A Look at Bluesky(juliette.page)
juliette.page
A Look at Bluesky
https://juliette.page/blog/bluesky.html
142 comments
> I think more and more people are getting fed up with centralized platforms / not owning their data.
Given the meteoric rise of TikTok, I don't think there is any sign of this being true outside a small techy bubble. At least, not as a percentage (that is, the growth in the number of people who are fed up with centralized platforms is dwarfed by the growth in the number of people who are fine with centralized platforms / not owning their data).
Given the meteoric rise of TikTok, I don't think there is any sign of this being true outside a small techy bubble. At least, not as a percentage (that is, the growth in the number of people who are fed up with centralized platforms is dwarfed by the growth in the number of people who are fine with centralized platforms / not owning their data).
Well we may learn the hard way. Lots and lots of good old regular people have quit Facebook and stay off Twitter and many other engagement-optimized platforms. These companies have a poor reputation, for good reason. It’s just not 2010 anymore, and the cracks are starting to show. If a new platform such as bluesky, activitypub or Nostr becomes dominant, people will certainly point to this era in particular as a precursor.
Network effects are real, but appear insignificant until they’re in our faces. The fact that it’s currently a minority is expected, that’s just how network effects work. It was just a minority on Reddit when Digg was the place to be as well.
Obviously I don’t have any magical predictive abilities. But the “vocal minority” argument has bitten a lot of people before. Including those that have stake in the game and are paranoid about competitors.
Network effects are real, but appear insignificant until they’re in our faces. The fact that it’s currently a minority is expected, that’s just how network effects work. It was just a minority on Reddit when Digg was the place to be as well.
Obviously I don’t have any magical predictive abilities. But the “vocal minority” argument has bitten a lot of people before. Including those that have stake in the game and are paranoid about competitors.
But seeing as it is no longer 2010, what is the public's appetite for yet another twitter-like app?
Right, I probably won’t use bluesky as I never used Twitter. The format was always fomo- and hot-take oriented to me, so I stayed away. I don’t understand why people are desperate to remake that particular product.
There is still a large appetite, but people won't use their real names anymore.
And they shouldn't. Part of being a kid is exploring interactions and learning from mistakes. Can you imagine growing up in a society where your account follows you from elementary school and anyone can review it? Even if you are the utmost in social propriety, but have a hobby that you enjoy, someone is going to disapprove of it or your fandom and penalize you accordingly. Post too much? Penalized. Post too little? Penalized.
The world is not a fair or equitable place, and so, we should not design systems that enable bullies.
And they shouldn't. Part of being a kid is exploring interactions and learning from mistakes. Can you imagine growing up in a society where your account follows you from elementary school and anyone can review it? Even if you are the utmost in social propriety, but have a hobby that you enjoy, someone is going to disapprove of it or your fandom and penalize you accordingly. Post too much? Penalized. Post too little? Penalized.
The world is not a fair or equitable place, and so, we should not design systems that enable bullies.
People, largely, aren't staying off Twitter and Facebook because they're fed up with engagement-optimized platforms or because those companies have poor reputations or because they want decentralization. They left (or never joined) because their peer group left (or never joined). Take a casual poll of the teenagers and early-twentysomethings in your orbit, if you can: they're all probably on certain platforms and not on others. If you asked them why they aren't on Facebook they'd probably look confused and tell you that none of their friends are.
I never said that. But it’s an important point nonetheless, which I believe you are right about. If a transition happens, it will be in the layers where these things matter.
For instance, a fire department may switch from Twitter because it’s rate limited. A community for visually impaired may move from Reddit because it’s dragging its feet with accessibility. Journalists and media houses may switch because they get censored by a billionaire who’s on a quid pro quo relationship with entities they investigate. Regular “content creators” may switch when they get copyright strikes or demonetized by an automated system. In all of these cases, the small minority of “providers” take a large amount of “consumers” with them. Cumulative resentment looks just like apathy, until suddenly it doesn’t.
Most people are followers. Other liberties like freedom of the press are inapplicable to most people, directly. But the indirect effects, usually shepherded by “vocal minorities” has been shown again and again to add up and transform society rapidly, in something like S-shaped curves. If you accept the rapid growth phase of network effects you need to also acknowledging the rapid death phase on the other side of things.
For instance, a fire department may switch from Twitter because it’s rate limited. A community for visually impaired may move from Reddit because it’s dragging its feet with accessibility. Journalists and media houses may switch because they get censored by a billionaire who’s on a quid pro quo relationship with entities they investigate. Regular “content creators” may switch when they get copyright strikes or demonetized by an automated system. In all of these cases, the small minority of “providers” take a large amount of “consumers” with them. Cumulative resentment looks just like apathy, until suddenly it doesn’t.
Most people are followers. Other liberties like freedom of the press are inapplicable to most people, directly. But the indirect effects, usually shepherded by “vocal minorities” has been shown again and again to add up and transform society rapidly, in something like S-shaped curves. If you accept the rapid growth phase of network effects you need to also acknowledging the rapid death phase on the other side of things.
There are still dozens of us who refuse put their face on the internet. Never mind using our actual face and voice.
The younger Snapchat generations have normalised having their face plastered on every random "hello" message daily.
The younger Snapchat generations have normalised having their face plastered on every random "hello" message daily.
'More and more people' can still be just minority. But niche is there.
I think there are two sides to this. One one hand I agree with you that this isn't an issue for the "general" public. On the other hand I wouldn't be surprised to see centralized platforms like TikTok getting banned, or perhaps simply unprofitable, within the next decade as legislation slowly grinds its way into limit the impact of these platforms. Because aside from anyone wanting to take more control over their own content, the political and social elites (at least in Europe) are currently very aware and focused on the negative impacts digitalisation has had on our society.
In Denmark we're in the process of banning devices like iPads and smartphones from schools and other institutions. We're also likely going to see an age limit on Social Media like TikTok that's around the same age as buying Alcohol (yes, that's a good combination) and a range of other things. In the wider EU, you have privacy and competition stepping in, both banning and taxing these platforms in ways that might make it hard to operate a profitable platform if you're allowed to have one.
It's still a little too uncertain to say anything concrete, but it's certainly not looking like the explosive growth of centralized "free-to-use" platforms will face the same profitable and non-regulated market the coming 20 years that they did the previous.
