Qazm's Bluesky Pointers

This is my collection of hints and resources to use Bluesky effectively.

Links should open in a new tab unless otherwise noted.

Seeing posts ๐Ÿ‘“

Your view of Bluesky is filtered by default.

See other languages (in feeds) ๐Ÿ—บ๐Ÿ—ฉ
  • Go to Settings > Languages > Content Languages. Deselect all to see all.

This setting defaults to English + your input locale(s).

I had this reset on me, so check back if you think posts are missing.

The filter doesn't affect the 'Following' feed.

Find your follows (and blocks) from Twitter

You can use Sky Follower Bridge (Chrome/ium, Firefox) to quickly find your contacts on the other platform. (Video tutorial on Twitter. Use an app password, not your main one!)

Reload the page between following and blocking to clear the list!

For your followers to find you using this tool, have at least one of:

  • same display name,
  • same handle (before the first "."), or
  • your Twitter handle in your Bluesky profile (e.g. as "moved from @โ€ฆ",
    but not "pfp[:| by] @โ€ฆ").

The comparisons are case-insensitive (but matching the case may be good for other tools).

(Endorsed by Bluesky.)

See adult content ๐Ÿ”ž
  • Go to Settings > Moderation > Content filters. Enable 'Enable adult content'.
    • Right below, choose between 'Show', 'Warn' or 'Hide' for each category.

      'Adult Content', 'Sexually Suggestive' and 'Non-sexual Nudity' can (should) be applied when posting.

      'Graphic Media' is currently used as catch-all by Bridgy Fed, but also may include violence.

    • The initial option likely isn't available in apps for Apple devices. Use a browser.
  • Additionally, go to Settings > Moderation > Advanced > Bluesky Moderation Service.

    Here, choose the settings for 'Sexually Suggestive (Cartoon)' as well as other categories.

    (I set most of these to 'Warn', so that I see what's going on but get a clear heads-up still. Your mileage may vary.)

Be visible ๐Ÿ“ถ

Bluesky is currently less algorithmic than many other platforms, meaning you won't get much free visibility when starting out.

Here are a few ways around that:

Describe your images ๐Ÿ–ผ๐Ÿ’ฌ

Bluesky has good, global search and indexes alt text.

By adding accurate descriptions to your images, you can appear in search results much more easily.

  • Go to Settings > Accessibility > Alt text. Enable 'Require alt text before posting'.

Some also use the alt text for additional explanations, as it can be read by everyone, but it's a bit inconvenient to display in full.

(Think of it like tags on an art site, but first make sure to describe the image for blind users!)

Self-label adult and/or graphic media

This is important if you're an artist. When posting sensitive media and link previews:

  • Click the '๐Ÿ›ก Labels' button.
  • If your post contains adult content, select the category that fits your post best among 'Suggestive', 'Nudity' and 'Adult'.

    (Selecting a label reveals an explanation. You can deselect by clicking the selected label again.)

  • If your post depicts e.g. violence or injuries, select 'Graphic Media'.

Selecting an adult content label doesn't limit the post's visibility aside from not appearing to minors, people who haven't opted into adult content and specific 'clean' feeds. It also adds your post to certain after-dark feeds.

If you don't self-label your art, it could get labelled as "Sexually Suggestive (Cartoon)", which does have lower visibility because the opt-in isn't nearly as visible as for the other categories.

Join FurryList ๐Ÿพ (furries only!)

FurryList is a collection of Bluesky feeds that aggregate posts by furries and automatically sort them by topic. You can read more on their website: furryli.st

Joining the lists requires manual approval. Once you're followed back, you're in.

Make sure to label adult content when posting! This is required for accurate sorting into the feeds and not doing so could get you excluded. Be sure to read the Community Guidelines!

Certain feeds require hashtags for your posts to appear, so include them in the post text or alt text where applicable. As of 2024-08-13 these are:

  • #fursuit
  • #art or #FurryArt
  • #commsopen
  • #murrsuit
  • #FurryVN or #FurryGame
Set and/or see pronouns and flags (and more)

You can see pronouns, flags and other neutral or positive labels by subscribing to the following labelers:

