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Bluesky and atproto seem to be built to be hackable. Someone in the community recently built a searchable directory of Bluesky "Starter Packs" (which are a way

Bluesky and atproto seem to be built to be hackable. Someone in the community recently built a searchable directory of Bluesky "Starter Packs" (which are a way for a user to publish a set of interesting people & feeds to follow, primarily to help newcomers bootstrap their experience): https://blueskydirectory.com/starter-packs/all https://blueskydirectory.com/starter-packs/all Dan Abramov posted about it earlier today, saying he liked it and: "the fact that it can be done in the ecosystem is awesome. let the ecosystem cook" [1] And maybe more poignantly: "seeing random projects pop up in the atproto ecosystem reminds me just how much public web common were stifled by social companies closing down their APIs. an entire landscape of tools given up on and abandoned" [2] [1] https://bsky.app/profile/danabra.mov/post/3lar3sdna222d https://bsky.app/profile/danabra.mov/post/3lar3sdna222d [2] https://bsky.app/profile/danabra.mov/post/3lar3xpuu4c2d https://bsky.app/profile/danabra.mov/post/3lar3xpuu4c2d

mhartz 2y ago
Wasn't this also sort of a feature with Twitter? iirc the retweet and other now popular features were originally hacked together by users
- frabcus 2y ago
  Retweet was original using the text "RT". Hashtags were also invented by Twitter users.
  - FranklinMaillot 2y ago
    Wasn't the @ also invented by users? I remember it was fascinating to watch this network self organize and create conventions of its own, that are now used everywhere.
    - rsynnott 2y ago
      Also hashtags. Though I think some of this stuff came from other social networks.
  - singleshot_ 2y ago
    Seems to me like Jarkko Oikarinen or one of his crew invented hashtags, no? Denoting the context of your communication with something like #warez or #hack significantly predates web2.0.
    - chefandy 2y ago
      That use— to define IRC channels— seems distinctly different than Twitter hashtags to tag individual posts. I wouldn’t be surprised if hash tags started as a nod to that, perhaps even jokingly, but I don’t think you could consider them a descendent.
    - sph 2y ago
      Rather I think Twitter-style hashtags take inspiration from IRC channels in the format of #topic Because channel names are not hashtags. The syntax is purely because IRC is a text-based protocol, so you need a special way to distinguish channel names from regular text.
      - extraduder_ire 2y ago
        # also has the advantage of being on a key on a T9 keypad while using twitter over SMS was in style.
  - soco 2y ago
    I think reblogs as a technical feature were added first in 2009 by Tumblr and slightly later adopted by Twitter - not that it matters in this context.
- skybrian 2y ago
  Hashtags were invented. It's a convention that happened to work well with Twitter's search engine.
- xavdid 2y ago
  The word "tweet" itself came from a 3rd party developer: > The Iconfactory was developing a Twitter application in 2006 called "Twitterrific" and developer Craig Hockenberry began a search for a shorter way to refer to "Post a Twitter Update." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweet_(social_media)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweet_(social_media)#History
nuz 2y ago
Another argument is that it could lead to a bot problem 10x worse than twitters ever was.
- sneak 2y ago
  Computers that are operated by humans that are using APIs designed for computers is not a bug, but a feature.
  - nonethewiser 2y ago
    Well yeah that's why you can expect it to increase 10x
- jsheard 2y ago
  The Twitter bot situation only seems to have got worse since they shut down free API access. LLM engagement farming bots everywhere in replies, hordes of scam bots replying if you use certain keywords, porn bots following and DMing everyone non-stop... Evidently the people running the bots don't really care whether or not you give them an API to work with.
  - Pxtl 2y ago
    Reminds me of this meme: https://www.reddit.com/r/webscraping/comments/w1ve97/virgin_api_consumer_vs_chad_thirdparty_scraper/#lightbox https://www.reddit.com/r/webscraping/comments/w1ve97/virgin_...
    - Retr0id 2y ago
      Presumably the bots weren't using the "proper" APIs even when they existed, so as to be less easily detectable.
  - extraduder_ire 2y ago
    I think that coincided with them removing phone number verification for accounts. Probably due to my browser looking unusual (content blocker, linux user-agent string, other addons) any time I set up a new account and used it for a few minutes a few years ago, it'd lock the account and redirect every logged in page to one demanding SMS verification to unlock the account. I would usually get support to manually unlock it after a few days by emailing them and mentioning why I didn't want to give them a phone number. Now the process only involves solving captchas. (and maybe some hidden waiting)
zft 2y ago
Starterpacks are great, what about seeing what is current top engaging accounts ? https://www.graphtracks.com https://www.graphtracks.com
- consumer451 2y ago
  That's the best looking Bsky tool that I've seen so far. Nice!
arcalinea 2y ago
Yep, we intentionally built it to be hackable! We believe that social media will improve when people are free to build on it, change it, fork it, and remix it. Bluesky and the atproto ecosystem can evolve as fast as users and developers want them to.
godelski 2y ago
I was contemplating coming over, but this comment is the most convincing to me. I think one of the fatal flaws tech companies have been making is locking things in. But what made the computer so great, what made the smartphone so great, was to make them hackable. You build environments, you build ecosystems. Lockin only slows you down. I mean how long would it have taken for smartphones to have a flashlight if it weren’t for apps? A stopwatch? These were apps before they were built into the operating systems.
- Sebastyijan 2y ago
  Had to make an account to just echo this sentiment. I recently joined bluesky and holy hotdog as a developer it feels good that you can actually build stuff, data wrangling or whatever you might feel inspired to do.