Someone is going to be well positioned to take advantage of this as people move on from the previous generation of social media platforms.
In Denmark we're in the process of banning devices like iPads and smartphones from schools and other institutions. We're also likely going to see an age limit on Social Media like TikTok that's around the same age as buying Alcohol (yes, that's a good combination) and a range of other things. In the wider EU, you have privacy and competition stepping in, both banning and taxing these platforms in ways that might make it hard to operate a profitable platform if you're allowed to have one.
It's still a little too uncertain to say anything concrete, but it's certainly not looking like the explosive growth of centralized "free-to-use" platforms will face the same profitable and non-regulated market the coming 20 years that they did the previous.
Someone is going to be well positioned to take advantage of this as people move on from the previous generation of social media platforms.
Why is Denmark looking to ban tablets and smartphones? Is this a ban on use of personal devices in the school, or a ban of the use of them as educational tools?
They are disruptive. Basically they draw too much attention and it impacts student learning. Or at least that's the argument. I'm not sure why students were ever allowed to use iPhones during school for anything that wasn't educational, but that's probably because I'm old.
Completely agree. Privacy is discussed a lot in HN and other techy places, but out there the average joe/jane couldn’t care less about tracking, cookies and all that stuff.
> I don't think there is any sign of this being true outside a small techy bubble.
This is another advantage for Bluesky. Because as of now, a user of BlueSky would have no clue that it is "decentralized" at all. In comparison, Nostr shoves it in your face that it is totally unlike anything you're used to.
Bluesky just appears as a Twitter alternative. And I think that is very smart of them. Because realistically, only very serious people/companies should consider running alternative relay servers. Relays come and go on Nostr because people underestimate the amount of work / money involved in running them.
This is another advantage for Bluesky. Because as of now, a user of BlueSky would have no clue that it is "decentralized" at all. In comparison, Nostr shoves it in your face that it is totally unlike anything you're used to.
Bluesky just appears as a Twitter alternative. And I think that is very smart of them. Because realistically, only very serious people/companies should consider running alternative relay servers. Relays come and go on Nostr because people underestimate the amount of work / money involved in running them.
It becomes true the second one expresses something that someone else does not wish to be seen/disagree with, and they not only remove it, but they also ban the account (and do this anonymously). At that point one realizes the downside of centralized platforms and dictators-for-life.
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There are some activitypub apps that support nomadic identity like HubZilla and Streams: https://codeberg.org/streams/streams
Another non-activitypub alternative is nostr, where your identity is a public/private key pair: https://github.com/aljazceru/awesome-nostr
Another non-activitypub alternative is nostr, where your identity is a public/private key pair: https://github.com/aljazceru/awesome-nostr
You still depend on someone to run another server in the event your PDS (Personal Data Server) goes away. It's just a different, bigger server (Big Graph Service) where the people who run it are even less knowable than those who run your PDS.
Moving data only works in this case if you've thought to attach your DID to a domain you control, and the server you move to connects to the BGS server your data lives on. It's still very unclear how this will work. I suspect it will be like Usenet where most BGS indexers have expiry rules and won't hold on to every post.
This is more complicated than AP and Mastodon where you know exactly where you stand when your server goes down. So many people are going to be burned because they heard it's all portable, but didn't actually understand how it worked, and find they can't migrate their identity or their posts because it all rested under [handle].somehugecentralizedserver.tld.
People who struggle with instances on Mastodon (and eventually, Bluesky) are not going to have an easier time figuring out domains and DNS to make their identity portable. This remains a huge unaddressed issue and should concern people who think Bluesky is easier just because it's unfinished.
Moving data only works in this case if you've thought to attach your DID to a domain you control, and the server you move to connects to the BGS server your data lives on. It's still very unclear how this will work. I suspect it will be like Usenet where most BGS indexers have expiry rules and won't hold on to every post.
This is more complicated than AP and Mastodon where you know exactly where you stand when your server goes down. So many people are going to be burned because they heard it's all portable, but didn't actually understand how it worked, and find they can't migrate their identity or their posts because it all rested under [handle].somehugecentralizedserver.tld.
People who struggle with instances on Mastodon (and eventually, Bluesky) are not going to have an easier time figuring out domains and DNS to make their identity portable. This remains a huge unaddressed issue and should concern people who think Bluesky is easier just because it's unfinished.
We could compare with git. Sure, you could publish a git repo anywhere, but most people will choose Github, Gitlab, or another large git hosting service. The reliability of these services matters and we’re fortunate that they’ve been quite good so far. People don’t usually use custom domain names when publishing git repos, though I suppose you could?
With Mastodon you can download your data any time, but you can’t actually upload it anywhere else. There is forwarding, but only for follower subscriptions, with the cooperation of both servers. It’s quite limited. There are brownouts from servers getting overloaded and also due to fairly frequent policy disputes. It does let you do more things without making them public, though, and that’s important to many people.
The blogging model where you have actually independent websites, links, and RSS feeds seems better from a decentralization standpoint, but it’s not popular due to the difficulty of getting people to subscribe to your blog.
That’s why we comment here, right? You could post a comment to your blog, but who would read it? Replies are important.
With Mastodon you can download your data any time, but you can’t actually upload it anywhere else. There is forwarding, but only for follower subscriptions, with the cooperation of both servers. It’s quite limited. There are brownouts from servers getting overloaded and also due to fairly frequent policy disputes. It does let you do more things without making them public, though, and that’s important to many people.
The blogging model where you have actually independent websites, links, and RSS feeds seems better from a decentralization standpoint, but it’s not popular due to the difficulty of getting people to subscribe to your blog.
That’s why we comment here, right? You could post a comment to your blog, but who would read it? Replies are important.
Is it possible to replicate bluesky by just having a mastodon server of one? As in a solo server with just you that you federate to the other servers? No issue with losing a following or not controlling the platform
Setting up gotosocial for just me was straightforward (but not straightforward enough for someone who doesn't manage their own private little fleet of linux servers, sigh). However it doesn't work well: none of the more social elements work properly, hashtags, threads across servers etc etc. You get just the basics.
I concur.
I do think software like gotosocial is the future of ActivityPub, it certainly isn't there yet, indeed.
