Talk:Bluesky (social network)

"Protocol"

Bluesky is not a protocol. At best it can be called an exploratory working group. I don't know what sources are calling it these days but "Protocol" would probably not be the best description. riffic (talk) 20:53, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

update - there has been a published spec known at the Authenticated Transfer Protocol. Just in case anyone wants to update the page or something. Bluesky is *not a protocol* so a move to another page title would be warranted. riffic (talk) 18:58, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

I moved the page. Bluesky is not a protocol. It *is* a PBLLC though according to its website and the footer of the atproto.com website. No objections to another move to a more appropriate title. riffic (talk) 19:23, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm not following this logic. If it's not a protocol, what is it? czar 01:58, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

the "protocol" is not named Bluesky. Bluesky itself is the name of the working group (formally a Public Benefit LLC.) the protocol itself is named Authenticated Transfer Protocol. riffic (talk) 05:06, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

It's a metonym: The press refers to both the initiative and the initiative's output as "Bluesky", per the sourcing. czar 14:12, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

I don't really know how to do it myself but perhaps an Infobox should be added to the article describing Bluesky as a Public Benefit LLC so people aren't getting confused what the entity is and what it isn't. Any objections to that? riffic (talk) 20:03, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

can this please be revisited? There has to be a better disambig description than the one currently used on this article. riffic (talk) 22:15, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't see the issue? Sources continue to describe Bluesky as a social network, a protocol, and a company. It's clearly a metonym for all of the above. I don't think the article needs an infobox, which is for fast facts about a company or product whereas this is somewhere in-between. If your concern is that the word "protocol" is the only one in the title's parenthetical disambiguation, feel free to suggest an improvement. "Bluesky Social" is the name of the app, so that would work as natural disambiguation. czar 22:27, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

I support a rename to "Bluesky Social", as it is only a matter of time before the Authenticated Transfer Protocol takes a life of its own, esp under the MIT license scheme and the decentralized goal they are taking. Seems like addressing this on Wikipedia in the early days of the project is the best move. AT protocol already redirects here in the search for it on Wikipedia. On their beta signup page they already go by "Bluesky Social."[1]. They have a separate website for the actual protocol at The AT Protocol notating Bluesky, PBLLC in the footer. P37307 (talk) 22:52, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Differences to ActivityPub?

Hi, the article, especially the description part, sounds like they are reinventing ActivityPub. Are they doing that? They wrote, that they are working together with the people of ActivityPub. So I guess they are doing something else? Maybe it would be helpful for the understanding to explain the differences in the article. As ActivityPub is established now, it would be hard to push an alternative standard anyway. So there should be a section in what situations Bluesky is maybe a better solution. Is bluesky even a solution or is it more a think tank? Nico Düsing (talk) 17:46, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Given that even the most cursory google search turns up things like

Nov 1, 2022 — ActivityPub has been around for much longer. I consider Nostr and Bluesky rip offs of what ActivityPub has been trying to build for more than a decade.

Perhaps the main article should have some more pointed criticism of how this relates to activity pub/fediverse 2601:197:D00:3CA0:2168:4CC8:CDE2:A62C (talk) 01:56, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

infobox removal

hi, I see the infobox for the pbllc was removed. any rationale or consensus to re-add that back in? riffic (talk) 14:11, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

I added the infobox back to the article. It can be added to with further info if necessary but I did not see any consensus to remove (or keep this removed). riffic (talk) 19:53, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

This reads like promotion

Is this anything other than a large exercise in WP:CRYSTAL at this stage? Frankly it's the sort of thing that should be a very small section of another article, perhaps Jack Dorsey - David Gerard (talk) 10:45, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Which issue are you addressing: notability or neutrality/promotion? For notability, it is covered as a separate and independent initiative with its own dedicated, in-depth coverage from multiple, reliable secondary sources with more than enough detail to warrant its own article. If you disagree, you please start a merge or AfD discussion to get consensus. For "reads like promotion", are you referencing the last three sentences or what exactly? It is summarizing plain facts about about a spin-out initiative. czar 17:47, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

It is summarising claims about a thing that literally doesn't exist and is vaporware. As WP:CRYSTAL says:

Wikipedia is not a collection of product announcements and rumors. Although Wikipedia includes up-to-date knowledge about newly revealed products, short articles that consist of only product announcement information and rumors are not appropriate. Until such time that more encyclopedic knowledge about the product can be verified, product announcements should be merged to a larger topic (such as an article about the creator(s), a series of products, or a previous product) if applicable.

