5 ms·

Agreed. Bluesky is useless for this reason and the way that blocking works individually as well. Imagine if HN had a "block" option you could select against a

by nastoy 2y ago

Agreed. Bluesky is useless for this reason and the way that blocking works individually as well. Imagine if HN had a "block" option you could select against a user, that when you click it, it wipes out every comment that this user ever made on a post that you both commented in, past and future - but not just for you, for every other HN user as well. And there's no "showdead" option to see them either, for anyone. Like if I or anyone who replied to you blocked you now, with this hypothetical Bluesky-like feature on HN, no-one at all would be able to see your comment. Except maybe dang if he went poking around in the database. That's basically how Bluesky blocks work. It's absurd.

verdverm 2y ago
Musk Social provides some options for you to control who can reply to your posts (like followers only), at least it did before I nuked all my accounts. Bluesky provides a richer set of options. I should be able to choose who interacts with my posts. If that's not your style, fine, there are other options out there. Bluesky users like this feature. It reduces the toxicity and makes it a more enjoyable platform. The culture around "don't engage, just block" the trolls helps keep the discourse more civil. With a fresh start, we can stay ahead of the trolls and bots. It's a group effort
- nastoy 2y ago
  You have misunderstood. The way Bluesky blocking works is not just about controlling who else can interact with your posts, it affects the posts of others too, and applies to every other user whether they like it or not. See https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app/issues/7021 https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app/issues/7021 for more detail. A relevant comment from that issue: > As it stands, if 20 people are involved in a discussion, and ONE single person decides to block someone, then all of a sudden, the 19 other people in the discussion (+ any other viewers) are now inconvenienced simply because one person had an issue with someone else. > Bluesky does have a bit of a block culture, and as such, this issue is only going to get worse and worse, and threads are going to get harder and harder to read and follow as more and more people get blocked. > Just the other day I got a notification, and I clicked on it, and once again, the post they were replying to was "blocked", not because of me, but because the person who made the post blocked the person they were responding to. I was trying to make sense of their post, but now I couldn't as I had no idea what the hell they were replying to... then I think I found the post they replied to; it showed "1 reply", but when I clicked on it, no replies were shown. > Now, this functionality was probably done with good intentions - but you know what they say, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". Another comment explaining the problem: > This is working as intended but I agree it should be reassessed. For example: > 1. In a popular thread, User A posts some nonsense > 2. User B replies to that reply explaining why it's nonsense > 3. User A blocks User B > 4. Now User A has successfully hidden the rebuttal to his comment from everyone. The only defense against this is if the thread OP happens to block User A. > This is a pretty serious downside of the "nuclear block" system imo. It creates an escalation ladder of blocking where the first user to hit "block" is advantaged. On the other hand it causes me personally to avoid blocking where I otherwise would, because I want the conversation to still be visible for others. > There should at least be a "show reply" button on posts that are hidden for this reason IMO. Otherwise you've given every user the unilateral power to hide a reply, for everyone, permanently. If I hide a reply the normal way, it's not deleted for everyone! There is a "show hidden reply" button! The effect of hiding someone else's reply should be consistent across these two ways to do it.
  - verdverm 2y ago
    The beauty of ATProto is that you can build an alternative App View that handles blocks differently. The Bluesky app is open source so you don't have to start from scratch either. Choice and competition will make this network a better long-term social fabric than the centralized systems we are used to.
    - nastoy 2y ago
      What is the incentive to do that, given the costly barrier to entry in both developer time and computing resources?
      - verdverm 2y ago
