Talk:Bluesky

Post-2024 US presidential election decamp from Twitter/X

Just adding this reference from The Guardian. RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 07:46, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

References

Criticism in introductory section feels out of place

LemurianPatriot recently added a paragraph criticizing Bluesky to the introductory paragraph. Given criticism stems largely from two people (one with previous financial interest in the company) and is not otherwise integrated in the article, it feels out of place and might not be in line with WP:CRIT guidelines. If there are a few more articles critiquing Bluesky itself which can be made into a cogent section, it might work better as a dedicated Criticism section in this article or in the AT Protocol article. There are already a few criticism articles in the AT Protocol page which this might be useful for. Baldemoto (talk) 20:30, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Moving criticism to AT Protocol and putting a small mention in the Bluesky article is the way to go. I only left it in the lead because of a previous edit, and I couldn't bother to find a better place for it. LemurianPatriot (talk) 22:10, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

That works! I'll try and get a criticisms section going soon, though feel free to get ahead of me. Doctorow's article is a good place to begin but there have been previous articles critical of ATProto written before. I'll try to dig them up. Baldemoto (talk) 23:06, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Article is a mess

What is "Service history" and why don't we just have a "History" section? And why is there a separate "Bluesky Social" section that provides all kinds of Twitter-centric history? Why isn't this part of the History section, and if Bluesky Social is so distinct from Bluesky then it should be its own article. How do we fix this mess of an article? --ZimZalaBim ^talk 02:52, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi, I am the one who created the Bluesky Social section.

I did it to separate the history of the social media platform and the company, since the history between the two is intertwined, but also separate at the same time (if that makes since).

I hope that myself, or somebody else, can eventually clean it up to make it less "messy", but there's seems to be an influx of editors at the moment, so that may be a slow down. 2601:19E:8380:B570:4312:8EC6:C9E:FDB2 (talk) 21:21, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

I think a revamp is sorely needed. The header section itself is fine and in-line with other social media platforms, but the rest is definitely in need of some major rewriting. I think we should try and follow a similar structure as other social media services - That being History (of both the social media platform and the company, for the time being), Features, Technology (brief overview of the AT Protocol could likely be placed here) and Reception. If the social app becomes significantly decentralized away from Bluesky Social (i.e. they're not running most of the social app) then a separate article for Bluesky Social would be warranted. However, this is not the case yet, so I believe the app and the company should be integrated for now. I'm willing to hear out different ideas for how to better this article, however. Baldemoto (talk) 01:03, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

I have taken the initiative to revamp the page. I have attempted to keep as much information as possible, though I had to discard some information that didn't quite fit anywhere in the article. I believe the article is overall much more readable now and in a better state to add information, but if there are any major or minor sticking points please do share here. Baldemoto (talk) 05:36, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Official link for Bluesky?

When I googled, I found at least three results for Bluesky. Is there an official link? I found at least .app, and .social. The site at .com was apparently a different thing. Misty MH (talk) 11:01, 18 November 2024 (UTC) Misty MH (talk) 10:59, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

bsky.social is the company page, while bsky.app is the social app itself. Baldemoto (talk) 03:54, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

TY. Misty MH (talk) 04:01, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

bsky.social is also the suffix for a user account (unless the user has their own domain). So John Doe will be using bsky.app as user @johndoe.bsky.social. MichielN (talk) 22:22, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Controversy on Bluesky decentralization

The article intro currently starts by saying that "Bluesky is a decentralized microblogging social media service". This "decentralized" adjective might require some additional qualifiers, or be removed from the intro: the decentralized character, in the strong sense of "without a center", is not currently materialized, as the infrastructure run by Bluesky Social PBC is clearly Bluesky's center. The theoretically decentralizable character has also been challenged. I'm out of my depth in this technical debate, but I think Wikipedia should keep unqualified affirmative adjectives to what as been demonstrated to be true, and present theoretical possibilities as what they are, to not fall on the side of promotional content. Maxlath (talk) 09:57, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. At the most we can say that it is aiming to become decentralised. – Joe (talk) 12:48, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