That seems pretty clear that vaporware doesn't routinely warrant an article, even with lots of little blue numbers after it - David Gerard (talk) 00:06, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Let's see the reliable sources that call it vaporware, as that isn't how I've seen it covered. In the meantime, the article is the subject of multiple reliable sources about the development of a service. If the press soured on the possibility that it will ever release (i.e., that it's vaporware), I could see the merger discussion possibility, but as it stands, I still think it would warrant its own standalone article as an example of a protocol initiative based on the detail in which it has been covered thus far. czar 03:45, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Let's see the reliable sources that call it vaporware That's an extremely unserious statement. It doesn't exist. It doesn't have anything yet. The article still reads like a press release, because it doesn't bloody exist. It's precisely the sort of thing described in that last clause of WP:CRYSTAL, glaringly. You're writing this like you're promoting it, and you just deliberately re-added a non-RS from a publication that is yellow-rated because it's given to PR COI and vaporware promotion - David Gerard (talk) 08:59, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

There are over 10 sources in the article from indisputably reliable sources dedicated to the subject, including coverage of the in-progress protocol from the last year. You keep repeating "CRYSTAL" as if it changes the fact that even if this were to be full-on vaporware—and my point is that that's a premature pejorative per the available sourcing—it would still be independently notable from Twitter based on those 10 sources. If you feel so strongly that it is no more than a product announcement/rumor, you should take it to AfD, but I imagine you haven't because it isn't and will be summarily "kept" there. I recommend instead focusing on improving the article.

Since you've now repeatedly cast aspersions, let it be clear that I have no connection to this topic apart from having started the article and wanting to see it covered by the same WP:5P standard in which I've written hundreds of other articles. If you have a specific concern about promotional language, please raise it, but as it stands, it's been nitpicks, including and especially labeling TechCrunch as a "non-RS" which is explicitly not how our listing puts it. The sourcing, in actual practice and not theory, is solid and the writing is unadorned. czar 13:39, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

This article is clearly a press release, at best it could be part of the twitter or Jack Dorsey page. Its getting scary how much wikipedia ignores its own rules and always in the direction of deep state agenda. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.150.164.194 (talk) 16:27, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

OK, the above is obsolete - it's getting coverage now - David Gerard (talk) 17:06, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

RSes

I've added a reference to the FT article which is probably the first reliable source I see mentioning anything concrete. One problem with the relative lack of sources is that the article ends up parroting marketing material suggesting things which are not currently true, such as the idea that Bluesky social the service is somehow "open" or uses certain W3C standards, which are actually "temporarily" not used. It would therefore be necessary to either remove any unsubstantiated technical claim for which there's no valid secondary source, or to draw more from whatever is available now (mostly blog posts by a handful experienced technologists who actually looked at the protocol, code and service). Nemo 06:24, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

The RSes are showing up now - Verge, CNN last night. (CNN seems to establish that "skeet" is what posts are called, Tapper just used the term casually as if it was understood. Tapper is active on Bluesky fwiw.) So we should have more solid coverage in short order. Also, I wouldn't go too heavily into the technical details as yet from primary sources - the protocol is still in flux as a flood of users beat the heck out of the present instance - David Gerard (talk) 17:07, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Agreed on that. So far I only added the minimum necessary to balance the pre-existing promotional material. Nemo 18:15, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

The article seems to have drifted towards promotional material again in the past few months. Nemo 18:55, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Contradiction in service history section

The section mentions Bluesky being Centralised, proprietary software as of 2023, whilst saying it was "made open source" at the end of the section, which is it? 91.116.16.92 (talk) 09:13, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Ownership

I have an issue with this comment at the end of the "Company History" section: "Bluesky refuses to divulge its ownership and charter language publicly, with spokespeople providing evasive or non-answers in response to inquiries.[28]" Cite #28 for that references an Intercept article from June 1: <https://theintercept.com/2023/06/01/bluesky-owner-twitter-elon-musk/> The referenced article doesn't seem to support what the Wikipedia article is saying.

"The Intercept article actually says this: "Bluesky, the company, is
a Public Benefit LLC. It is owned by Jay Graber and the Bluesky
team," according to the site's Frequently Asked Questions page. This
is exactly what Jeromy Johnson, a former engineer for the
distributed file system IPFS and a technical adviser to Bluesky who
goes by Whyrusleeping, said when asked in early April."

...

"When asked for clarification about Bluesky's ownership, Emily Liu,
another member of the Bluesky team, told me that Bluesky has been
offering employees equity as part of their compensation packages, as
is a common practice with startups. She also confirmed that Bluesky
PBLLC's board consists of Graber, Dorsey, and Jeremie Miller,
inventor of the open and decentralized chat protocol Jabber."

