Building Bluesky comments for my blog

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Idea and Implementation

  • Many commenters like the concept: each blog post maps to a Bluesky post whose replies become comments, letting discussion continue on the network while embedding it on the site.
  • Some see this as a nice example of reusing existing social infrastructure for identity, rich media, and distribution, without running a backend.
  • Minor UX feedback: needing a Bluesky post per web page is noted as a small friction; a reusable web component is suggested and one implementation is linked.

Moderation and Spam Control

  • Multiple people immediately ask how moderation works: dealing with spam, rude content, and deletions.
  • For Mastodon-based approaches, suggestions include:
    • Only using instances you moderate.
    • Only displaying replies you “favorite” as a manual moderation gate.
  • For Bluesky:
    • Thread owners can hide replies (thread gating), and blog embeds can simply omit hidden posts.
    • Criticism: hiding is weaker than full blocking; moderation tools are seen as less capable than Mastodon’s.

Platform Choice: Bluesky vs Mastodon, GitHub, Matrix, HN

  • Some question abandoning GitHub-issues-as-comments, arguing more readers have GitHub than Bluesky accounts; others counter that Bluesky’s user base is broader and less tech-centric.
  • Several suggest Mastodon/ActivityPub as more mature, not-for-profit, and clearly federated; links are shared to existing Mastodon-comment integrations.
  • Other alternatives raised: Matrix-based cactus.chat, custom email-based or text-file workflows, and simply using Hacker News threads as “comments.”
  • One commenter notes this setup helps interact with social media without opening feeds and doomscrolling.

Decentralization, Lock-In, and Longevity

  • Skeptics worry about VC-funded sustainability, future API lock-down, and “enshittification.”
  • Defenders emphasize AT Protocol’s architecture:
    • Personal Data Servers (PDS) for user-controlled data, relays and AppViews as separate roles, data signed and portable, backups via CAR files.
    • Claims that if Bluesky-the-company disappears, users can migrate data and reuse it on other ATProto services, though embedded comments might still vanish without extra backups.
  • Some argue Bluesky’s current centralization and default URLs still create practical lock-in; others say this is a UX problem, not a protocol limitation.

Community and Politics

  • Mixed reports on Bluesky’s culture: some find it fun and reminiscent of “old Twitter,” others describe it as politically skewed or hostile.
  • There is debate about moderation bias toward/against right-leaning users; participants offer conflicting personal experiences and stress that much moderation is client-side and list-based.