Official Twitter Thread (1 Viewer)

[McBokonon]

I highly recommend the "Baseball Writers & Sites" feed.

Did Nutting sell the Pirates or die yet? If the answer is "no," you can stuff the "Baseball Writers & Sites" feed in a sack, mister!

 

[Joe Bryant]

This thread is getting odd.

Pretty eye opening to see what hills people are willing to die on and fight for. I don't get it, but it makes for a fun follow.

I don't much fighting to the death on hills in this thread. Or did you mean something else?

Came late to this thread, but the last dozen or so pages is people arguing over why twitter sucks or why it's the best. I just don't get it. It's pretty clear the tool is dividing people. Not sure why we allow that to happen. My pops gave me some new aggregators some years ago that I have control over. I don't understand why people would give up that freedom to algos that are designed to create echo chambers so these interactions are interesting to me as I try to figure that out.

There are a handful of posts in those pages that are seeking to help in using the tool, but those aren't close to the majority. "Dying on hills" is probably a little hyperbolic, but to me any effort to defend the platform or defame the platform is a COMPLETE waste of time. It's designed to give different experiences and silo people off, so comparing experiences is pretty useless in my opinion.

Throw on top of that the removing of some posts and leaving others muddles the ability to understand context of the thread overall. Still don't understand that, but it doesn't matter. Maybe that's why I get the impression I do? Dunno.

Ok. I thought you meant more serious. Sure, some people like one or the other. Or like me, use both. I don't see anyone dying on hills but that's just me.

For the moderation, we'll always remove posts like the "Elon saved America". And the replies to those posts. We do our best to not make it muddled. And this may just be a topic we're not able to handlehere. I thought maybe we could but we'll see. I do think there's value in discussing a big communication platform like this.

 

[Joe Bryant]

Bluesky feeds are potentially a great feature. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to aggregate content related to specific subjects on Twitter. I played around with Lists on Twitter but it seemed like a lot of bother. I have no idea how Bluesky feeds work but they're easy to add and provide a subject matter view of posts and articles. I highly recommend the "Baseball Writers & Sites" feed.

As I understand it, Twitter public Lists and Bluesky starter packs are the exact same thing. They both seem to work great for the intended purpose of a focused feed.

 

[Eephus]

Bluesky feeds are potentially a great feature. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to aggregate content related to specific subjects on Twitter. I played around with Lists on Twitter but it seemed like a lot of bother. I have no idea how Bluesky feeds work but they're easy to add and provide a subject matter view of posts and articles. I highly recommend the "Baseball Writers & Sites" feed.

As I understand it, Twitter public Lists and Bluesky starter packs are the exact same thing. They both seem to work great for the intended purpose of a focused feed.

Bluesky feeds and Twitter public lists are the same. Starter packs are a different thing altogether.

 

[HellToupee]

Ventured over there.Two huge negatives off the bat 1- no native iPad app and 2- some jabroni has my user name

 

[Joe Bryant]

Bluesky feeds are potentially a great feature. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to aggregate content related to specific subjects on Twitter. I played around with Lists on Twitter but it seemed like a lot of bother. I have no idea how Bluesky feeds work but they're easy to add and provide a subject matter view of posts and articles. I highly recommend the "Baseball Writers & Sites" feed.

As I understand it, Twitter public Lists and Bluesky starter packs are the exact same thing. They both seem to work great for the intended purpose of a focused feed.

Bluesky feeds and Twitter public lists are the same. Starter packs are a different thing altogether.

Thanks. Can you elaborate please in detail?

 

[Scoresman]

When people notice a post of theirs is deleted, do a little research and look to see what else may have been deleted. A lot of people seemingly throw up their arms claiming biased moderation when the fact of the matter is an entire sub-discussion was most likely deleted and your post was probably just part of it in a quote hierarchy.

I've had a number of posts deleted, but realized that the actual offending post was the one I was replying to so it was obvious it wasn't targeted or one sided.

 

[Eephus]

Thanks. Can you elaborate please in detail?

Starter packs are a list of accounts that can be followed either selectively or in their entirety. It's an easy way to get up to speed quickly with a new Bluesky account and populate your "following" feed with content. The downsides I've seen so far are that they're kind of a mixed bag (e.g. I got a lot of posts about Taylor Swift's Toronto concerts which I didn't sign up for) and they don't auto-update (e.g. related accounts that get added to a starter pack after I run it don't show up as follows).