Mastodon, I'm afraid, has tainted ActivityPub¹. Maybe even beyond fixing. Mastodon is architectured and developed for large servers. It's performance is terrible (It's Rails) for a one-man-show, but optimized and pretty good, for a server (or fleet) for (tens)of thousands of people. There's no incentive to change this. If a choice has to be made between "ease or operation for a single person instance" over a "ease of operation for a thousands-people instance" the latter will always win. Same for performance, security and features.
Gotosocial, OTOH, has the incentives reversed. I'm convinced it will only become easier to host for your personal instance. Only gain more features for such an instance and prioritize fixing issues so self-hosters benefit, rather than community-admins.
¹Edit: AP isn't designed around large federated servers. The protocol, albeit convoluted, is perfectly fine for a situation in which each user is her own server. It's mastodon that has turned AP into a de-facto "one-server-thousands-users" model. Without Mastodon, AP wouldn't exist, I'm not trying to make Mastodon look bad, I like the project.
I do think software like gotosocial is the future of ActivityPub, it certainly isn't there yet, indeed.
Mastodon, I'm afraid, has tainted ActivityPub¹. Maybe even beyond fixing. Mastodon is architectured and developed for large servers. It's performance is terrible (It's Rails) for a one-man-show, but optimized and pretty good, for a server (or fleet) for (tens)of thousands of people. There's no incentive to change this. If a choice has to be made between "ease or operation for a single person instance" over a "ease of operation for a thousands-people instance" the latter will always win. Same for performance, security and features.
Gotosocial, OTOH, has the incentives reversed. I'm convinced it will only become easier to host for your personal instance. Only gain more features for such an instance and prioritize fixing issues so self-hosters benefit, rather than community-admins.
¹Edit: AP isn't designed around large federated servers. The protocol, albeit convoluted, is perfectly fine for a situation in which each user is her own server. It's mastodon that has turned AP into a de-facto "one-server-thousands-users" model. Without Mastodon, AP wouldn't exist, I'm not trying to make Mastodon look bad, I like the project.
I've got a server[1] of one (real person - there's a bunch of my bots too) which federates quite happily.
[1] Technically three - I've got Akkoma, GotoSocial, and a Honk but I only really use the Akkoma one for "real life".
[1] Technically three - I've got Akkoma, GotoSocial, and a Honk but I only really use the Akkoma one for "real life".
The problem is that a mastodon server isn't the simplest of things to setup - even if you're just doing it for you, a lot of the dependencies are predicated on other people being involved at some point.
Yes, Mastodon has a single-user mode just for this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15515759
The only people who want to run their own servers are those who haven't yet experienced the myriad of issues and risks associated with them.
Not only do you have to keep it running at your expense but you need to invest significant time in moderating the content. Lest you allow illegal content e.g. CP to be hosted for which you will be legally responsible.
Not only do you have to keep it running at your expense but you need to invest significant time in moderating the content. Lest you allow illegal content e.g. CP to be hosted for which you will be legally responsible.
I think the original comment meant running a server for themselves, not necessarily allowing anyone else to create accounts on their servers.
That way you don’t need to moderate.
That way you don’t need to moderate.
That's a risk for people running servers for others, not just for themselves which is what parent is talking about.
I'd love a combination of the two. My identity would be my domain, but I could host the identity on any server I want and I could easily migrate my data within the network to any instance using the domain as proof of identity.
That is exactly what Bluesky lets you do
Launching federatable(?) protocol and platform as non-federated, centralized one doesn't spawn confidence in me. The limited registration policy appears to be fueling the desire and excitement by creating a sense of exclusivity that amplifies the demand and anticipation. Reminds me of South Park's "Cartmanland" episode[1].
There's also the fact that Bluesky is run by Jack, who founded and managed pre-Musk Twitter "1.0" and funded Musk's Twitter "2.0". I don't have high expectations nor hopes.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEJWL49D30A
There's also the fact that Bluesky is run by Jack, who founded and managed pre-Musk Twitter "1.0" and funded Musk's Twitter "2.0". I don't have high expectations nor hopes.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEJWL49D30A
> There's also the fact that Bluesky is run by Jack
That's not accurate, Jack gave the Bluesky/AT Protocol organization initial grant money, but he doesn't "run" it. The CEO is Jay Graber.
That's not accurate, Jack gave the Bluesky/AT Protocol organization initial grant money, but he doesn't "run" it. The CEO is Jay Graber.
And Linda Yaccarino is Twitter's CEO. In relationships like this, the CEO (or country's president) often has handlers and little decision-making autonomy. Not saying this is the case but I'm not confident it isn't.
Jack is a power-hungry opportunist who throws money at anything that can give him wealth and status in the future.
Jack is a power-hungry opportunist who throws money at anything that can give him wealth and status in the future.
Jack has embraced Nostr, not BlueSky. His Twitter profile links to Nostr and he has over 9,500 posts there, compared to 256 on BlueSky. The most recent BlueSky posts are from May, and include petty griping about the app that are not the sort of things someone who was de facto in charge of it would say.
You appear to want to make this into something it isn't. Bluesky isn't beholden to Jack's wishes and has repeatedly and publicly affirmed the same.
I don't care about Jack and neither should you. Bluesky is Bluesky run by the Bluesky team. The team and what they're building should be your only concern.
I don't care about Jack and neither should you. Bluesky is Bluesky run by the Bluesky team. The team and what they're building should be your only concern.
If Jack is the majority shareholder (I don't know if he is, just using this as an example), they have to do what he says.
Twitter has a CEO now, but the majority shareholder is Musk. She cannot do anything without his permission. Were I CEO I would remove that childish poop emoji auto-responder but I don't think she has that kind of authority. Facebook has a board of directors, but Zuck is the majority shareholder, so they have to do whatever he wants, so they spent time and money on the metaverse when a normal corporation might have said let's not.
Twitter has a CEO now, but the majority shareholder is Musk. She cannot do anything without his permission. Were I CEO I would remove that childish poop emoji auto-responder but I don't think she has that kind of authority. Facebook has a board of directors, but Zuck is the majority shareholder, so they have to do whatever he wants, so they spent time and money on the metaverse when a normal corporation might have said let's not.
You’re right that governance structure matters. However, people speculating about ownership instead of researching it doesn’t help much. Each organization is different and analogies aren’t facts.
