do you know what happened on Nostr recently to cause the number of users to drop so sharply? or maybe it's just a data glitch? stats.nostr.band
geriatric millennial nebula who reskeets a lot 💫 some original posts here and there, mostly on bsky nerdery but could be anything really ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 📍UK 🇬🇧 Germ 🔑 https://ger.mx/A7EHVhOCpjLIkkbOF2bF1EOiuir-CYKpLC4xQLMtJux7#did:plc:sflxm2fxohaqpfgahgdlm7rl
2,415 followers 2,691 following 11,119 posts
view profile on Bluesky
do you know what happened on Nostr recently to cause the number of users to drop so sharply? or maybe it's just a data glitch? stats.nostr.band
Got it! Email 2FA on a selfhosted PDS for oauth logins
also bonus parrot
🤔 atproto: the anything app
she slayed www.cnbc.com/2025/08/29/b...
on the note of describing the benefits of decentralization and not decentralization itself, I've struggled to explain ATproto to my mom for a while now. Today she said she explained it to my grandparents. I asked her how & she said "leaving twtr was a pain. now I can leave and lose nothing."
Atproto is more of an everything app than x ever was
standards can take a loooong time
LETS GO!
Lots to do! We'd like to support people who want to be involved in the protocol process, so have to figure out travel support. Also submission deadlines for FOSDEM 2026 creeping up too cc @laurenshof.online (plus save-the-date for March in Vancouver 👀 IYKYK)
datatracker.ietf.org/doc/bofreq-n... 👀👀
The bsky team is heading to @ietf.org in Montreal in November. The team has requested a "birds of a feather" (BOF) session at #IETF124 - a part of the process for having ATProto admitted as a standard. We're also planning community gatherings. RSVP here if you're interested.
vibe coding:
If you use an iPhone, you can use Germ DM for sending e2ee Atproto messages *today,* like you just did! E2EE’ing the Bsky app’s DMs is a bigger problem (&our protocol could help), tho there are lots of reasons an external messenger — including for other OS’s ofc—is a powerful starting point!
And let me shout-out a few more founders. the unstoppable @buildwithtori.com the unfuckwithable @rudyfraser.com the unsilenceable @anildash.com the friendliest and most supportive atproto homies like @bmann.ca @knowtheory.net @devingaffney.com @ruperts.world and Mark who inspires me every day!
I will add to this on a final braggadocious note, that there are few larger scale tech impacts to protect global privacy than the way @germnetwork.com’s technology replaces phone numbers, so that people are freed from universal discoverability, tracking, and manipulation 💚
it's true lol
whoa (civilized, proper) woah (feral, unhinged)
chat is this real
Like half of the last board meeting was taken up with "The Jerry Problem."
ladies and gentlemen, the weekend.
a rare bit of good news out of the US
BREAKING: Appeals court rejects Trump’s authority to impose sweeping tariffs under IEEPA. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
super excited for this new dialog @anapiligrim.bsky.social made! sooo smooth
but a lot of people (including me) were surprised and upset to suddenly find out about it today, because it's effectively shadowbanning (even though it's designed to be used for accounts that are harassing, posting scam links etc)
well... there's a 'needs-review' label that can be applied by the moderation team that hides an account's replies and means that other people don't get notifications for that account it's supposed to be used when a filter gets triggered, and then a person reviews the account
yeah I maybe wouldn't use it a ton, but for some things e.g. certain events, it could be handy
I mean, I think we already have several Kit watchers :D
well, it worked that time at least :)
I couldn't figure out why the mention wasn't working it showed up in the composer, but when I posted it disappeared 🤔 let me try again: @shape.bsky.to
this is obviously very gross and Meta is awful what fascinates me is all the quotes on this saying things like "I hope they sue Meta into oblivion" say each get a $100 million settlement (not gonna happen unfortunately) – that's pocket change Meta made $18 *billion* in *profit* in just 3 months
thanks :) I guess I'll have to take your word for it 😉
👀
and yes, that's exactly what it's used for, although it's been around since November apparently, so not exactly new :) although rather undocumented, yes hailey explained in a thread here:
yup, the label has been removed from that account (and many others, afaict):
I hope archiveteam.org can save some of those blogs before Typepad shuts down cc: @textfiles.com
Check out my Bluesky receipt at bskypt.vercel.app/surfdude29.ispost.ing
"For those who want to follow hashtags. With @skywalker.thereforeiam.eu, you can pin a hashtag as a favourite among your other feeds!" nice! I hope @bsky.app gets this someday too
What a cursed sentence (gift link) “The A.I. companies selected to oversee the program would have a strong financial incentive to deny claims. Medicare plans to pay them a share of the savings generated from rejections.”