Feeds as you said are similar to Public Lists in Twitter. I had used these in Twitter many years ago and had completely forgotten about them. I think Twitter has de-emphasized them as a feature because they've been pushed off the left menu and only appear if you click the ...more button. I don't know if Bluesky Feeds will fare any better in the long run but for now they're a good way to get semi-curated content by subject matter.

 

[Joe Bryant]

Thanks. Can you elaborate please in detail?

Starter packs are a list of accounts that can be followed either selectively or in their entirety. It's an easy way to get up to speed quickly with a new Bluesky account and populate your "following" feed with content. The downsides I've seen so far are that they're kind of a mixed bag (e.g. I got a lot of posts about Taylor Swift's Toronto concerts which I didn't sign up for) and they don't auto-update (e.g. related accounts that get added to a starter pack after I run it don't show up as follows).

Feeds as you said are similar to Public Lists in Twitter. I had used these in Twitter many years ago and had completely forgotten about them. I think Twitter has de-emphasized them as a feature because they've been pushed off the left menu and only appear if you click the ...more button. I don't know if Bluesky Feeds will fare any better in the long run but for now they're a good way to get semi-curated content by subject matter.

Thanks. So Starter Packs are Feeds that you can select who you want or select all?

 

[Eephus]

Thanks. So Starter Packs are Feeds that you can select who you want or select all?

Starter packs are more of an onboarding tool to quickly find a group of accounts to follow. I believe starter packs can include feeds but the ones I've used have been accounts only.

As an example, you could set up a starter pack consisting of all the FBG writers with Bluesky accounts so users could follow them without having to search for them individually.

 

[GroveDiesel]

Meanwhile, we have the REAL reason that Twitter exists.

Kent is in a lot of "dept"? Good solid education there...

I’m guessing that the “email” is actually fake. I mean Barstool Akron tweeting out an embarrassing email like that from their heated rival Kent seems like ripe ground for shenanigans

 

[GroveDiesel]

Thanks. So Starter Packs are Feeds that you can select who you want or select all?

Starter packs are more of an onboarding tool to quickly find a group of accounts to follow. I believe starter packs can include feeds but the ones I've used have been accounts only.

As an example, you could set up a starter pack consisting of all the FBG writers with Bluesky accounts so users could follow them without having to search for them individually.

Correct. And users can either add them wholesale or go through and just add the ones they want. Handy way to get started, or to dive into a new interest.

 

[Dr. Octopus]

Starter packs are a different thing altogether.

Where do you find them? It seemed they wanted me to enter my own people which seems to defeat the purpose.

 

[Eephus]

Thanks. So Starter Packs are Feeds that you can select who you want or select all?

Starter packs are more of an onboarding tool to quickly find a group of accounts to follow. I believe starter packs can include feeds but the ones I've used have been accounts only.

As an example, you could set up a starter pack consisting of all the FBG writers with Bluesky accounts so users could follow them without having to search for them individually.

Thanks. And yes, we've done that for FBG staff https://bsky.app/profile/footballguys.bsky.social/post/3lb3akre2oc2m

Followed all

 

[3C's]

Meanwhile, we have the REAL reason that Twitter exists.

Kent is in a lot of "dept"? Good solid education there...

I’m guessing that the “email” is actually fake. I mean Barstool Akron tweeting out an embarrassing email like that from their heated rival Kent seems like ripe ground for shenanigans

Didn't they just play in football? Seems like I remember Akron killing some poor team recently.

Yep, confirmed...

 

[Sparky Polastri]

This thread is getting odd.

Pretty eye opening to see what hills people are willing to die on and fight for. I don't get it, but it makes for a fun follow.

I don't much fighting to the death on hills in this thread. Or did you mean something else?

Came late to this thread, but the last dozen or so pages is people arguing over why twitter sucks or why it's the best. I just don't get it. It's pretty clear the tool is dividing people. Not sure why we allow that to happen. My pops gave me some new aggregators some years ago that I have control over. I don't understand why people would give up that freedom to algos that are designed to create echo chambers so these interactions are interesting to me as I try to figure that out.