Looks like Dorsey had a seat on the board as of 2022. I don’t know if there’s a good way to find out if that changed? The closest thing there is to an official web page is the FAQ and blog articles that it links to.
https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/2-7-2022-overview
Looks like Dorsey had a seat on the board as of 2022. I don’t know if there’s a good way to find out if that changed? The closest thing there is to an official web page is the FAQ and blog articles that it links to.
https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/2-7-2022-overview
I don’t think AT and Bluesky have “launched” limited invites are evident of that.
The fact that they haven’t broadly got other servers they’re federating with - they’re not ready - is why they’re limiting signups.
The fact that they haven’t broadly got other servers they’re federating with - they’re not ready - is why they’re limiting signups.
I'm not sure what to make of this actual submission;
> A problem with the system of having a domain as a username is that people can claim it who don’t have access to that username.
That was a bug, and is not generally speaking, the case. You must have the ability to alter the DNS records for the domain you wish to claim.
> However, that means interactions, such as user likes, blocks, follows, etc are all public. With no means to make them private. Which could lead to harassment!
It could also lead to the enlightenment of man, if we're just making random claims without explaining ourselves...
> But runs into the problem of algorithms being hijacked to show inappropriate/offensive/bigoted content.
Posts on the AT Proto can be labeled by whatever labeling service you prefer, including Bluesky itself. You can then use your preferred labeling to filter out labels you don't want, or subscribe to a feed that does that for you.
> But also it’s a group of overly complicated specifications that could’ve just been extensions to the ActivityPub protocol rather than a whole new protocol!
I don't think, "AT Proto is too complex, use ActivityPub instead" is a reasonable claim at all. The problem is a complex one, and AT Proto in particular is not even out yet.
Honestly, I can barely understand this "article". It's just a bunch of oversimplified (and sometimes outright wrong) statements about what AT Proto is, coupled with painfully misunderstood declarations that border on the illegible.
> A problem with the system of having a domain as a username is that people can claim it who don’t have access to that username.
That was a bug, and is not generally speaking, the case. You must have the ability to alter the DNS records for the domain you wish to claim.
> However, that means interactions, such as user likes, blocks, follows, etc are all public. With no means to make them private. Which could lead to harassment!
It could also lead to the enlightenment of man, if we're just making random claims without explaining ourselves...
> But runs into the problem of algorithms being hijacked to show inappropriate/offensive/bigoted content.
Posts on the AT Proto can be labeled by whatever labeling service you prefer, including Bluesky itself. You can then use your preferred labeling to filter out labels you don't want, or subscribe to a feed that does that for you.
> But also it’s a group of overly complicated specifications that could’ve just been extensions to the ActivityPub protocol rather than a whole new protocol!
I don't think, "AT Proto is too complex, use ActivityPub instead" is a reasonable claim at all. The problem is a complex one, and AT Proto in particular is not even out yet.
Honestly, I can barely understand this "article". It's just a bunch of oversimplified (and sometimes outright wrong) statements about what AT Proto is, coupled with painfully misunderstood declarations that border on the illegible.
I’m curious how ATProto codifies these algorithms? Is it just left to the clients to implement on the firehouse?
Curious if it was (partially) written using ChatGPT. It definitely has that tone.
Author here, I don’t use ChatGPT to write any of my posts.
I give you this feedback with respect and to help you become a better writer, because I believe you are capable of substantially more:
This was not a high quality piece of writing. It doesn’t appear as if you spent any time at all learning about the topic, and you did not express yourself well, even when trying to articulate your ignorant points.
If English is not your first language, I totally understand and applaud the effort to learn a second language, but if English is your first language, this is the work product of a child.
You need to put more effort into two main areas to improve your writing: research and structure. I cannot overstate how poorly constructed this post is, and how thoroughly it undermines your effort to make an argument.
You can learn to improve! It’s a skill, like anything else, and your natural curiosity is what drove you this far, but you will need to work at writing if you want to get better at it.
This was not a high quality piece of writing. It doesn’t appear as if you spent any time at all learning about the topic, and you did not express yourself well, even when trying to articulate your ignorant points.
If English is not your first language, I totally understand and applaud the effort to learn a second language, but if English is your first language, this is the work product of a child.
You need to put more effort into two main areas to improve your writing: research and structure. I cannot overstate how poorly constructed this post is, and how thoroughly it undermines your effort to make an argument.
You can learn to improve! It’s a skill, like anything else, and your natural curiosity is what drove you this far, but you will need to work at writing if you want to get better at it.
I give you this feedback with respect and to help you become a better internet commenter, because I believe you are capable of substantially more:
This is an incredibly rude and insulting way to give feedback. There is no reading of this that's kind or charitable, don't tell people their work is the "product of a child" and how you "can't overstate how poorly constructed [their] post is".
But, thankfully, you can learn to improve! Try to avoid insulting the author and their work. Instead, just try to offer actionable suggestions on how to improve.
This is an incredibly rude and insulting way to give feedback. There is no reading of this that's kind or charitable, don't tell people their work is the "product of a child" and how you "can't overstate how poorly constructed [their] post is".
But, thankfully, you can learn to improve! Try to avoid insulting the author and their work. Instead, just try to offer actionable suggestions on how to improve.
Let’s hope they’re better at taking feedback than you are on their behalf.
Hi! Yeah I agree that it could’ve been better. Thank you for your feedback, I’m going to try to improve on my writing. And yes, I’m a teenager, so I’m not insulted by that. Thank you for the feedback, I’m going to work on getting better at writing. Thanks for reading and your feedback helps a lot!
No prob, the fact that you’re into these kinds of things already puts you ahead of the pack.
Thanks.
> A benefit of atproto users is that they are transferable without needing an active server
This is not exactly true, it just means the server that holds ur data (traditionally instance or home server) doesn't need to be involved in the transfer process. However, this has centralized identity resolution, which is not a good long term solution.
> For example, someone was able to get the AWS S3 domain as their handle!
This is easily hotfixable by requiring more stringent proof of ownership of the domain (like DNS records), rather than a problem with the protocol itself. But it's a valid concern
> But runs into the problem of algorithms being hijacked to show inappropriate/offensive/bigoted content.
I thought the whole point was that if you didn't like the algorithm you could swap it out for something simpler. This point puzzles me greatly
> that could’ve just been extensions to the ActivityPub protocol rather than a whole new protocol!
