on "federation" on Bluesky
-
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 (if this is too off topic just ignore!)
I noticed that Blacksky asks for a birth date when you make a new account.
Bluesky didn't use to ask. No idea what they do now, but I would not have made an account with them if they required a birth date.
I'm sure people make up dates but I was still surprised. I'm guessing this is related to age verification laws? I don't know much about them.
Have any Fediverse servers started to ask for a birth date when a new account is created?
-
@mcc Which PDS implementation are you self hosting with?
@fabrice the official one. It seems fine.
Is there a reason to pick another?
-
@mcc I don't know :) Maybe the Rust one from blacksky is less resource intensive?
-
@mcc (if this is too off topic just ignore!)
I noticed that Blacksky asks for a birth date when you make a new account.
Bluesky didn't use to ask. No idea what they do now, but I would not have made an account with them if they required a birth date.
I'm sure people make up dates but I was still surprised. I'm guessing this is related to age verification laws? I don't know much about them.
Have any Fediverse servers started to ask for a birth date when a new account is created?
@ahimsa_pdx I don't know. I didn't make an account, apparently.
-
@mcc There's also https://plc.directory/, the
did:plc:database, also run by Bluesky.("
plc" stands for "placeholder", because they aspire to figure out something blockchain decentralized later.)I think Bluesky can inconvenience people at best, or hijack their accounts at worst, especially if they were using a Bluesky PDS and Bluesky has all the keys. But I don't know/remember the exact implications.
@mnordhoff yes, the plc is another really frustrating thing
-
@mcc I don't know :) Maybe the Rust one from blacksky is less resource intensive?
@fabrice yeah, I dunno. I haven't noticed a load problem from the typescript implementation. I don't have a very data oriented operation over here tho
-
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.
As an update since posting the above thread I have received replies from two people, one saying I am underestimating the level of stack coverage Blacksky has, another saying I am overestimating it. Also a "AppView" and "Client" are different. Sorry.
The stack is just so tall! There are *so many* layers in this protocol's model. And it seems like every single one of them is an opportunity to introduce censorship
-
I would like to give an update on "federation" on Bluesky.
My expectation was it was unlikely we'd ever see this happen because "federation" on ATProto means basically reproducing the entirety of the Bluesky software stack. In old Big Data terms, on ActivityPub your instance is a "horizontal shard" of the network; ATProto forces full DB replicas only.
Still, we're seeing movement on this front, which I'd split into two categories:
1. Your fault (you reading this)
2. Aaron Rodericks's fault@mcc Look, Bluesky has some nice advantages over the fediverse, mainly that it's not confusing at all because it gets to the point of just being old Twitter.
Federation is not their strong point and will never be, whether we like it or not, if you want federation and multiple communities, Activitypub is by far the best option.
-
-
@esoteric_programmer so this is all within my ability. But what about the rest of the stack? To my understanding, the PDS and view? As @mcc says things have to change in a social level but the first step is more nodes...
@mcc @alter_kaker @esoteric_programmer I think the key point is: "Every Bluesky replica is, probably without realizing it, making a bet that Bluesky has already plateaued." This is a worthwhile experiment, as long as you can pull the plug at a moment's notice and lose nothing. -
@esoteric_programmer @alter_kaker @mcc This is curious to me, because it looks like he's running a relay as an actual relay, just passing along data, which would explain why it's relatively low-cost. But the Relay described by the Bluesky white paper was more than just a relay— it was a replacement (or rebrand) for the earlier Big Data Server that was supposed to not only pass data, but also store and index it all for the network. And I can't tell if those other, more expensive functions got offloaded to other services, or if there are two types of relays in the infrastructure, or something else.
@lrhodes @mcc @alter_kaker @esoteric_programmer My understanding is that relays have a "replay since timestamp X" functionality, so that consumers that go down for a while can get back up and running. Originally relays by definition had to support any X back to the beginning of time, leading to absurd storage costs. Today they are allowed to have a much shorter window, meaning in effect the storage cost is insignificant and it's the network cost that dominates. Unless I'm mistaken, the canonical store of a user's posting history is and always was the PDS. -
@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 @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.