Bluesky Friday. Reminds me of the old Bluesky icon!
I like how @leaflet.pub makes it trivial to throw together a quick webpage that looks pretty darn good (even if I deliberately try to make it look bad).
Trump take LEGO www.404media.co/lego-stops-s...
Welp guess who figured out a new way to explain bad tariff policy to his kids.
although fwiw under the DSA catering to all the special requirements for users under 18 means that they may be raising that soon anyway (and I think Bluesky will also likely have to ban signups of users under 18 in the EU)
I'm guessing they chose 16 as IIRC it's the minimum age in many European countries for data collection under GDPR? as opposed to 13 in the US, UK, etc
*spoiler alert* — cool to see film blogging on Leaflet! 🎬🍃
agreed, but what would be the downsides from treating 'needs-review' the same as 'spam' in the UI? I'm guessing the vast majority of users leave the setting for Spam on Hide, so people wouldn't receive notifications for those replies and they should be hidden at the bottom of threads, I think?
mini-thread explaining the 'needs-review' @moderation.bsky.app label #NeedsReview
mini-thread from @hailey.at explaining about the 'needs-review' @moderation.bsky.app label #NeedsReview
thank you for explaining that, I appreciate it obviously I can't speak for others, but my sense is that people's concerns mainly center around the lack of transparency, not necessarily the need for the moderation status itself
I think that might be a necessary trade-off the current situation seems deeply unsatisfactory and as Kuba says, any malicious actor could simply check if they have a 'needs-review' label on their account
can you understand why people are upset though? if a label can be added to an account that effectively shadowbans the user from many views (e.g. from their reply being shown), and can apparently be left on an account indefinitely?
although even in this scenario, I think it would be better to make the process transparent I don't see why it couldn't be displayed in the UI as "Account Under Review" or something
yup 💯 although, one possible mitigation (although not the ideal solution, perhaps) is to simply make the 'needs-review' labels expire after 24 hours so the moderation team would have 24 hours to review the account, and after that, the label would automatically be removed
I don't have the power to add or remove moderation labels, I think someone from the moderation team saw my post and realised it was a mistake anyway, I'm glad it's resolved for you! :)
Our dog is doing physical therapy, and the photos they’re sending us make him look like a Far Side character.
actually it's more Why BlueSky Is An Echo Chamber And Also Dying And A Bunch Of Meanies
FRIDAY!
but… – why was it left on some accounts for three weeks? – what procedures are there to ensure that accounts are reviewed promptly? – why are accounts that are only being investigated subject to a harsher moderation action than accounts labelled as Spam? can you see how it looks like a shadowban?
"What Nigel Farage needs is a big majority after the next election and then he can do whatever he wants". The dangers of the UK system in a nutshell - especially when "big majorities" can be won on 34% of the vote.
Just removed the date label from an old book and discovered that someone has drawn a design for a teapot that can serve either tea or poison how's your day going?