Not really. If you peel back the interface they're very different, since the transferability of accounts across servers is something baked deeply into how ActivityPub works and cannot be easily changed without rewriting the protocol. That being said, I personally hope there is some network that can solve the problem of untying resources from domains, since it is one of the big problems with any federated protocol
This is not exactly true, it just means the server that holds ur data (traditionally instance or home server) doesn't need to be involved in the transfer process. However, this has centralized identity resolution, which is not a good long term solution.
> For example, someone was able to get the AWS S3 domain as their handle!
This is easily hotfixable by requiring more stringent proof of ownership of the domain (like DNS records), rather than a problem with the protocol itself. But it's a valid concern
> But runs into the problem of algorithms being hijacked to show inappropriate/offensive/bigoted content.
I thought the whole point was that if you didn't like the algorithm you could swap it out for something simpler. This point puzzles me greatly
> that could’ve just been extensions to the ActivityPub protocol rather than a whole new protocol!
Not really. If you peel back the interface they're very different, since the transferability of accounts across servers is something baked deeply into how ActivityPub works and cannot be easily changed without rewriting the protocol. That being said, I personally hope there is some network that can solve the problem of untying resources from domains, since it is one of the big problems with any federated protocol
How transfer of accounts happens isn't part of the ActivityPub protocol at all - it was added last year to Mastodon just using ActivityPub as a transport.
A big improvement is possible "just" by making instances revalidate the URI against webfinger regularly (you'd still need to plan ahead for that, but it'd enable "stable" usernames) and secondly by allowing for a key pair to let users sign messages to make claims about ownership and which account is current. That would make it possible to enable fully unilateral moves.
Neither would require any changes to ActivityPub.
A big improvement is possible "just" by making instances revalidate the URI against webfinger regularly (you'd still need to plan ahead for that, but it'd enable "stable" usernames) and secondly by allowing for a key pair to let users sign messages to make claims about ownership and which account is current. That would make it possible to enable fully unilateral moves.
Neither would require any changes to ActivityPub.
How did hubzilla do it? They support activity pub, but their central theme is "nomadic" identities which can be brought anywhere and are independent of a server.
My understanding is that ActivityPub doesn’t have much to say about identity. ActivityPub is mostly just “less simple RSS”
One thing I don't understand is how can Bluesky pretend to be more open than Twitter when it's been months and it's still an invite-only closed garden?
Well, for one you can download all data on the network (posts, likes, follows, ...) using a free public API, even in real-time. If you want to try Bluesky without an invite code, you can run your own PDS (personal data server) today and federate with the official sandbox network, there are already 100 servers doing that: https://atscan.net/pds
Judging by how they can apparently wipe all the data and remove people from the network on a whim, it doesn't seem very decentralised.
You can download and keep your data and keep a backup, it's all content-addressed (like git repos), and just upload to another instance
Like moving from GitHub to GitLab.
Each instance then has its own moderation policies, again, kind of like GitHub. But your identity is still your identity, and you can keep a copy of your data.
Like moving from GitHub to GitLab.
Each instance then has its own moderation policies, again, kind of like GitHub. But your identity is still your identity, and you can keep a copy of your data.
> You can download and keep your data and keep a backup
> and you can keep a copy of your data
Is this really a selling point / concern for anyone? I’ve never heard anyone express that the problem with tradition social media is that they can’t download and keep a backup of their data. Its about a central corporation being able to decide what is allowed to be said.
> and you can keep a copy of your data
Is this really a selling point / concern for anyone? I’ve never heard anyone express that the problem with tradition social media is that they can’t download and keep a backup of their data. Its about a central corporation being able to decide what is allowed to be said.
That specifically is not the selling point, but it is how one of the selling points works.
You can just take your data to another instance whenever you don’t agree with the policies of your current one. And all your connections/interactions/data should stay intact.
If it works as well as it seems to in the federation sandbox, you shouldn’t even be able to tell that you’re using a different service, the app just sends requests to a different server, and the web url may be different, and your default feeds are generated somewhere else.
Now, you may say that users won’t care about backing up their data, but that can be solved with some open (or paid) archival services.
You can just take your data to another instance whenever you don’t agree with the policies of your current one. And all your connections/interactions/data should stay intact.
If it works as well as it seems to in the federation sandbox, you shouldn’t even be able to tell that you’re using a different service, the app just sends requests to a different server, and the web url may be different, and your default feeds are generated somewhere else.
Now, you may say that users won’t care about backing up their data, but that can be solved with some open (or paid) archival services.
It is not about backups but about transferability of content and identity
As far as I know, It's not decentralised at all at the moment.
But do you have more info on this wiping data and removing people claim? All I've seen is people pissy because someone wasn't banned for something rather minor.
But do you have more info on this wiping data and removing people claim? All I've seen is people pissy because someone wasn't banned for something rather minor.
https://atproto.com/blog/federation-developer-sandbox
>Given that this is a testing environment, we will be defederating from any instances that do not abide by these guidelines
>As part of the sandbox, we will be doing routine wipes of all network data.
It seems like it's centralised on a single "Big Graph Service", even if you run your own server.
>Given that this is a testing environment, we will be defederating from any instances that do not abide by these guidelines
>As part of the sandbox, we will be doing routine wipes of all network data.
It seems like it's centralised on a single "Big Graph Service", even if you run your own server.
Well, it's still under a massive amount of development. Most basic features aren't there. Such as I can't change my email I used when I signed up. This is an issue for people since I typo'd it when I signed up. You can't change your password, you can create new app passwords. Since these are super basic features, it kinda shows how all the other stuff are.
Realistically, I don't think it could handle a full enslaught of new users and wants to onboard slowly which makes sense from a development point of view. The issue is, it's basically dead or just full of shitposts. Which has no real value.
And the number of people who want on it aren't actually that high, I've got 3 invites and no one to invite.
Realistically, I don't think it could handle a full enslaught of new users and wants to onboard slowly which makes sense from a development point of view. The issue is, it's basically dead or just full of shitposts. Which has no real value.
And the number of people who want on it aren't actually that high, I've got 3 invites and no one to invite.
I'd greatly appreciate an invite as well if anyone has an extra one! email is mazen a m r 07 at googles mail.