There are a handful of posts in those pages that are seeking to help in using the tool, but those aren't close to the majority. "Dying on hills" is probably a little hyperbolic, but to me any effort to defend the platform or defame the platform is a COMPLETE waste of time. It's designed to give different experiences and silo people off, so comparing experiences is pretty useless in my opinion.

Throw on top of that the removing of some posts and leaving others muddles the ability to understand context of the thread overall. Still don't understand that, but it doesn't matter. Maybe that's why I get the impression I do? Dunno.

Ok. I thought you meant more serious. Sure, some people like one or the other. Or like me, use both. I don't see anyone dying on hills but that's just me.

For the moderation, we'll always remove posts like the "Elon saved America". And the replies to those posts. We do our best to not make it muddled. And this may just be a topic we're not able to handlehere. I thought maybe we could but we'll see. I do think there's value in discussing a big communication platform like this.

Just a suggestion on the removing posts, if you're going to remove something, it's probably best to remove all responses or references to the post you removed too. Seems like a lot of work for moderators, but I've run across a bunch of orphaned comments that I have no idea regarding the context of what they were replying too. This happened a good bit in whatever thread we had on Boeing. At least it seemed that way.

 

[fatness]

Someone has recognized there's a market for it, and has set up a company to help migrate someone's content from their Twitter account to their BlueSky account. They've moved 2 terabytes of data in their first month.

They set out to help people leave Twitter. Now they can't keep up with demand.

As Elon Musk teams up with Donald Trump, a startup is helping users move their old tweets to bluer pastures.

www.businessinsider.com

So they came up with a way to scrape their X accounts and export the tweets to the rival social network. And thanks to Bluesky's unusually open tech, the tweets would retain their original date stamps — even if they predated Bluesky's opening in 2022. In other words, Castellani and Bezerra could give Bluesky something it didn't have: a past.

I won't get into details I don't understand about moving account content, because I have no BlueSky acccount and no Twitter content. You'll have to refer to the article for that.

Also found this interesting:

Bluesky opted for creating an experience that's fun and friendly. Its interface is Twitter-like to the point of flattery, but unlike X, it's easy to shape the experience to reflect your own needs and preferences. Block someone on Bluesky and it's "nuclear" — they don't see you anymore, or anything referring to you, and you don't see them. You can retroactively stop someone from embedding one of your posts in one of theirs, to short-circuit the kind of mass harassment campaigns that have become common on X. And Bluesky has promised never to use your posts to train AI bots — something X just changed its terms of service to permit.

 

[ChiefD]

Dudes. Here's a simple hint. If a link posted talks about democrats and republicans and independents and what they are doing, it is political and joe doesn't want that around here. Sometimes there is a gary area - that link is not

That area is in Indiana. I'm sure of it.

 

[Joe Bryant]

This thread is getting odd.

Pretty eye opening to see what hills people are willing to die on and fight for. I don't get it, but it makes for a fun follow.

I don't much fighting to the death on hills in this thread. Or did you mean something else?

Came late to this thread, but the last dozen or so pages is people arguing over why twitter sucks or why it's the best. I just don't get it. It's pretty clear the tool is dividing people. Not sure why we allow that to happen. My pops gave me some new aggregators some years ago that I have control over. I don't understand why people would give up that freedom to algos that are designed to create echo chambers so these interactions are interesting to me as I try to figure that out.

There are a handful of posts in those pages that are seeking to help in using the tool, but those aren't close to the majority. "Dying on hills" is probably a little hyperbolic, but to me any effort to defend the platform or defame the platform is a COMPLETE waste of time. It's designed to give different experiences and silo people off, so comparing experiences is pretty useless in my opinion.

Throw on top of that the removing of some posts and leaving others muddles the ability to understand context of the thread overall. Still don't understand that, but it doesn't matter. Maybe that's why I get the impression I do? Dunno.

Ok. I thought you meant more serious. Sure, some people like one or the other. Or like me, use both. I don't see anyone dying on hills but that's just me.

For the moderation, we'll always remove posts like the "Elon saved America". And the replies to those posts. We do our best to not make it muddled. And this may just be a topic we're not able to handlehere. I thought maybe we could but we'll see. I do think there's value in discussing a big communication platform like this.