I believe my knowledge of the protocol may be useful here as I am well acquainted with the protocol's implementation and believe that Bluesky should still count under the banner of "decentralized". The AT Protocol has 3 main components: The personal data server (PDS), the Relay, and the AppView. PDSes are where user posts are stored and accessed. Relays are what index the network. AppViews are what we traditionally think of as "apps" such as Bluesky. Every single one of these has a component not run by Bluesky Social.There are at least 1,800 PDSes not run by Bluesky Social. This means that the content in these accounts is not under control of Bluesky Social - the relays merely index these sites across the decentralized network and aggregate them in the AppView. Because of how these interactions between users in different PDSes is structured, it requires collective databases of every event in the network to combine the data from multiple users into something that is presented to the Bluesky AppView and the client - which is a clear example of decentralization by design. There are independent relays that also index the entire network for use for independent AppViews. As for the Bluesky AppView - since Bluesky's API and lexicon is locked open due to the protocol, there are independent projects such as deck.blue, Graysky, Skeets, etc that also serve users content from relays (both served by Bluesky Social and by independent relay operators) without relying on Bluesky Social. Because Bluesky's API is "locked open" due to the protocol, anybody can build a Bluesky app. In short, every aspect of Bluesky - from the PDSes, to the relay, to the AppViews, to the clients, are meaningfully decentralized. The reason why most of the operation is still run by Bluesky Social PBC is because there is no *reason* to move out of their infrastructure, as people are happy with it. Should people have a need to move out of their infrastructure, the decentralized architecture is already there and well implemented to facilitate this. It's not a hypothetical or an "aim" - it is already existing. Baldemoto (talk) 14:58, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

That being said, I believe that the current writing - where the platform is built on a decentralized protocol while not being described as decentralized itself - is a reasonable compromise for the time being. Should a new app that uses the Bluesky lexicon become widely used, I believe this issue should be revisited. Baldemoto (talk) 16:11, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

And yet you've just done the opposite? – Joe (talk) 05:35, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

The edit for decentralization was not made by me - the implicit consensus stayed there after the addition of citations for some time, and my addition was an update to the description and additional citation. I did not revert the consensus itself. Baldemoto (talk) 03:23, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree, and I would like to add even more. Bluesky has a lot of opaque centralized systems embedded: The Direct message (DM) system, is completely closed and opaque, and runs on a centralized system fully controlled by Bluesky PBC. You can also add GIFs on Bluesky, but you can only do that through Tenor, a centralized website owned by Google. Antimundo (talk) 10:03, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

The source mentioned below, by Christine Lemmer-Webber, is also crystal clear: "Bluesky and ATProto are not meaningfully decentralized". It also quotes Bluesky's own documentation as admitting "even though the majority of Bluesky services are currently operated by a single company". I think these views ought to be incorporated into the article to balance the at the moment uncritical repetition of Bluesky's own claims to be or aim to become "decentralized". – Joe (talk) 10:20, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Corporate structure ... LLC or PBC or PBLLC?

What is the official name of the corporation? The press release from Bluesky itself here https://bsky.social/about/blog/2-7-2022-overview says PBLLC. Any other sources? Noleander (talk) 02:03, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Nevermind, I see it is listed as "PBC" in the Delaware Sec of State website. So it is PBC, not LLPBC. Noleander (talk) 02:07, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

A BLUESKY, PBLLC exists; there's also a BLUESKY SOCIAL, PBC branch. There are thousands of companies named BlueSky... Nemo 09:13, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Headquarters in Seattle? better source needed.

Anyone have good-quality sources that indicate where Bluesky is headquartered? A not-so-great source says Seattle, but better sources are needed. 02:11, 22 November 2024 (UTC) Noleander (talk) 02:11, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

The LinkedIn page for the company does state it's headquartered in Seattle. However, I've yet to find a secondary source that has reported on this. We might have to wait for a confirmation from a secondary source on this one. Baldemoto (talk) 22:16, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Reliable sources

Most of this article is currently based on primary sources. We now have a reliable and up-to-date third-party source about the technical aspects of BlueSky thanks to the analysis by Christine Lemmer-Webber, How decentralized is Bluesky really?. Nemo 08:39, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

I've removed the primary sources (and self-reported statistics) from section 0. There are enough sources these days for those not to be needed in a summary, though they may be useful in the body of the article. We can now go through the statements in the body to check which ones are supported by reliable sources. Once the body of the article is more stable it will be easier to decide what to put in the initial summary and the infobox. (Updating statistics every day in the infobox looks like a particularly futile exercise, given the speed of changes: the service went from ~10 to ~3 million daily active users between September and October 2024. It's good enough to state the order of magnitude.) Nemo 09:45, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Bluesky Social's founder

Currently, the page states that Bluesky was founded by Jack Dorsey. However, I dispute this assertion as relevant to the article. Jack did initiate the Bluesky project, however, I've yet to find a reliable source citing him as Bluesky Social's founder. I believe it's more relevant for information to be related to Bluesky Social, as all work relating to Bluesky or the AT Protocol is related to the company. Graber has stated in a previous interview that she was the founder of Bluesky Social, though, again, reputable secondary sources remain scarce. I'm not sure how to query more information from Delaware's records to clear up who exactly filed to incorporate the company. Baldemoto (talk) 21:48, 2 December 2024 (UTC)