Bluesky City of Heroes Feed

[Lunar Ronin]

For those unaware, Bluesky is a fairly new microblogging social media platform, like Twitter/X, Mastodon, and Threads.  Bluesky has really picked up in traffic as of late as more and more people move over to it.

 

For City of Heroes players, I created a Bluesky feed. It's just an alternate medium to follow the game and its players. Essentially, all Bluesky posts (or skeets), that have the following will show up in one central City of Heroes feed:

 

city of heroes, city of villains, paragon city, paragon studios, rogue isles, #cityofheroes, #cityofvillains, #coh, #cohhomecoming, #cohnewdawn, #cohrebirth, #cohthunderspy, #cov

 

Yeah, yeah, I know.  Social media icky.  I hear you.  But Bluesky is, IMO, the best of a bad lot, and I do see City of Heroes-related posts/skeets there.  I just made it easier to find them.  You can find the feed here if you are interested.

[srmalloy]

4 hours ago, Lunar Ronin said:

But Bluesky is, IMO, the best of a bad lot

Does it market your personal information and activity to advertisers to allow them to present tailored advertising? If so, "best of a bad lot" is like arguing over the species of the mold growing in your shower.

[Lunar Ronin]

Just now, srmalloy said:

Does it market your personal information and activity to advertisers to allow them to present tailored advertising? If so, "best of a bad lot" is like arguing over the species of the mold growing in your shower.

 

Nope.  No advertising whatsoever.  They do plan to launch an optional subscription, but that's it.  In addition, if you really want to get into the technical nitty gritty, Bluesky is more of a protocol where people can eventually run their own servers (like Mastodon, but much more seamlessly).  But no, it doesn't sell your information nor do advertisements.  Again, they plan to offer an optional subscription because they need to fund the thing somehow, but that's it.

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, Lunar Ronin said:

Nope.  No advertising whatsoever.  They do plan to launch an optional subscription, but that's it.  In addition, if you really want to get into the technical nitty gritty, Bluesky is more of a protocol where people can eventually run their own servers (like Mastodon, but much more seamlessly).  But no, it doesn't sell your information nor do advertisements.  Again, they plan to offer an optional subscription because they need to fund the thing somehow, but that's it.

 

until when^tm

 

I think we know how this thing goes. They may be able to pull that off for a while ... maybe even until they sell it, but, once they sell it, you will already been in, they will start running ads, and they will sell all the data that you have built up before change.

 

Just be wary.

 

And, of course, the obvious question is it monetized? 

[Without_Pause]

I found it. https://bsky.app/profile/lunarronin.bsky.social/feed/cityofheroes

[Troo]

thats a good bit of chatter over just a couple days.

[brass_eagle]

10 hours ago, Lunar Ronin said:

Yeah, yeah, I know.  Social media icky.  I hear you.

 

ICK!!!!!

 

But seriously, if it gains any traction it is good to have an establishment at least.

[Without_Pause]

5 hours ago, brass_eagle said:

 

ICK!!!!!

 

But seriously, if it gains any traction it is good to have an establishment at least.

Bluesky has over 10 million users as they celebrated that mark a month or so ago. It's not Twitter/X or Threads, but it is also tolerable. 

[Lunar Ronin]

9 hours ago, Troo said:

thats a good bit of chatter over just a couple days.

 

Yeah, there's been quite a bit of CoH discussion there lately, which is why I thought a feed collecting it all to make it easier for people to find is a good idea. 

 

45 minutes ago, Without_Pause said:

Bluesky has over 10 million users as they celebrated that mark a month or so ago. It's not Twitter/X or Threads, but it is also tolerable. 

 

Thirteen million users now IIRC, half of which joined in the past two months.  Almost all of tech Twitter has moved over, as has the Internet radio station that I am involved with.

[Psyonico]

11 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

 

until when^tm

 

I think we know how this thing goes. They may be able to pull that off for a while ... maybe even until they sell it, but, once they sell it, you will already been in, they will start running ads, and they will sell all the data that you have built up before change.

 

Just be wary.

 

And, of course, the obvious question is it monetized? 

 

I also promise that at this very moment AI is being trained using the data found on it.  Not necessarily from/approved by BluSky, but it's there.

[Lunar Ronin]

6 minutes ago, Psyonico said:

 

I also promise that at this very moment AI is being trained using the data found on it.  Not necessarily from/approved by BluSky, but it's there.

 

I can also promise that at this very moment, AI is being trained using the data found on these forums, unless you think all 200+ guests currently viewing the forums are human beings...  Spoiler: They're not.

 

Edited November 7 by Lunar Ronin

[Psyonico]

5 minutes ago, Lunar Ronin said:

 

I can also promise that at this very moment, AI is being trained using the data found on these forums, unless you think all 200+ guests currently viewing the forums are human beings...  Spoiler: They're not.

 

You are correct.

 

To me, the difference is that these forums, I don't post anything remotely personal, whereas social media is, by its nature, personal.

[Lunar Ronin]

2 minutes ago, Psyonico said:

You are correct.

 

To me, the difference is that these forums, I don't post anything remotely personal, whereas social media is, by its nature, personal.

 

It doesn't have to be.  I have nothing personal posted on Bluesky.  It's all discussion about comic books, video games, announcements for the Internet radio station I'm affiliated with, sharing news articles, and sharing memes...  It's all about how you decide to use it.

[Techwright]

20 hours ago, Lunar Ronin said:

For those unaware, Bluesky is a fairly new microblogging social media platform, like Twitter/X, Mastodon, and Threads.  Bluesky has really picked up in traffic as of late as more and more people move over to it.