Just a suggestion on the removing posts, if you're going to remove something, it's probably best to remove all responses or references to the post you removed too. Seems like a lot of work for moderators, but I've run across a bunch of orphaned comments that I have no idea regarding the context of what they were replying too. This happened a good bit in whatever thread we had on Boeing. At least it seemed that way.

Thanks for the suggestion. In a perfect world, that would be best. But full transparency, I doubt we'll be able to put the people on it necessary to spend the time and effort to parse out every single thing like that perfectly. Especially when most every one posting knows the topic is over the line. The forum bleeds money and recruiting getting people to help is a challenge. Everyone is good to go for a few months. Then they see how crappy the job is with mostly just never ending complaints and the pay isn't worth it. It's by far the worst job at Footballguys and it's not close.

The better option is likely to not post in any reply chain that you know is going to be deleted.

The other option is remove way more posts but that doesn't seem like a great idea. We'll see.

 

[Joe Bryant]

Thanks. So Starter Packs are Feeds that you can select who you want or select all?

Starter packs are more of an onboarding tool to quickly find a group of accounts to follow. I believe starter packs can include feeds but the ones I've used have been accounts only.

As an example, you could set up a starter pack consisting of all the FBG writers with Bluesky accounts so users could follow them without having to search for them individually.

Thanks. And yes, we've done that for FBG staff https://bsky.app/profile/footballguys.bsky.social/post/3lb3akre2oc2m

Followed all

Thank you.

 

[Balco]

Thanks. So Starter Packs are Feeds that you can select who you want or select all?

Starter packs are more of an onboarding tool to quickly find a group of accounts to follow. I believe starter packs can include feeds but the ones I've used have been accounts only.

As an example, you could set up a starter pack consisting of all the FBG writers with Bluesky accounts so users could follow them without having to search for them individually.

Thanks. And yes, we've done that for FBG staff https://bsky.app/profile/footballguys.bsky.social/post/3lb3akre2oc2m

Thanks for the link - this is perfect.

 

[fatness]

The forum bleeds money and recruiting getting people to help is a challenge.

How much money does this forum (and the other ones) lose FBG each year?
Have you thought about a paid no-ad option for the forums? $? per month or year to be fed no ads.
I'm not trying to be a jerk, just wondering about the scale of the financial problem and spitballing on possible income.

 

[Joe Bryant]

The forum bleeds money and recruiting getting people to help is a challenge.

How much money does this forum (and the other ones) lose FBG each year?
Have you thought about a paid no-ad option for the forums? $? per month or year to be fed no ads.
I'm not trying to be a jerk, just wondering about the scale of the financial problem and spitballing on possible income.

That's not being a jerk at all. I've considered adding advertising to the forums. Almost all the good forums do this it seems.

I never have done it as I'm not sure I have the energy for the backlash. I'm regularly told how I'm ruining the forums as it is with what we can do with emojis or not allowing "Elon saved America" discussion. I don't know I want to deal with doing something that actually would make them less good like an ad would. Maybe something to consider in the offseason when I'm feeling better on it.

 

[Joe Bryant]

Thanks. So Starter Packs are Feeds that you can select who you want or select all?

Starter packs are more of an onboarding tool to quickly find a group of accounts to follow. I believe starter packs can include feeds but the ones I've used have been accounts only.

As an example, you could set up a starter pack consisting of all the FBG writers with Bluesky accounts so users could follow them without having to search for them individually.

Thanks. And yes, we've done that for FBG staff https://bsky.app/profile/footballguys.bsky.social/post/3lb3akre2oc2m

Thanks for the link - this is perfect.

You're welcome. I do think they've for sure done the Starter Pack stuff right and it makes a lot of sense.

 

[belljr]

Ventured over there.Two huge negatives off the bat 1- no native iPad app and 2- some jabroni has my user name

Maybe switch to WIG

 

[Capella]

I’d easily pay 5 bucks a month for these forums. No brainer.

 

[the moops]

I’d easily pay 5 bucks a month for these forums. No brainer.

I'd pay 10 you cheap *******

 

[Capella]

I’d easily pay 5 bucks a month for these forums. No brainer.