The happy - complacent - assumption was/is that the UK is safe from an incoming radical illiberal government that would abuse its constitutional powers. Good chaps will be gatekeepers, everything will be alright. And so... ...we are now where we are. /ends
yup I agree
yeah that works too haha
My Prospect piece yesterday set out how a illiberal radical government with a firm majority and competent advisers could easily abuse the UK constitution - and that the UK more vulnerable to this than US. But. This sort of warning is not new. It has been over a hundred years in the making. >
alt text for first photo has a very accurate description of his look 😅
My mom sent me this :))
yup, that's a very good point it seems like it was new to @mackuba.eu and @bossett.social, and they're both very experienced with atproto, labels etc, so if they hadn't come across it before today then it seems like it probably hasn't been used *that* widely
to clarify: *hides someone's posts at the appview when it seems that they haven't necessarily been found to have done anything wrong, their account has just been flagged for review
and one more #NeedsReview
a further thought on the #NeedsReview situation
but it still strikes me as really weird to have a label that hides someone's posts at the appview, which means that their content is effectively more inaccessible than someone whose account actually has the Spam label it just doesn't seem logical or fair 🤷🏻♂️
I can understand that, and to be clear I don't think it was done with any ill intentions (it was implemented during the crazy time last November, when I imagine the moderation team were maybe feeling pretty overwhelmed)
yeah to be clear, I'm not happy about it either and I agree: it effectively is shadow-banning so we definitely need to hear about what changes will be made to resolve the issue
thanks :) yeah Kuba explained to me what part of this code does here:
update: the label has been removed from your account, so your replies should show up normally now
good news, the 'needs-review' label has now been removed from this user's account 👍 I'm looking forward to hearing from the team on how they will address the wider issue 👀 #NeedsReview
I'm sure this will be fine. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Polling from @Moreincommon_ on Lucy Connolly More than half think her sentence was too lenient or about right. Only a third that it was too harsh. Only 18% think politicians should associate themselves her, while 51% think they should actively distance themselves from her.
Trump admin planning to change student visas from lasting for duration of academic program to fixed 4-yr term, and then much harder to renew Could destroy US ability to attract global talent, particularly those seeking advanced degrees in STEM. The median time to complete a PhD is 5.7 yrs per NSF.
“Large millennial man seeks Star Trek economy” is roughly 80% of people on Bluesky either literally or philosophically
yes although as a side point, the wording is a little misleading as the account may just be deactivated rather than deleted
The infantilism of UK politics has been off the scale since 2016 and the current government has largely carried on from its predecessors on that
Watching folk get radicalised over the other place is quite the depressing sight. But then again, if government isn't prepared to tell a story of complexity, not surprising if many people think there really is a simple solution like leave the ECHR.
blog.blacksky.community
I never want to have an AI that generates posts for me, but I wouldn't mind a button that automatically replies to my own flops with this
»"If it continues like this, the United States will not score as a democracy when we release [next year's] data," said Staffan Lindberg, head of the Varieties of Democracy project, run out of Sweden's University of Gothenburg.«
the harsh realization that every single administration hire is one of the shittiest unqualified mediocre people in the world
sorry the email address isn't on that account, here it is: moderation@blueskyweb.xyz
this is the hidden reply (because the user has the 'needs-review' label):
💯
I was thinking it might be useful if someone were able to archive labeller output, so that it would be easy to answer questions like: how many 'needs-review' labels have been issued in total? when were they first used? etc
ah got it @pdsls.dev is really useful for seeing how many labels have been issued and for what accounts but only loads so many labels at a time
btw, do you still archive the firehose? and if so, does that include labels emitted, or do those not go out over the firehose? (I forget)
that's most commonly the explanation for when you see that, but here it's something different (the 'needs-review' label) and no blocks are involved :)
I noticed there was a reply here that wasn't showing up, and only by looking at the backlinks on pdsls was I able to see and reply to it (it's from the user whose post I originally quoted) 🙄🤦🏻♂️ pdsls.dev/at://did:plc:syl24d55vfshabaee75wqcit/app.bsky.feed.post/3lxjqdmaso22p
it's not a good situation at all for people like you who have the label, the only thing I can think to suggest is that you could email @moderation.bsky.app (email address is on their profile) and ask why your account has the 'needs-review' label and if there's anything you can do to get it removed
not yet, but hopefully the team will reply and they can make some improvements to how the label is used and how it appears in the UI
I reported this one (with an alt) more than two weeks ago, and it hasn't been hidden yet 😒