Some tips for posting on Bluesky, for troll avoidance, and for keeping your activity there from hurting DU [View all]

[highplainsdem]

Last edited Tue Nov 26, 2024, 10:35 AM - Edit history (1)

I've already posted asking people who are joining Bluesky NOT to let it cut into their DU activity - https://www.democraticunderground.com/100219746054 - but I want to mention it again, because it looked to me when I checked Latest threads this morning as though there's already been a drop in the number of new threads here. I hope that's only a temporary lull as people sign up on Bluesky and start to find their way around there. But just in case, I'm bringing this up again because I've been active online long enough to remember Facebook wiping out a lot of message boards when it really took off.

So...

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1) Prioritize DU. If you've run across a news story of importance you want to post, especially one of importance to Democrats, post it here FIRST - after checking to make sure it hasn't already been posted. Even if you think you'll have time to post on both Bluesky and DU, start here, because otherwise you might find yourself distracted by notifications of replies on Bluesky and run short of time for posting here.


2) Watch out for trolls on Bluesky, report and then block them, and do NOT reply, like or follow anyone you don't already know there without checking their profile and some of their posts first. And while checking them out, do NOT click on any links in their profile or posts. This is particularly important because a troll group/website called

k i w i
f a r m s

has resurfaced on Bluesky with a lot of different accounts, apparently sometimes mentioning

k i w i
f a r m s

in the profile, and they're also circulating booby-trapped blocklists - what they're telling people are lists of trolls and MAGA supporters to block, lists they've inserted a lot of liberal accounts into, to get those liberals blocked, as much as possible. (And if you reply here and refer to these trolls by their name, please add spaces between letters or just call them KF.)


3) Don't go overboard with reposting. I know it's a way to show appreciation for a post and get it seen more widely - and make your own views clearer by what you're reposting - but have mercy on your followers, who are going to get all your reposts in their Following feed unless they change settings. I've sometimes followed people who repost dozens of posts a day, and it doesn't take more than one or two such people to make a Following feed almost impossible to scroll through, often with many reposts of the same viral post or news story by different people you're following.

And when that happens, your overwhelmed followers will have to choose between muting you to keep all your reposts out of their feed - which will also keep your replies and original posts from showing up in their feeds - or going into Settings/Content and media/Following feed preferences and shutting off all reposts from everyone, which will keep them from seeing reposts from people they're following who are reposting much more selectively and responsibly.


4) Please DON'T think it's important to duplicate DU and hang out together on Bluesky. It would be a good idea for EarlG to have a DU account there, especially for any times this board is down. And I know that if you don't have a lot of experience online (I first got online 39 years ago, have used a lot of different platforms and run different types), it can be tempting to look for people you know there, just to chat with. But if you're chatting with them there - and especially if you're commenting on news stories with them there - that makes it MUCH more likely that you'll be spending less time here, and especially less time commenting on the same news story here. And that will hurt DU.

Besides, one nice thing about spending some time on a new platform is meeting new people and finding new interests.

And if you ARE going to stress DU - or any group you belong to - on another platform, please do everything you can to be a great representative of it, especially to people unfamiliar with it.

Remember, too, that if you post messages linking your Bluesky ID to your DU ID, you make it possible for any trolls you might make the mistake of wasting time on there to sign up here to snipe at you, and that makes it harder on MIRT.


5) Give credit where due. Don't post poetry, art, photos, etc. without giving credit to those who wrote or created it. Don't reward people who are posting only or mostly photos they lifted without giving credit by liking, following and reposting them - they're scavengers and thieves.


6) Don't flood Bluesky with AI slop - whether AI art, music or text. There's already way too much of that crap on Facebook and Twitter. All those AI tools are based on theft of intellectual property (making them fundamentally unethical), all of them show disrespect to the real artists and creators whose work was stolen to train AI, and none of then make you creative or really express what you think or feel. They're called AI slop for a reason.

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You've seen me post a lot of tweets here, as well as lots of articles and news that I saw first on Twitter, as well as stuff for the Lounge (cat videos, Twitter accounts with particularly beautiful photos and art, etc.). That's because I've used Twitter primarily to find things DUers will find interesting - and I bring them here, before I do anything else with them (and often don't do anything else with them; if there's something I want to say about those tweets and news stories, I'll say it here).

I look at other social media platforms primarily to add posts of some value to DU. I don't want them to become rivals for DUers' attention. This site has been important for Democrats for more than 20 years, and we're going to need it more than ever in the future.

I do want Bluesky to succeed as an alternative to Musk's Twitter. It's important that it does. But at this point we honestly don't know if it will, and we have no control over who might buy it in the future. So enjoy it, play with it, use it carefully, add value to it, do what you can to deal with trolls on it. But please put DU first.