Pronouns
@pronouns.adorable.mom
A self-service labeler to display your pronouns, 'none', 'look at bio', 'avoid pronouns', 'ask pronouns' and/or 'any/all'.
kickflip
@labeler.renahlee.com
A self-service labeler to display your flag(s). (Has Pride, country and a few other flags.)
Khronos, Time Zone Labels ๐Ÿ•›
@khronos.world
A self-service labeler to display your time zone and when you're active.
๐“„ฟ The Yard Crow
@yardcrow.com
A friendly non-automatic labeler that says only good things about people. Anyone can suggest profile badges, but the admin asks for consent before applying the spicier ones. You can also get your tabletop-alignment and -class as well as your zodiac sign(s) here. You can also ask for a memorial badge for someone here.
Games Industry Labeller
@ozone.birb.house
A mix of unverified and verified badges that show involvement in game creation and reporting.
SonaSky
@sonasky.bsky.social
A self-service labeler for fursona species. May be helpful if people mistake you often.
FurSky Creators
@furskycreators.bsky.social
A self-service labeler for furry creators.

Labelers can choose the default behaviour of their labels. These all default to 'Show badge'.

Organise (your) posts ๐Ÿ“š
Bio hashtags

You can add hashtags to your bio. When someone clicks on them (also in posts), they get the option to see your posts with that tag specifically:

This is a bit easier to find than a custom feed.

(via)

Note that on mobile, you have to long-press the tag, as short-tapping leads to a global search. If you have a GitHub account leave a thumbs-up here to get that changed for bio hashtags or, ideally, submit it as a pull-request directly if you can.

Custom feeds

Custom feeds are usually a bit harder to find than profile tags, but they offer more flexibility. They can also be pinned next to "Following" by anyone.

Anyone can publish a custom feed, but it must be hosted somewhere. (Bluesky doesn't offer this as part of their infrastructure, so you have to either self-host or use a third-party service.)

Remember to only use app passwords or (better) OAuth to log into third-party apps, not your actual Bluesky password!

I use SkyFeed for my custom feeds, which is flexible and works well most of the time.

Custom link text

Some alternative clients like deck.blue let you write posts in Markdown or similar. (Remember to use an app password, not your actual one!)

This means you can attach a link to any text in your post, and the normal Bluesky app and website will display it nicely!

Tutorial: https://bsky.app/profile/sky-tan.kawaii.social/post/3l6sx6llwbu2n

Useful labelers ๐Ÿ›ก
XBlock Screenshot Labeller
@xblock.aendra.dev
Do you dislike screenshot posts? This can collapse or hide them per network. Much nicer.
AI Imagery Labeler
@aimod.social
Collapses or hides gen-AI images. You can also choose to hide entire accounts of AI image posters.
Profile Labeller
@profile-labels.bossett.social
Adds useful meta data badges or warnings to accounts. For example, you can see if an account was recently renamed. You can also see when someone posts from another network (Hi!).
Crypto Labeler
@cryptolabeler.w3igg.com
May be able to hide some cryptocurrency spam. I don't see much anyway, but the author is reputable.
Laelaps
@laelaps.fyi
An anti-zoophilia labeler. As in animal abuse, not art. Does not label for feral NSFW or therians.
No GIFS Please
@nogifsplease.bsky.social
"[Tenor] GIF hiding labeler. Nothing else."
Useful feeds ๐Ÿ”ฎ
Mutuals
Top-level posts by your mutuals, chronologically.
Quiet Posters
Posts from your quieter follows, otherwise easily-missed.
OnlyPosts
All top-level posts by your follows, without replies or reposts.
The 'Gram
All picture posts by your follows, including replies.
After Dark
Like The 'Gram, but filtered down to only NSFW-labelled posts and those with #nsfw.
Mentions
All posts that directly mention, quote or reply to you.
Discover (by @bsky.app)
"Trending content from your personal network", i.e. the classic algorithmic feed.
You can adjust this by selecting "Show more like this" or "Show less like this" in the three-dots menu on posts there!
Discover (by @skyfeed.xyz)
Another algorithmic feed, "based on your likes."
Popular With Friends
Another algorithmic feed, based on likes I think. Shows me more art and fewer political memes.
Best of Follows
Recently popular content, but only by people you're already following. (No reposts.)
Only Replies
Replies by people you follow, without the filter that's applied to "Following".
Topic feeds

These aren't individualised, as far as I know.

SciArt ๐Ÿก
A curated feed for science- and scientific-art posts.
Queer Art
Art by queer artists.
๐Ÿพ Games
Hashtag feed for furry Visual Novels and games. One of the FurryList feeds.
Gift Link News
News from major publications without paywall, by finding gift links posted to Bluesky.
๐Ÿพ Eurofurence 2024
Hashtag feed for Eurofurence. One of the FurryList feeds.
Bluesky Team
Bluesky announcements.