        What's this "costly barrier to entry"? It is certainly not a given from where I am looking By any account, it is far less than building an independent social network application. The components are also decoupled so you don't have to rebuild everything. If you want to build an App View, it's just a webapp or react native. You don't have to rebuild everything re: incentives, there are many, people have different perspectives and motivations to do so
        nastoy 2y ago
        The omission of blocked posts is done server-side by the app.bsky.feed.getPostThread endpoint, so you'd need to reimplement that to return the content of blocked posts instead, both upthread (parent) and downthread (replies). It would require acquiring and maintaining your own replica of the data, which is hundreds of gigabytes in size. This is significantly more complex than making a few small changes to the frontend app.
        verdverm 2y ago
        This is absolutely and provably wrong. I have written my own webapp (https://blebbit.com https://blebbit.com) and I can see content and accounts I have blocked on Bluesky. I just validated this to be the true. This because I have not implemented block respecting in my own code yet. It's more work to actually respect the blocking. The full backup of ATProto is more than 5T now. You seem really misinformed about all of this. Or maybe you created an account to intentionally spread falsehoods about Bluesky? There has been a flurry of this on HN lately
frontalier 2y ago
this is false if alice blocks bob: it hides all posts bob made in response to alice posts; blocks bob from replying to future posts of alice; but more importantly it erases bob from alice's feed wich is often the only healthy thing to do because bob is a deranged lunatic and alice does not owe bob the attention he seeks
- nastoy 2y ago
  It is not false. > it hides all posts bob made in response to alice posts Exactly, it hides these from anyone else who might read the thread, including others participating in the thread. This offers Alice not just the means to control her own Bluesky experience, but also to unilaterally control which parts of the conversation that all others on Bluesky can see. It is in effect a feature to selectively delete the posts of others for any reason. > because bob is a deranged lunatic and alice does not owe bob the attention he seeks That is generally not the reason why users on Bluesky hit the block button. There's a strong tendency there of blocking because someone disagrees with you, or they explained why you're wrong about something, or they pointed out that you're spreading misinformation. On Bluesky, blocking is a way to quickly and conveniently hide any dissent.
  - frontalier 2y ago
    yes, alice has autonomy over who participates on conversations she started. bob is still free to have the same conversation, just not on alice's conversations or as replies to her. i dont't think we're going to agree on why people generaly block others. you seem to see yourself as some sort of dissenter, or a truth-teller of some kind, but when you get blocked for interjecting into someone else's coversations it's just because no one asked you to be part of that conversation and now you lost your access privileges. this rejection probably fucks with your self-esteem more than it should but i'm no therapist so maybe go find one instead of annoying folks on the internet.
  - tensor 2y ago
    It seems that a lot of people today have a really difficult time understanding that free speech does not mean you get to follow someone around yelling at them, you don't get to come into their home, follow them to the bar they go to with their friends. That's not free speech, that's harassment. I'd go so far as to say that social media without a block button is unethical, and promotes propaganda and harassment. The block button means the user heard you, use used your free speech! Congrats! Now they want to walk away from you. Ooops. No, you are not entitled to get any response, nor to continue talking at them if they choose to leave the area.
EasyMark 2y ago
It actually has worked well for me, and I've had some interesting discussions on there and some arguments, but over facts and not emotions. I think people have a right to express their opinions, but they don't have a right to make me hear what they're saying if they're known belligerents, spreaders of disinformation, or similar things.
- nastoy 2y ago
  Should people who disagree with your opinions be able to stop others from reading your opinions? As that's what the Bluesky block feature does. You might be responding to a spreader of disinformation with facts, but if they then block you, no-one else will be able to read your response.
pjc50 2y ago
No, this is good. It's an anti-flamewar measure.
DHPersonal 2y ago
It makes a lot of sense. If you came to my house and started talking nonsense, I would ask you to leave the house, not stand with my eyes closed and ears plugged in my own house while you continued to rant to my guests.