mhartz 2y ago

Wasn't this also sort of a feature with Twitter? iirc the retweet and other now popular features were originally hacked together by users

frabcus 2y ago
Retweet was original using the text "RT". Hashtags were also invented by Twitter users.
- FranklinMaillot 2y ago
  Wasn't the @ also invented by users? I remember it was fascinating to watch this network self organize and create conventions of its own, that are now used everywhere.
  - rsynnott 2y ago
    Also hashtags. Though I think some of this stuff came from other social networks.
- singleshot_ 2y ago
  Seems to me like Jarkko Oikarinen or one of his crew invented hashtags, no? Denoting the context of your communication with something like #warez or #hack significantly predates web2.0.
  - chefandy 2y ago
    That use— to define IRC channels— seems distinctly different than Twitter hashtags to tag individual posts. I wouldn’t be surprised if hash tags started as a nod to that, perhaps even jokingly, but I don’t think you could consider them a descendent.
  - sph 2y ago
    Rather I think Twitter-style hashtags take inspiration from IRC channels in the format of #topic Because channel names are not hashtags. The syntax is purely because IRC is a text-based protocol, so you need a special way to distinguish channel names from regular text.
    - extraduder_ire 2y ago
      # also has the advantage of being on a key on a T9 keypad while using twitter over SMS was in style.
- soco 2y ago
  I think reblogs as a technical feature were added first in 2009 by Tumblr and slightly later adopted by Twitter - not that it matters in this context.
skybrian 2y ago
Hashtags were invented. It's a convention that happened to work well with Twitter's search engine.
xavdid 2y ago
The word "tweet" itself came from a 3rd party developer: > The Iconfactory was developing a Twitter application in 2006 called "Twitterrific" and developer Craig Hockenberry began a search for a shorter way to refer to "Post a Twitter Update." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweet_(social_media)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweet_(social_media)#History

nuz 2y ago

Another argument is that it could lead to a bot problem 10x worse than twitters ever was.

sneak 2y ago
Computers that are operated by humans that are using APIs designed for computers is not a bug, but a feature.
- nonethewiser 2y ago
  Well yeah that's why you can expect it to increase 10x
jsheard 2y ago
The Twitter bot situation only seems to have got worse since they shut down free API access. LLM engagement farming bots everywhere in replies, hordes of scam bots replying if you use certain keywords, porn bots following and DMing everyone non-stop... Evidently the people running the bots don't really care whether or not you give them an API to work with.
- Pxtl 2y ago
  Reminds me of this meme: https://www.reddit.com/r/webscraping/comments/w1ve97/virgin_api_consumer_vs_chad_thirdparty_scraper/#lightbox https://www.reddit.com/r/webscraping/comments/w1ve97/virgin_...
  - Retr0id 2y ago
    Presumably the bots weren't using the "proper" APIs even when they existed, so as to be less easily detectable.
- extraduder_ire 2y ago
  I think that coincided with them removing phone number verification for accounts. Probably due to my browser looking unusual (content blocker, linux user-agent string, other addons) any time I set up a new account and used it for a few minutes a few years ago, it'd lock the account and redirect every logged in page to one demanding SMS verification to unlock the account. I would usually get support to manually unlock it after a few days by emailing them and mentioning why I didn't want to give them a phone number. Now the process only involves solving captchas. (and maybe some hidden waiting)

zft 2y ago

Starterpacks are great, what about seeing what is current top engaging accounts ? https://www.graphtracks.com https://www.graphtracks.com

consumer451 2y ago
That's the best looking Bsky tool that I've seen so far. Nice!

arcalinea 2y ago

Yep, we intentionally built it to be hackable! We believe that social media will improve when people are free to build on it, change it, fork it, and remix it. Bluesky and the atproto ecosystem can evolve as fast as users and developers want them to.

godelski 2y ago

I was contemplating coming over, but this comment is the most convincing to me. I think one of the fatal flaws tech companies have been making is locking things in. But what made the computer so great, what made the smartphone so great, was to make them hackable. You build environments, you build ecosystems. Lockin only slows you down. I mean how long would it have taken for smartphones to have a flashlight if it weren’t for apps? A stopwatch? These were apps before they were built into the operating systems.

Sebastyijan 2y ago
Had to make an account to just echo this sentiment. I recently joined bluesky and holy hotdog as a developer it feels good that you can actually build stuff, data wrangling or whatever you might feel inspired to do.