Jonl (talk) 13:06, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

It might be better to use this, from Bluesky's FAQ: "Bluesky, the company, is a Public Benefit LLC. It is owned by Jay Graber and the Bluesky team." Jonl (talk) 16:07, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

I just made this change. It still seems like some of the preceding conversation about funding should be removed or edited due to the seed funding round. Klintron23 (talk) 16:19, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Hi, I'm seeing the wiki article still calls Bluesky's parent company a PBLLC but both Techcrunch and the official Bluesky site blog (note this link is blacklisted by Wikipedia for being on a .xyz domain blueskyweb dot xyz/blog/7-05-2023-business-plan) say the company was converted into a "public benefit C Corp". Please update the article when there has been a chance to confirm. riffic (talk) 02:37, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

There's even a git commit showing the source code is now licensed to a "Bluesky PBC" in case anyone is going to edit the page later. This is a primary source though, please don't do original research! riffic (talk) 17:14, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 22 September 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. After some time since the last comment here, there is no consensus to move.(closed by non-admin page mover) estar8806 (talk) ★ 18:44, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

---

Bluesky Social → Bluesky – Almost all news articles about Bluesky, as well as Bluesky itself, don't seem to use the "Social", and simply use the WP:COMMONNAME "Bluesky". The existing Bluesky page is a redirect that hasn't been edited since 2007 so I don't think there would be any harm in moving this article to there; it would be possible to add a hatnote to this article pointing to the Blue Sky disambiguation page. Additionally, this article is clearly the primary topic for "Bluesky", as the only other two articles with that spelling- Bluesky, Alberta and Bluesky Formation- don't even come close in terms of pageviews. Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 15:35, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose this primarytopic takeover. Currently Bluesky is disambiguated to a number of distinct topics, and it should stay that way, since Bluesky Social is as obscure as the other targets, just happens to have more recent traffic. Dicklyon (talk) 00:22, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
• Comment Bluesky is actually not currently a disambiguation page– it is rather a redirect to the Blue Sky disambiguation page. If one looks only at the articles on there which include the "Bluesky" spelling, this topic is absolutely dominant in terms of page views and is already clearly the primary topic.Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 09:16, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
• Support - The proposal moves the current article to a redirect (Bluesky), preserving the disambiguation (Blue Sky); it's a recognizable, concise, and natural name to satisfy WP:CRITERIA. The data from WikiNav and Pageviews also support the usage and long-term significance of the guidance in WP:PRIMARYTOPIC.

1. There's a strong association of Bluesky with Bluesky Social. Usage during July and August 2023 shows 76-81% of outgoing navigation (1136 views) from the Blue Sky disambiguation page went to Bluesky Social (WikiNav); it's far ahead of the next-visited article - Blue Sky Studios, with 10% of outgoing navigation (154 views).
2. The long-term significance lay in the fact that Bluesky Social is still an extant company, with continuing news coverage and growing userbase (compare to the next most-visited Blue Sky Studios, a defunct company); the notability is similarly reflected in the higher average views over time against other articles from the disambiguation (Pageview Analysis).

My only suggestion is to maybe include in the hatnote Blue Sky Studios, and of course the Blue Sky disambiguation page. 🌌 VintageNebula (talk) 03:37, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

• Move to Bluesky (social network) is also fine with me as an alternative to the primary topic Bluesky. As Villem points out, this would be consistent with other articles. 🌌 VintageNebula (talk) 03:37, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. Bluesky should continue to redirect to Blue Sky. No primary topic. Bluesky (social media platform) would be acceptable. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:13, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

• Support or move: The platform's name is just Bluesky, not Bluesky Social (see [2]). bsky.social is just one provider among others. Should be the primary topic for Bluesky. Or: move to Bluesky (social network), synchronous to Mastodon (social network) or Threads (social network).

Villem (talk) 06:07, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

That's fine too. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:32, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose per Dicklyon and as a hasty primary topic takeover for a site that isn't out yet. Support moving to Bluesky (social media platform) or something like that. DigitalIceAge (talk) 18:05, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
• Support. Pageview stats show that, since its creation in April, Bluesky Social has received 43 times as many pageviews as all other topics titled "Bluesky Foo" or "BlueSky Foo" combined. I don't see a plausible significance gap that would counterbalance this dominance in usage. (Titles that use the phrase "blue sky", with a space, differ from "Bluesky" under WP:SMALLDETAILS and don't pertain to the calculation here.) Oppose any parenthetical disambiguation such as "Bluesky (social network)", as all proposed parentheticals thus far have been less WP:NATURAL and less WP:CONCISE than the current naturally-disambiguated title. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 14:51, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
  • @ModernDayTrilobite: I would strongly hesitate to use pageview comparisons as a reason for moving while the platform is still under private beta. I would wait until, perhaps, a year after public release to see if the page view hike remains sustained. For now, the current title or a disambiguated title more than suffices. DigitalIceAge (talk) 17:31, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

    I agree in general that pageview numbers can be fraught when examining entities like Bluesky that have been recently featured in the news. However, given the sheer scale of views that the social network has attained (and the low view counts achieved by any competing title), I think the disparity is too large to be explained purely as a WP:RECENTISM issue. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 18:20, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.