Support feeds that you like

Consider liking a useful feed to let its maintainer know and move it up in the feed search results!

Note that feed likes are public to anyone through ATProto, while subscriptions are private and feed owners are not notified of them.

Cool Projects ๐Ÿ”ฆ

(External links!)

Using Bluesky Labelers To Show Campaign Funding Data
@us-gov-funding.bsky.social
Labels US politicians with their main campaign funding sources, to show that information as badge on posts and profile.
Blacksky Algorithms
@blacksky.app
Opt-in feed and moderation tools for Black users.
Beyond ATProto ๐ŸŒŒ

Bluesky is somewhat decentralised, which allows for the creation of bridges that connect to other networks (protocols).

Unlike mirrors, bridges are bidirectional. Once you opt in, you can like and reply to posts from other networks, and users there can see your activity (even if they aren't opted in yet).

Bridgy Fed ๐ŸŒ‰

Bridgy Fed is the most notable Bridge on Bluesky and connects ActivityPub*, Bluesky and IndieWeb** websites.

Requirements: Your account must be older than two weeks, have a profile picture and not be hidden from logged-out users.

  • If you meet the requirements, follow @ap.brid.gy on BlueSky to enable ActivityPub bridging.

    The account should follow you back shortly and send a 'Chat' message with your fediverse handle to confirm. If not, make sure you're not blocking the account, wait a bit, then try again.

    (It's rare, but this step can fail during huge ATProto traffic spikes. In such a case, try again the next day.)

  • You can unfollow the account afterwards, but this makes it a little harder for others to notice that you've bridged yours (because you wouldn't be shown in "Followers you know" there).

You can disable the bridge at any time by blocking @ap.brid.gy. This will also try to delete your virtual account and content from the ActivityPub fediverse. This is a destructive action that removes your ActivityPub followers.

Make sure to label adult content when posting! Bridgy Fed translates Bluesky labels into appropriate fediverse warnings, but currently only self-applied ones. Bridging adult content without label may cause fediverse admins to hide your posts or account on their instance and makes it harder for fediverse users to boost your content.

Not all instances federate with Bridgy Fed (some blocked it during the initial backlash when it was planned to be opt-out), but generally speaking this bridge is in good standing over there and can connect to most places.

You can find more information in Bridgy Fed's documentation.

* That means Mastodon, Misskey, Pixelfed, Wordpress, Akkoma, Friendica, Flipboard, soon Ghostlyโ€ฆ many social sites and services use ActivityPub.
You'll receive interactions only from users who've bridged to Bluesky in turn, so while some ActivityPub users have strong opinions about Bluesky, you'll see only folks who are at least mostly okay with the platform.

** Web bridging is always on to an extent, I think, but only for direct interactions with accounts from the IndieWeb.

Good to know
Blocks and Likes aren't private

Bluesky itself does not show this information on your profile, but it can be retrieved by anyone through ATProto, Bluesky's federation protocol.

Mutes are private. Mutelists are public.
Mutelist subscriptions are private.

'Chat' permission defaults to 'Users I follow'
  • Go to Settings > Chat Settings to adjust who can start a conversation with you.
Shorter profile links

If you have a .bsky.social handle, you can write your profile link like this: https://qazm.bsky.social/

The site redirects to your usual profile page.

Aspect ratio guide

The following ratios are not cropped (depending on the image count):

  • โ‰ฅ1:2 (flexible size)
  • 1:1, 1:1
  • 1:1, 2:1, 2:1
  • 3:2, 3:2, 3:2, 3:2
  • link previews: ~1.91

Visual guide: https://bsky.app/profile/whey.party/post/3l6rpxqou5g2x

Images larger than 2000px on the longer side are downscaled on Bluesky, but the original size may still be retrieved through the API sometimes.

Suggestions? Feedback?

Like this page? Leave a like on Bluesky!

You can also find me here:

on Bluesky Main (bridged)
@Qazm.tiggi.es.ap.brid.gy
 
Bluesky
@qazm.bsky.social
 
via ActivityPub 
(Mastodon)
Main
@Qazm@tiggi.es
 
Bluesky (bridged)
@qazm.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy

This page is up to date with Bluesky 1.93.0.

About

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It's a cool way to put stuff online.

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