 

For City of Heroes players, I created a Bluesky feed.

 

 

Question:  Is it for all things CoH, or specific to Homecoming?

Question 2: What does it bring that CoH on already established social media (Discord, Reddit, other?) does not?

 

Observation:  Following the link that @Without_Pause provided, I saw more talk about immediately recent politics than I did about CoH.  I'm one who really appreciates leaving certain inflammatory topics out of the focus.  I've a lot of friendly forum and game people who are likely 180 degrees opposite of me on these subjects, but we get along great because we've found common ground here.  Does the Bluesky setup not have something to keep discussion on target?

[Without_Pause]

1 hour ago, Techwright said:

 

Question:  Is it for all things CoH, or specific to Homecoming?

Question 2: What does it bring that CoH on already established social media (Discord, Reddit, other?) does not?

 

Observation:  Following the link that @Without_Pause provided, I saw more talk about immediately recent politics than I did about CoH.  I'm one who really appreciates leaving certain inflammatory topics out of the focus.  I've a lot of friendly forum and game people who are likely 180 degrees opposite of me on these subjects, but we get along great because we've found common ground here.  Does the Bluesky setup not have something to keep discussion on target?

I don't really know. I feel like a feed is more for the people who get added to it, so whatever they want to talk about gets added to that feed. I haven't really posted anything CoH related nor am I part of the feed TMK, but I would absolutely post political stuff on my account. I did a search on the hashtag of #cityofheroes, but you are getting older posts from it as someone has to add the hashtag for #cityofheroes for it to show up. 

[Lunar Ronin]

1 hour ago, Techwright said:

 

Question:  Is it for all things CoH, or specific to Homecoming?

Question 2: What does it bring that CoH on already established social media (Discord, Reddit, other?) does not?

 

Observation:  Following the link that @Without_Pause provided, I saw more talk about immediately recent politics than I did about CoH.  I'm one who really appreciates leaving certain inflammatory topics out of the focus.  I've a lot of friendly forum and game people who are likely 180 degrees opposite of me on these subjects, but we get along great because we've found common ground here.  Does the Bluesky setup not have something to keep discussion on target?

 

All things City of Heroes, regardless of server.

 

It's mostly for City of Heroes players that are already on Bluesky (which there are quite a few).  Discord is siloed.  Reddit specifically sells your content to OpenAI, Google, and probably others to be scraped by, and fed to, LLMs.

 

I only saw one openly political-related post there from the past three days.  And no, there's really nothing to keep discussion on target unless I set it so I have to manually approve every single post - which, yeah, not happening .  The feed automatically captures any post with the keywords in the original message.  If you or anyone else mentions in a Bluesky post/skeet "city of heroes," it will show up in the feed, with or without the hashtag.

 

Again, people are already discussing City of Heroes on Bluesky.  They have been for over a year, and it's just occurring more and more frequently as more and more people use Bluesky.  I just made it easier to find those discussions.

[Lunar Ronin]

13 minutes ago, Without_Pause said:

I don't really know. I feel like a feed is more for the people who get added to it, so whatever they want to talk about gets added to that feed. I haven't really posted anything CoH related nor am I part of the feed TMK, but I would absolutely post political stuff on my account. I did a search on the hashtag of #cityofheroes, but you are getting older posts from it as someone has to add the hashtag for #cityofheroes for it to show up. 

 

Bluesky feeds capture posts with specific trigger words or hashtags, regardless of poster.  So if you skeet "paragon city" or "#cityofheroes," the City of Heroes feed will automatically capture it.  Bluesky lists are what is limited to specific people that have to be added to the list.

[Darmian]

2 hours ago, Techwright said:

I saw more talk about immediately recent politics than I did about CoH. 

The Can Man Won!  Can't tell me different!

[Owl Girl]

social media is not icky!! it's an effective method of influencing society. do You have any idea how many political actors have sock accounts on twitter that You can easily find and engage with?? what kinda person turns their back on an opportunity to whisper in the ears of power?!

[Snarky]

8 hours ago, Lunar Ronin said:

 

I can also promise that at this very moment, AI is being trained using the data found on these forums, unless you think all 200+ guests currently viewing the forums are human beings...  Spoiler: They're not.

 

what exactly is your criteria for that?

[Apogee]

6 hours ago, Techwright said:

Observation:  Following the link that @Without_Pause provided, I saw more talk about immediately recent politics than I did about CoH.  I'm one who really appreciates leaving certain inflammatory topics out of the focus.  I've a lot of friendly forum and game people who are likely 180 degrees opposite of me on these subjects, but we get along great because we've found common ground here.  Does the Bluesky setup not have something to keep discussion on target?

 

How dare you be measured and reasonable on the internet!

[Lines]

16 hours ago, Lunar Ronin said:

 

I can also promise that at this very moment, AI is being trained using the data found on these forums, unless you think all 200+ guests currently viewing the forums are human beings...  Spoiler: They're not.

 

 

Dang! He's on to me!

[Snarky]

This is modern social media.  With all the ills that entails.  And, inevitably, they will be trying to monetize it in 1-100 ways.  
 

CoH has always been my favorite for creativity and content.  And the HC team is wonderfully free of drama and money grabs.  

[Mopery]

I keep reading that there's no advertising but what is this, then? 🤔

[Skyhawke]

20 hours ago, Lunar Ronin said:

 

I can also promise that at this very moment, AI is being trained using the data found on these forums, unless you think all 200+ guests currently viewing the forums are human beings...  Spoiler: They're not.

 

 

Somewhere, somebody has typed a question into ChatGPT and is confused as to why it keeps saying "Nerf Regen".