If you have an invite to spare I appreciate one, my email is [email protected]
If you're itching to invite someone, feel free to send one to [email protected] :)
[deleted]
I would be grateful if someone could send me an invite: zonay at msn dot com
If you have a code left, I would be interested
valise.07.tub at icloud.com
Email in bio if anyone reads this, been on waitlist basically since launch
I’m looking for an invite too ebenoist AT gmail
> I've got 3 invites and no one to invite.
Hi :)
Hi :)
Need an email or something to send it to. Otherwise you could just lose it to someone else if I just paste the invite code here.
[deleted]
tambourine.man.hn at Google’s famous email service.
[email protected] - if you've still got one? Thanks a lot either way :-)
It doesn’t. Bluesky is not “launched”. It’s nowhere near done.
It has the potential to be, once it’s finished. But it’s not finished yet.
It has the potential to be, once it’s finished. But it’s not finished yet.
With the current Twitter debacle, I think self-hosting my "notes about interesting things" (aka tweets) in a way it is accessible via the web, activitypub, bluesky and RSS might be the best way.
Is anybody already doing this? It shouldn't too be hard. Just throw all the notes into a directory and add some code which replies to the different types of requests.
I guess the best way to get ones tweets out of Twitter is the "Download an archive of your data" thingy in the settings?
Is anybody already doing this? It shouldn't too be hard. Just throw all the notes into a directory and add some code which replies to the different types of requests.
I guess the best way to get ones tweets out of Twitter is the "Download an archive of your data" thingy in the settings?
These tools exist at least between activity pub and RSS. I suspect similar will exist for bluesky if it takes off. https://github.com/dariusk/rss-to-activitypub
There is an ActivityPub Plugin for Wordpress; I believe the author has recently been hired by Auttomatic.
https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/
The Indieweb Crew of course did this first. The principle POSSE – Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere – was coined by them and is the guiding principle behind the Indieweb movement and it is exactly what you’re trying to do. You should click around a little bit in their wiki:
https://indieweb.org/POSSE
Most of the time the Indieweblings are doing their own “protocol“ by receiving and reacting to webmentions with rich data structures in Microformats syntax in their HTML. Some parts of Indieweb a rather opinionated about technologies. But a lot of them also interact with different federation services, for example see:
https://indieweb.org/ActivityPub
https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/
The Indieweb Crew of course did this first. The principle POSSE – Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere – was coined by them and is the guiding principle behind the Indieweb movement and it is exactly what you’re trying to do. You should click around a little bit in their wiki:
https://indieweb.org/POSSE
Most of the time the Indieweblings are doing their own “protocol“ by receiving and reacting to webmentions with rich data structures in Microformats syntax in their HTML. Some parts of Indieweb a rather opinionated about technologies. But a lot of them also interact with different federation services, for example see:
https://indieweb.org/ActivityPub
I’ve got a Bluesky invite yet can’t use it because “account creation is temporarily limited”. Seems they’ve totally missed the opportunity of Twitter getting worse over the weekend.
The service seems to be under massive load from the influx of users over the weekend, and they've passed 200k users, posting activity is a few times higher vs "the normal"
So they probably could get even more users, but I'm guessing it's already sufficiently crazy for the team right now
So they probably could get even more users, but I'm guessing it's already sufficiently crazy for the team right now
They (Bluesky) blew it. They had one job and that was to be ready for this moment and what did they do? Continue with the invite system (which is from Gmail era) and then disable account creations...
If they opened the floodgates with a not-ready product and also fell over, that's a much worse look.
Besides, 'limited' account creation to form communities is a pretty well-established scaling strategy. They have scaled from 0 users to 200k users in 5 months - Facebook originally took a year to scale to 1m users so it's not unrealistic that Bsky are growing/scaling at approx the same pace at this stage in the curve. Worth noting that Facebook also just couldn't have handled scaling to 1 billion users on Y1, and that required years of engineering effort (and lots of money/resources).
Considering they can only have limited users at their current stage, invites to form close communities is a strategy to ensure that a social graph is created early. Having 20k users that all have a few friends with accounts is more important than having 20k users where nobody knows each other.
Remember Facebook also originally scaled campus by campus - which was a process that let it 'scale' in a way that encourages social graph creation (i.e. 10k signups in 1 university is probably WAY better for a social network than 10k signups in 100 universities).
Besides, 'limited' account creation to form communities is a pretty well-established scaling strategy. They have scaled from 0 users to 200k users in 5 months - Facebook originally took a year to scale to 1m users so it's not unrealistic that Bsky are growing/scaling at approx the same pace at this stage in the curve. Worth noting that Facebook also just couldn't have handled scaling to 1 billion users on Y1, and that required years of engineering effort (and lots of money/resources).
Considering they can only have limited users at their current stage, invites to form close communities is a strategy to ensure that a social graph is created early. Having 20k users that all have a few friends with accounts is more important than having 20k users where nobody knows each other.
Remember Facebook also originally scaled campus by campus - which was a process that let it 'scale' in a way that encourages social graph creation (i.e. 10k signups in 1 university is probably WAY better for a social network than 10k signups in 100 universities).
It's 2023 and Jack is on the board, someone needs to be throwing money at them to solve their scaling problems-this ain't 2005.
They will have a different set of scaling problems to what Facebook had in 2005 - their decentralised architecture will throw out new challenges that will need time to be worked through.
Has anyone else created a decentralised social network at this scale? Arguably matrix but they also grew slower, potentially have a simpler product, and had scaling challenges along the way.
Remember scaling doesn’t just mean technical for a social network - it also means support and moderation.
Has anyone else created a decentralised social network at this scale? Arguably matrix but they also grew slower, potentially have a simpler product, and had scaling challenges along the way.
Remember scaling doesn’t just mean technical for a social network - it also means support and moderation.
Eh, it's not the first time Twitter is horribly broken and/or makes an unpopular decision, and it probably won't be the last one.
Would've been easier to capture all of the Twitter refugees now. I already saw a bunch of people opt for Mastodon or Misclick because Bluesky just wasn't an option.
> Would've been easier to capture all of the Twitter refugees now
With which backend? Scaling from 200k users to possibly hundreds of millions that quickly?
With which backend? Scaling from 200k users to possibly hundreds of millions that quickly?
> A problem with the system of having a domain as a username is that people can claim it who don’t have access to that username. For example, someone was able to get the AWS S3 domain as their handle!
That isn't necessarily an issue with using a domain as a username, it was only possible because you could verify ownership by putting something in a subdirectory they defined which was available as an S3 bucket name (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35820815). If you allow verification only from the root directory or via DNS records this shouldn't be a problem AFAICT.