-
@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.
mat@friendica.exon.name I am not opposed to a category discussing alternatives protocols.
-
undefined Piero Bosio ha condiviso questa discussione su
undefined Christine Lemmer-Webber ha condiviso questa discussione su
-
As an update since posting the above thread I have received replies from two people, one saying I am underestimating the level of stack coverage Blacksky has, another saying I am overestimating it. Also a "AppView" and "Client" are different. Sorry.
The stack is just so tall! There are *so many* layers in this protocol's model. And it seems like every single one of them is an opportunity to introduce censorship
Update: Rudy who operates blacksky.community responded to this thread on bluesky. Above I said I wasn't clear on how independent Blacksky was of the Bluesky infra. His answer is "completely". They run their own relay (which scrapes PDSes itself), the relay feeds into their own appview, the appview feeds into their own client. https://bsky.app/profile/rude1.blacksky.team/post/3lyv5rwpc722c
And since they bridge end-to-end, in my Hypothetical Example above, they *could* choose to make different moderation decisions from Bluesky PBC.
-
I would like to give an update on "federation" on Bluesky.
My expectation was it was unlikely we'd ever see this happen because "federation" on ATProto means basically reproducing the entirety of the Bluesky software stack. In old Big Data terms, on ActivityPub your instance is a "horizontal shard" of the network; ATProto forces full DB replicas only.
Still, we're seeing movement on this front, which I'd split into two categories:
1. Your fault (you reading this)
2. Aaron Rodericks's fault@mcc thanks for this!
-
Update: Rudy who operates blacksky.community responded to this thread on bluesky. Above I said I wasn't clear on how independent Blacksky was of the Bluesky infra. His answer is "completely". They run their own relay (which scrapes PDSes itself), the relay feeds into their own appview, the appview feeds into their own client. https://bsky.app/profile/rude1.blacksky.team/post/3lyv5rwpc722c
And since they bridge end-to-end, in my Hypothetical Example above, they *could* choose to make different moderation decisions from Bluesky PBC.
@mcc Right now there are people hosted on Blacksky who cannot post because they are banned by Bluesky.
I've been asking Rudy about how independent Blacksky is from Bluesky but have not heard back yet.
From what someone said, it seems that Blacksky is using the Bluesky labeling system which performs moderation. Thus, to be banned on Bluesky means you are locked out on any instance that uses its labeling.
Some more context https://bsky.app/profile/bloomfilters.bsky.social/post/3m2ih4oh64r2v
-
Update: Rudy who operates blacksky.community responded to this thread on bluesky. Above I said I wasn't clear on how independent Blacksky was of the Bluesky infra. His answer is "completely". They run their own relay (which scrapes PDSes itself), the relay feeds into their own appview, the appview feeds into their own client. https://bsky.app/profile/rude1.blacksky.team/post/3lyv5rwpc722c
And since they bridge end-to-end, in my Hypothetical Example above, they *could* choose to make different moderation decisions from Bluesky PBC.
So. The thread above. An update.
We finally got a live test of the "Gertrude scenario", when a popular Blacksky user got permbanned by Bluesky. I, using my own PDS and blacksky's website, can't see him or his posts ( https://blacksky.community/profile/did:plc:2aebn3xk5t63net43eeepire/post/3m2iokicegs2b ). What gives?
A lot of people claim this is because Blacksky really is using Bluesky's appview, and gave me a way to verify this looking at headers. This seems to contradict Rudy's previous claims. I've asked Rudy for clarification: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2aebn3xk5t63net43eeepire/post/3m2jve23cf22m
-
So. The thread above. An update.
We finally got a live test of the "Gertrude scenario", when a popular Blacksky user got permbanned by Bluesky. I, using my own PDS and blacksky's website, can't see him or his posts ( https://blacksky.community/profile/did:plc:2aebn3xk5t63net43eeepire/post/3m2iokicegs2b ). What gives?