by nastoy 2y ago

verdverm 2y ago

Musk Social provides some options for you to control who can reply to your posts (like followers only), at least it did before I nuked all my accounts. Bluesky provides a richer set of options. I should be able to choose who interacts with my posts. If that's not your style, fine, there are other options out there. Bluesky users like this feature. It reduces the toxicity and makes it a more enjoyable platform. The culture around "don't engage, just block" the trolls helps keep the discourse more civil. With a fresh start, we can stay ahead of the trolls and bots. It's a group effort

nastoy 2y ago
You have misunderstood. The way Bluesky blocking works is not just about controlling who else can interact with your posts, it affects the posts of others too, and applies to every other user whether they like it or not. See https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app/issues/7021 https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app/issues/7021 for more detail. A relevant comment from that issue: > As it stands, if 20 people are involved in a discussion, and ONE single person decides to block someone, then all of a sudden, the 19 other people in the discussion (+ any other viewers) are now inconvenienced simply because one person had an issue with someone else. > Bluesky does have a bit of a block culture, and as such, this issue is only going to get worse and worse, and threads are going to get harder and harder to read and follow as more and more people get blocked. > Just the other day I got a notification, and I clicked on it, and once again, the post they were replying to was "blocked", not because of me, but because the person who made the post blocked the person they were responding to. I was trying to make sense of their post, but now I couldn't as I had no idea what the hell they were replying to... then I think I found the post they replied to; it showed "1 reply", but when I clicked on it, no replies were shown. > Now, this functionality was probably done with good intentions - but you know what they say, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". Another comment explaining the problem: > This is working as intended but I agree it should be reassessed. For example: > 1. In a popular thread, User A posts some nonsense > 2. User B replies to that reply explaining why it's nonsense > 3. User A blocks User B > 4. Now User A has successfully hidden the rebuttal to his comment from everyone. The only defense against this is if the thread OP happens to block User A. > This is a pretty serious downside of the "nuclear block" system imo. It creates an escalation ladder of blocking where the first user to hit "block" is advantaged. On the other hand it causes me personally to avoid blocking where I otherwise would, because I want the conversation to still be visible for others. > There should at least be a "show reply" button on posts that are hidden for this reason IMO. Otherwise you've given every user the unilateral power to hide a reply, for everyone, permanently. If I hide a reply the normal way, it's not deleted for everyone! There is a "show hidden reply" button! The effect of hiding someone else's reply should be consistent across these two ways to do it.
- verdverm 2y ago
  The beauty of ATProto is that you can build an alternative App View that handles blocks differently. The Bluesky app is open source so you don't have to start from scratch either. Choice and competition will make this network a better long-term social fabric than the centralized systems we are used to.
  - nastoy 2y ago
    What is the incentive to do that, given the costly barrier to entry in both developer time and computing resources?
    - verdverm 2y ago
      What's this "costly barrier to entry"? It is certainly not a given from where I am looking By any account, it is far less than building an independent social network application. The components are also decoupled so you don't have to rebuild everything. If you want to build an App View, it's just a webapp or react native. You don't have to rebuild everything re: incentives, there are many, people have different perspectives and motivations to do so
      - nastoy 2y ago
        The omission of blocked posts is done server-side by the app.bsky.feed.getPostThread endpoint, so you'd need to reimplement that to return the content of blocked posts instead, both upthread (parent) and downthread (replies). It would require acquiring and maintaining your own replica of the data, which is hundreds of gigabytes in size. This is significantly more complex than making a few small changes to the frontend app.
        verdverm 2y ago
        This is absolutely and provably wrong. I have written my own webapp (https://blebbit.com https://blebbit.com) and I can see content and accounts I have blocked on Bluesky. I just validated this to be the true. This because I have not implemented block respecting in my own code yet. It's more work to actually respect the blocking. The full backup of ATProto is more than 5T now. You seem really misinformed about all of this. Or maybe you created an account to intentionally spread falsehoods about Bluesky? There has been a flurry of this on HN lately

frontalier 2y ago

this is false if alice blocks bob: it hides all posts bob made in response to alice posts; blocks bob from replying to future posts of alice; but more importantly it erases bob from alice's feed wich is often the only healthy thing to do because bob is a deranged lunatic and alice does not owe bob the attention he seeks

nastoy 2y ago
It is not false. > it hides all posts bob made in response to alice posts Exactly, it hides these from anyone else who might read the thread, including others participating in the thread. This offers Alice not just the means to control her own Bluesky experience, but also to unilaterally control which parts of the conversation that all others on Bluesky can see. It is in effect a feature to selectively delete the posts of others for any reason. > because bob is a deranged lunatic and alice does not owe bob the attention he seeks That is generally not the reason why users on Bluesky hit the block button. There's a strong tendency there of blocking because someone disagrees with you, or they explained why you're wrong about something, or they pointed out that you're spreading misinformation. On Bluesky, blocking is a way to quickly and conveniently hide any dissent.
- frontalier 2y ago
  yes, alice has autonomy over who participates on conversations she started. bob is still free to have the same conversation, just not on alice's conversations or as replies to her. i dont't think we're going to agree on why people generaly block others. you seem to see yourself as some sort of dissenter, or a truth-teller of some kind, but when you get blocked for interjecting into someone else's coversations it's just because no one asked you to be part of that conversation and now you lost your access privileges. this rejection probably fucks with your self-esteem more than it should but i'm no therapist so maybe go find one instead of annoying folks on the internet.
- tensor 2y ago
  It seems that a lot of people today have a really difficult time understanding that free speech does not mean you get to follow someone around yelling at them, you don't get to come into their home, follow them to the bar they go to with their friends. That's not free speech, that's harassment. I'd go so far as to say that social media without a block button is unethical, and promotes propaganda and harassment. The block button means the user heard you, use used your free speech! Congrats! Now they want to walk away from you. Ooops. No, you are not entitled to get any response, nor to continue talking at them if they choose to leave the area.

EasyMark 2y ago

It actually has worked well for me, and I've had some interesting discussions on there and some arguments, but over facts and not emotions. I think people have a right to express their opinions, but they don't have a right to make me hear what they're saying if they're known belligerents, spreaders of disinformation, or similar things.

nastoy 2y ago
Should people who disagree with your opinions be able to stop others from reading your opinions? As that's what the Bluesky block feature does. You might be responding to a spreader of disinformation with facts, but if they then block you, no-one else will be able to read your response.

pjc50 2y ago

No, this is good. It's an anti-flamewar measure.

DHPersonal 2y ago

It makes a lot of sense. If you came to my house and started talking nonsense, I would ask you to leave the house, not stand with my eyes closed and ears plugged in my own house while you continued to rant to my guests.