That isn't necessarily an issue with using a domain as a username, it was only possible because you could verify ownership by putting something in a subdirectory they defined which was available as an S3 bucket name (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35820815). If you allow verification only from the root directory or via DNS records this shouldn't be a problem AFAICT.
> However, that means interactions, such as user likes, blocks, follows, etc are all public.
Au contraire, if network users control their clients, they can "block"¹ and "follow" content at-the client level without stating it publicly.
¹. Not a full block, as the blockee can still read and interact with the blocker's posts.
Au contraire, if network users control their clients, they can "block"¹ and "follow" content at-the client level without stating it publicly.
¹. Not a full block, as the blockee can still read and interact with the blocker's posts.
> But also it’s a group of overly complicated specifications that could’ve just been extensions to the ActivityPub protocol rather than a whole new protocol!
So do those extensions exist (even in the form of plans), especially the ones that free you up from a server or is it just wishful thinking?
So do those extensions exist (even in the form of plans), especially the ones that free you up from a server or is it just wishful thinking?
They do. Look at Hubzilla.
I’d push back a bit on the claim that atproto features, particularly decoupling identity from the topology of federation, could have been done as extensions to ActivityPub. It’s a fundamental part of the way information flows in ActivityPub vs atproto.
I tried Mastodon for a bit and like the community there, but I found they were very deliberately trying to build a place that wasn’t like twitter: building federated search is frowned-upon; no quote-tweets; extremely low threshold for content warnings.
They’re building something different and that’s great, but it’s no surprise that people fleeing twitter want to go to the more twitter-like app.
I tried Mastodon for a bit and like the community there, but I found they were very deliberately trying to build a place that wasn’t like twitter: building federated search is frowned-upon; no quote-tweets; extremely low threshold for content warnings.
They’re building something different and that’s great, but it’s no surprise that people fleeing twitter want to go to the more twitter-like app.
ActivityPub suffers from many of the same issues around public likes and such, no?
There should be a decentralized social communication protocol that is more fit to reflect how people communicate: more ephemeral and less of a permanent record. I remember LitePub/Pleroma did some work in that direction, and it's mostly compatible with ActivityPub too I think
There should be a decentralized social communication protocol that is more fit to reflect how people communicate: more ephemeral and less of a permanent record. I remember LitePub/Pleroma did some work in that direction, and it's mostly compatible with ActivityPub too I think
Isn't RSS better than all other federation protocols?
You have four properties of feeds: category, tree-comment, real-time and persistent.
Reddit was the winner on all those except real-time.
Decentralization is now the most important feature, and taking responsibility of your own data is the best version of that.
The only missing part is decentralized RSS servers and clients. Think backup for your posts and RSS reader services that also backup your favorite feeds.
All you need for that is a distributed db underlying it all like this: http://root.rupy.se and a reader web tool.
The only feature we lack is a category (think hashtag) for RSS.
So a combination of all services below:
http://fuse.rupy.se
http://sprout.rupy.se
http://tentacle.rupy.se
http://talk.binarytask.com
Add mail and video hosting/streaming and you got the complete deal.
You have four properties of feeds: category, tree-comment, real-time and persistent.
Reddit was the winner on all those except real-time.
Decentralization is now the most important feature, and taking responsibility of your own data is the best version of that.
The only missing part is decentralized RSS servers and clients. Think backup for your posts and RSS reader services that also backup your favorite feeds.
All you need for that is a distributed db underlying it all like this: http://root.rupy.se and a reader web tool.
The only feature we lack is a category (think hashtag) for RSS.
So a combination of all services below:
http://fuse.rupy.se
http://sprout.rupy.se
http://tentacle.rupy.se
http://talk.binarytask.com
Add mail and video hosting/streaming and you got the complete deal.
How do you like and reply within RSS?
There’s some folks using web mentions to implement those.
https://ruk.ca/content/using-freshrss-blog-posts-webmention
https://mikevdv.dev/blog/2022-07-05-web-mentions
https://ruk.ca/content/using-freshrss-blog-posts-webmention
https://mikevdv.dev/blog/2022-07-05-web-mentions
There was once the Salmon protocol for enabling replies and comments swimming upstream. Salmon was part of the OStatus protocol which evolved into ActivityPub today.
The whole like score rank thing is kinda overblown.
Reply works fine and comments too even if only local.
Reply works fine and comments too even if only local.
Thanks for sharing. I think Bluesky is pretty interesting (got my invite from Twitter :) )
I someone has an invite, I'd love to explore it!
Do you guys remember when Gmail was in private beta, back when it launched, and you needed an invite?
I got my invite from a website where people shared their invite links. After creating an account, and using it for a while I also got the ability to share invites with like 10 people or something.
I don’t even know if doing that kind of thing would work today though, given how many spammers and such trawl the internet. Probably some small number of people would grab every invite for themselves, instead of taking only one invite each.
I got my invite from a website where people shared their invite links. After creating an account, and using it for a while I also got the ability to share invites with like 10 people or something.
I don’t even know if doing that kind of thing would work today though, given how many spammers and such trawl the internet. Probably some small number of people would grab every invite for themselves, instead of taking only one invite each.
People are absolutely scraping the invite codes. It's not even hard considering that they're all /^bsky-social-[a-z0-9]{5}-[a-z0-9]{5}$/. That's why if you're begging for a Bluesky invite, you should ensure that people can actually contact you privately (which you can't do on HN).
> you can’t do on HN
You can include your email in your profile. I’ve done that and I get occasional emails from it.
You can include your email in your profile. I’ve done that and I get occasional emails from it.
what's your email?
[deleted]
If you have a code left, I would be interested
valise.07.tub at icloud.com
Right now everyone on Bluesky is on centralized instances run by the devs, and are subject to widespread censorship by same.
I know of no way at this time to run one's own instance or federate.
I know of no way at this time to run one's own instance or federate.
You can run your own instance in the official sandbox network today: https://atproto.com/blog/federation-developer-sandbox
There are of course significantly less users compared to the main instance, but it should give you some confidence that federation dev work is on the right track.
There are of course significantly less users compared to the main instance, but it should give you some confidence that federation dev work is on the right track.