A lot of people claim this is because Blacksky really is using Bluesky's appview, and gave me a way to verify this looking at headers. This seems to contradict Rudy's previous claims. I've asked Rudy for clarification: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2aebn3xk5t63net43eeepire/post/3m2jve23cf22m
@mcc my understanding - and this may be completely useless, but I've read a bunch of threads by a bunch of people - is that (a) the Blacksky app view migration is still in process, and that (b) Bluesky is still working on migrating their moderation from the firehose (where it isn't supposed to be) to the app view (where it is supposed to be).
Either of these might cause a blocked user to fail to appear in the Blacksky front end.
-
@mcc my understanding - and this may be completely useless, but I've read a bunch of threads by a bunch of people - is that (a) the Blacksky app view migration is still in process, and that (b) Bluesky is still working on migrating their moderation from the firehose (where it isn't supposed to be) to the app view (where it is supposed to be).
Either of these might cause a blocked user to fail to appear in the Blacksky front end.
@tess But
1. Even if Blacksky's appview is limited to the last seven days, or limited only to information Blacksky controls (eg the blacksky pds), I should still be able to see Link's posts, or Link's last seven days of posts. So it seems blacksky's appview isn't being used at all.
2. The test linked above, too, seems to imply I am using Bluesky's appview in all cases.
-
So. The thread above. An update.
We finally got a live test of the "Gertrude scenario", when a popular Blacksky user got permbanned by Bluesky. I, using my own PDS and blacksky's website, can't see him or his posts ( https://blacksky.community/profile/did:plc:2aebn3xk5t63net43eeepire/post/3m2iokicegs2b ). What gives?
A lot of people claim this is because Blacksky really is using Bluesky's appview, and gave me a way to verify this looking at headers. This seems to contradict Rudy's previous claims. I've asked Rudy for clarification: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2aebn3xk5t63net43eeepire/post/3m2jve23cf22m
@mcc I stay as far away from Dorsey as possible, and they banned LINK?!?!!!
Gli ultimi otto messaggi ricevuti dalla Federazione
-
@mcc It is both a PDS and an app view. I'll be publishing a piece about this later today after getting more info. Nothing from Rudy though
-
@mattsheffield I do not think, in the context of the post you have made here, shatteredsky is "a PDS". I think we are using terminology differently and this is making it difficult for me to follow the conversation.
-
@mcc It's possible that Rudy has an independent app view because that can be part of a PDS, but he is not deploying it because his users wouldn't be able to use a mobile app to interface with.
They tout the ability to log in via the Bluesky app into Blacksky PDS, and possibly this is why that traffic is happening.
I have seen Link's account on another PDS, which does suggest that the app view and labeler are both live issues, as you're surmising. https://social.shatteredsky.net/profile/did:plc:63hvnyjvqi2nzzcsjgnry5we
-
@mattsheffield In the screenshot, you see two headers: atproto-accept-labelers, which shows two labelers i assume to be bluesky and blacksky, and atproto-proxy, which indicates which appview is to be used (source: bryan newbold from bluesky), and shows only api.bluesky. So I believe both issues are live. But I am more worried about the appview/atproto-proxy issue, because out of the two, I assume it to be the more difficult issue to fix.
-
@mcc I think I did see it, the one referencing the network traffic from bsky.app? I think that's because the labeling instructions are pulled from there and assembled by the client. So it appears to be an app view issue but is actually a labeling one.
But you're right that only Rudy can clarify this
-
@mattsheffield *sighs*
I feel like I'm having a lot of repetitive conversations. The thing you are claiming was my conclusion as of last night, but then I was shown an additional piece of evidence, which makes me conclude something different. This was documented in one of the threads I link above, but I link a lot of things above, so I assume you didn't see it. I can explain it, but it would make more sense to just wait for Rudy (who I've asked for an explanation) to explain.
-
@mcc *sigh* i get it
I'm holding out for Northsky even though I fear it's going to be the typical flameout but the fact that BlackSky is offering PDSes to people outside the community is also super appealing.
Seeing how they handle this situation might be what puts me over the edge.
That said, I'm also not trying to build my own tools; just use a nice platform run by people I trust.
-
@tess I am inclined to give Rudy a lot of leeway because he is clearly moving very fast. I'd rather him engineer than answer my questions and I'd rather not interrupt him while he's engineering a thing I want to use.
But I just want to know what the software I'm using… like… is.
