Bluesky now platform of choice for science community(arstechnica.com) |
Bluesky now platform of choice for science community(arstechnica.com) |
I want BlueSky to succeed but this sampling bias is simply too much to ignore.
This comment (by nunobrito) from few days ago on a similar topic is best analysis of this topic.
> These news are awfully similar to click-bait stating "the science is settled" by grouping a small set of the group and then pretending it represents the whole. The paper failed both to identify the overall number of scientists using X or the cases where multiple platforms are used (most common scenario). Therefore the paper only seems biased on its best scenario or downright propaganda at its worst. > NOSTR and Mastodon should never be left out of any serious research.
The real consideration was whether the poll was done properly.
* links to external web pages (your paper, your blog, your new dataset, etc.) won't cause your posts to be suppressed
* Bluesky discussions are accessible to the open web
These two features are absolutely essential for science, and perhaps if X was more like Twitter on free speech and openness to the web then scientists wouldn't have moved away.
* They don't care/agree with the policies of the guy running it.
* Legacy reasons; either they have no reason to leave (automated org accounts keep running until something in the workflow breaks) or they have an existing community that doesn't want to move. This group will eventually leave but is currently stuck with inertia. Most "public service" accounts are in this category.
* And finally, for artists, Bluesky is undesirable as a platform because it has some very aggressive image compression compared to Twitter (2000x2000 is the absolute limit). Some are dualposting to Bluesky, but are unlikely to fully leave Twitter for this reason.
Finally, I'll note that while accounts are generally abandoning Twitter, this doesn't automatically mean they're moving to Bluesky either. A lot of those service accounts just up and vanished and just said "well, go visit our website".
I don't care, I care that even though I follow/get followed by CS / Math people and still see mostly far right / nazi / trump /crypto comments about everything. In even small threads about very technical stuff, always people come up with the most crazy shit. And these days the almost mandatory 'Grok, is this true/profound/worth anything/etc'. It's just annoying and maybe I shouldn't care. Don't have that experience on other platforms (mostly same following/followers as they are also there).
Interestingly, when I glance at my Bluesky feed once a month or so, it's a lot of complaining about everything. I think I hear more about Elon on Bluesky than I do X. And yeah, I follow reasonably high-value people.
That said, I keep some sort of X exit plan in place, and I look at it a lot less than before. When the signal vs noise value shifts, I'll be done, but I'm not quite there yet.
It's sad that the science community is just moving to another walled garden rather than spawning its own network of federated ActivityPub services (eg: mastodon).
Bluesky seems to be based on an open protocol (AT Protocol), but how actually interoperable is that ? I can't find a list of non-bluesky AT protocol servers that can interoperate with Bluesky.
I'm surprised Universities haven't set up a federated network of ActivityPub servers, with each University hosting its faculty and student accounts on its server. The signal-to-noise ratio of a University-only network would be amazing.
For example there are emergency systems or local governments that announce information on Twitter. These feel like serious organizations to me. At minimum I feel like they should be in multiple places and not just Twitter.
I don’t see it as sustainable and fewer people are using it. X is undoubtedly worse but Bluesky doesn’t appear to be the answer.
I recall them posting articles claiming Twitter's content was important for historical reasons (agree on that) and would disappear once Elon took over, which afaik, didn't happen.
The data's longevity was probably helped by being a potent source of hate to power Musk's AI
Not sure what you mean about anti-Elon bias. This was straightforward reporting of the truth. If reality has an anti-Elon bias then perhaps it's not bias.
(it was not always this way though)
> Condé Nast media brands include Vogue, The New Yorker, Condé Nast Traveler, Condé Nast Traveller, GQ, Glamour, Architectural Digest, Vanity Fair, Pitchfork, Wired, Bon Appétit, and Ars Technica, among many others.
Scientists No Longer Find X Professionally Useful, and Have Switched to Bluesky
I never managed to create an account on Bluesky as one of their support email blocks certain email domains. They still have a long way to go.