Why does this constantly come up as some kind of gotcha? The protocol is under active development, and Bluesky serves as a reference implementation.
It comes up because right now Bluesky functions exactly like a worse Twitter (also centralized).
It has to be better somehow, and the whole selling point is decentralization to sidestep the possibility of recreating the current Twitter fiasco.
That goal is not yet achieved, which means it's below parity.
It has to be better somehow, and the whole selling point is decentralization to sidestep the possibility of recreating the current Twitter fiasco.
That goal is not yet achieved, which means it's below parity.
Bluesky doesn't function at all, it's not public yet, over and over again the people working on it repeat this fact.
Bluesky is absolutely public, I and thousands of others have accounts and are using it presently.
I've had an account for months. It is not "public", it's in private beta.
Here is bluesky staff saying it is public:
https://bsky.app/profile/emily.bsky.team/post/3jziqq7fgjm2p
https://bsky.app/profile/emily.bsky.team/post/3jziqq7fgjm2p
I’d say the protocol’s complexity tries to solve a lot of real problems that infest social media today, only time will tell if those solutions are the right ones.
I still don't understand the point of ActivityPub. Everyone one wants every social media, blog, news site to implement it. Why? RSS already exists to aggregate all of those into a single place. And having interacted with infosec.exchange, I came to the conclusion that long-form content doesn't mix well with microblogging and that Mastodon is a shit interface for it. I have a completely different software for my RSS feeds with a completely different way of browsing through content that works well for it.
RSS is one way, ActivityPub two. If your blog makes articles available to ActivityPub, then people can e.g. comment directly on the blog post without having to post a link to it, and others can follow those posts.
If you don't like Mastodon, there's Pleroma, Misskey, Calkey and others, as well as apps, or you can find RSS feeds from them if you just want to read, or you can use one of the alternate web frontends.
If you don't like Mastodon, there's Pleroma, Misskey, Calkey and others, as well as apps, or you can find RSS feeds from them if you just want to read, or you can use one of the alternate web frontends.
ActivityPub has its deep origins in the feeds world.
Originally people were extending feeds with the Atom ActivityStreams Extensions, in XML, for richer data structures which contain the social activities of persons. The protocol PubSubHubbub (now WebSub) was used for some realtime updating of feed subscribers (Push-then-pull, instead of Pull). Mapping persons or rather their accounts to resources like feeds was the impetus for WebFinger. And for notifying comments or reactions to upstream feed producers there was the Salmon protocol. Together those formats and protocols morphed into the OStatus protocol.
With the rise of JSON and with lessons learned from OStatus and pump.io those specs morphed into ActivityPub today. The underlying ActivityStreams vocabulary is still the same, I think, but the mechanism for following and responding now uses dedicated out- and inboxes.
I think microblogging and other social network stuff and long-form blog posts are different content, best consumed differently. There is some overlap, of course, but articles do not need shoehorned in. Sometimes people simply undervalue the simple link from a microblog post to the longform article.
Originally people were extending feeds with the Atom ActivityStreams Extensions, in XML, for richer data structures which contain the social activities of persons. The protocol PubSubHubbub (now WebSub) was used for some realtime updating of feed subscribers (Push-then-pull, instead of Pull). Mapping persons or rather their accounts to resources like feeds was the impetus for WebFinger. And for notifying comments or reactions to upstream feed producers there was the Salmon protocol. Together those formats and protocols morphed into the OStatus protocol.
With the rise of JSON and with lessons learned from OStatus and pump.io those specs morphed into ActivityPub today. The underlying ActivityStreams vocabulary is still the same, I think, but the mechanism for following and responding now uses dedicated out- and inboxes.
I think microblogging and other social network stuff and long-form blog posts are different content, best consumed differently. There is some overlap, of course, but articles do not need shoehorned in. Sometimes people simply undervalue the simple link from a microblog post to the longform article.
Meanwhile, Meta Threads is on track to launch shortly [1].
Which is based on an open-standard, interoperates with Mastodon and is from a company that has the battle scars to prove that they can operate a global service in a mature and a reasonable way.
Given Jack Dorsey's support of the crazier positions of Elon Musk and RFK e.g. WiFi causes leaky brain it really does look like the best of a bad bunch.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/1/23781271/instagram-threads...
Which is based on an open-standard, interoperates with Mastodon and is from a company that has the battle scars to prove that they can operate a global service in a mature and a reasonable way.
Given Jack Dorsey's support of the crazier positions of Elon Musk and RFK e.g. WiFi causes leaky brain it really does look like the best of a bad bunch.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/1/23781271/instagram-threads...
Gross, another Facebook product. I wouldn’t be touching anything Facebook builds with a 10-foot-pole and a hazmat suit. Does anyone actually want awful-Facebook Twitter? It’ll be the worst bits of Facebook and Twitter in record time.
> Which is based on an open-standard, interoperates with Mastodon
By which we mean: capitalises on work done to form an open standard, to parasitically drain users, and then deliberately break compatibility a year down the track. FB messenger literally did this when it started too - supported a bunch of different protocols to capture everyone, and then let them break.
That said, I’m impressed teams at Facebook have managed to stop working on stealing features wholesale from TikTok and Zuck’s anaemic VR disaster long enough to knock out an app to parasitise a different community.
> Which is based on an open-standard, interoperates with Mastodon
By which we mean: capitalises on work done to form an open standard, to parasitically drain users, and then deliberately break compatibility a year down the track. FB messenger literally did this when it started too - supported a bunch of different protocols to capture everyone, and then let them break.
That said, I’m impressed teams at Facebook have managed to stop working on stealing features wholesale from TikTok and Zuck’s anaemic VR disaster long enough to knock out an app to parasitise a different community.
https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-netwo...
yes, yes... let's cheer at Facebook doing things right...
yes, yes... let's cheer at Facebook doing things right...
>Given Jack Dorsey's support of the crazier positions of Elon Musk and RFK e.g. WiFi causes leaky brain it really does look like the best of a bad bunch.
yeah, I'm not sure why he's going all-in on a fringe candidate who's clearly never going to win
yeah, I'm not sure why he's going all-in on a fringe candidate who's clearly never going to win
Are there any android clients that have push notifications yet?
Give #nostr a try
If ActivityPub wants to keep riding the wave it has now they should start investigating ways to support this. I think more and more people are getting fed up with centralized platforms / not owning their data.