Sure, someone may say "the AT Protocol is open", but that means nothing because the AT Protocol is not Bluesky, Bluesky is one centralized platform that happens to "talk" that protocol (well, of course, since the "protocol" is literally defined by whatever they happen to be doing), it still controls who can be inside and who can't.
TL;DR: Nostr is a much better option for most use cases, sadly for some unfortunate reason it never got to enjoy too much attention from a wider technologist community.
Ars Technica
I suspect that's pretty common for something that's been in the news quite a bit: you get occasional big jumps in attention & usage, and then only some smaller percentage of users will stick around longer term. When you're getting such big spikes in signups this is unavoidable I think - even with new users coming in, the descent from the spike overwhelms any other trends.
The interesting question is whether that settles down into a slow steady sustainable state eventually. Looks plausible but still unclear imo.
Edit: yes, and as predicted, this straightforward reporting on the scientific community's migration of social networks has been flagged off the front page, because too many HN folks can not distinguish bad news for Musk from biased against Musk. There's no reason for this to be flagged except for the political motivations od the flashers.
It is too bad things have got to this point, but we as voters let it happen. At least there are some countries that still value Science. The US seems to be doing all it can to hand what remains of our scientific lead to those countries.
That… kind of makes sense? It’s logical that applications with significant downside, particularly that which impacts peoples’ livelihood, would get greater questioning and pushback. If anything I’d call into question a platform where nobody is asking these questions and wants to charge ahead with zero regard to potential ramifications.
it seems just the same sycophancy, but in the opposite way twitter is.
maybe my searches were poor so i'm curious what you see that is in any way "positive"; even given your example, searching for ai + cancer is just thousands of posts with some variant of "ai is a cancer."
it's so single note that it's no wonder that growth for bluesky has plummeted. it's just boring.
There are some builders of AI on BlueSky but far fewer. It's mostly the other sciences that have migrated, because X actively suppressed that type of content on X. Its not uncommon for a Bluesky scientist to have 10x the engagement on Bluesky with a tiny fraction of the followers.
But 813? Why wouldn't that be enough? Basic stats puts that at a very healthy number for most questions, and the researchers don't raise any questions about bias about the number.
All the automation and algorithmic garbage crowd out actual human discussion. It's a big reason why I stopped using Twitter myself. If they want to optimize for bots and weirdos driving up engagement numbers, go for it. But that's not a service that brings me value.
Ha; no. It would be students self-censoring to avoid anything that could draw a universities' ire... while they meet up on Discord to share their actual thoughts, cheating techniques, personal feelings, and date nights. It would be University LinkedIn.
I’ve seen similar patterns with some technical subcommunities on Mastodon. Low follower numbers but vastly higher engagement and overall better signal to noise ratio in the replies.
Maybe instead of there being one big platform, communities will settle into different ones.
A few weeks ago when there was the pacific earthquake, I had family who were very close to a danger zone vacationing. Google was not sufficient for finding good local timely info as an outsider but twitter was.
I would never even think to check BlueSky or Mastodon, and my family will never have heard of them.
All jokes aside, it's an endless stream of takes from people who don't have an internal monologue. Plus some influencers trying their hand with unoriginal bait threads. Like the other poster said, it's worth checking out every now and again just to read some comments from folks who aren't thought leaders.
which is my favorite reason to be there and i hope it doesn't change.
it's full of instagram and facebook users, which to use the common parlance, are all "normies." it's full of normal people have normal opinions in small spaces. there's very little viral posts or bits or memes that are carried outwards.
that being said dril started posting again there recently as have some other bigger ex weird twitter people so who knows.
> If you currently try to access Twitter without logging in to your user account, you’ll be unable to see any of the content that was previously available to the wider public. Instead, you’ll meet a Twitter window that asks you to either sign in to the platform or create a new account, effectively blocking you from viewing tweets and user profiles or browsing through threads unless you’re a registered Twitter user.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/30/23779764/twitter-blocks-u...
It looks like it was pushed through by claiming the site was under attack, and then access was never restored. In any case, it was one of the things that pushed me off X.
He fixed all that for, like... a month. Then went back to blocking lots of content without a login.
I haven't seen the errors since then, but it is back to not showing me the discussion.