I'd pay 10 you cheap *******

I’m getting the subscriber discount though.

 

[McBokonon]

I just randomly remembered Parler existed at one time. I'd say, objectively, that Bluesky is a lot better than Parler and Truth Social in the "take my ball and go home" app category.

 

[CletiusMaximus]

I just randomly remembered Parler existed at one time. I'd say, objectively, that Bluesky is a lot better than Parler and Truth Social in the "take my ball and go home" app category.

There is also a twitter upstart wanna-be called "Threads" which I think was from the facebook guys or maybe google. I'm not sure how that's going now, but it also had its 15 minutes a while back. None of the competitors seem to be catching on.

I think the Twitter experience is getting worse and worse by the day, but its not so much anything specific to Twitter or Musk or anything like that, more just the internet in general, related to the Dead Internet Theory. Think about the Arab Spring events of about ten years ago where social media and especially Twitter played a huge role in an extremely important social event across multiple nations. Compare that with the hurricanes in Florida last month. I was trying to follow the hurricane news on Twitter and was inundated with bots, stupid politics and various forms of BS. There was good breaking news about the hurricane on Twitter, but you had to wade through so much BS it was hardly worthwhile. The thread here was more useful and more efficient in staying current with the events as it happened. I don't think an Arab Spring event could happen on Twitter today. That trend is only moving in one direction and its taking Twitter and all the others with it imo.

 

[Chaos34]

I’d easily pay 5 bucks a month for these forums. No brainer.

@Joe Bryant
While charging us to use the forums is probably bad for the forums all things considered, why not try a donations link? "Help keep the forums alive and ad free."
$5 a month is like buying you a cup of coffee once a month. In fact that's exactly how many seek small donations. "If you enjoy my work, buy me a cup of coffee."
Knowing this community, I think you'd do nicely.

 

[McBokonon]

"Threads" which I think was from the facebook guys or maybe google. I'm not sure how that's going now,

It's terrible.

 

[Chaos34]

I think the Twitter experience is getting worse and worse by the day, but its not so much anything specific to Twitter or Musk or anything like that, more just the internet in general, related to the Dead Internet Theory.

Bots, AI and algorithms oh my. I have a nephew who lost his quite high paying job in SEO to AI. His crew could handle several hundred blogs/creators a month. AI can handle tens of thousands. Since he was a kid he's (maybe foolishly) relied on Uncle Chaos for counseling. We've talked at length about Dead Internet Theory. He said the internet has lost its innocence. I said no, it was never innocent. It's lost its authenticity and that's worse. You can't trust anything you read out there. Feels like everything is potentially a manipulation.

Except this place. For all it's heavy handed moderation and banning of important topics, this place is authentic. A throwback. I'd be nostalgic for it if it ever died and I'm mostly just a reader these days.

 

[Max Power]

I just randomly remembered Parler existed at one time. I'd say, objectively, that Bluesky is a lot better than Parler and Truth Social in the "take my ball and go home" app category.

I think the Twitter experience is getting worse and worse by the day, but its not so much anything specific to Twitter or Musk or anything like that, more just the internet in general, related to the Dead Internet Theory.

This is the second time I've heard the term "Dead internet theory" this week, so I finally looked into it... I think there might be something to that idea. FBGs is one of the few places I actively engage on the internet. Everywhere else I'm mostly consuming and not participating.

 

[NewlyRetired]

There is also a twitter upstart wanna-be called "Threads" which I think was from the facebook guys or maybe google. I'm not sure how that's going now, but it also had its 15 minutes a while back. None of the competitors seem to be catching on.

I don’t know how long it will last but Bluesky’s growth does not seem to be slowing down.

They broke through the 20 million user barrier and they have the number 1 app across the entire IOS suite right now.

They have not yet caught up to Threads but if this growth continues, they should pass them sometime next week.

 

[Eephus]

I’d easily pay 5 bucks a month for these forums. No brainer.

Just don't move the posts of the $5/mo. users to the top of the thread every time. Having themoops' replies at the top would kill this forum.

This and the increasing ad content have been my biggest gripes about Twitter post-Musk. The elevation of blue check posts has made scrolling through replies almost useless. I guess I can be thankful it's saved me a lot of time.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

I just randomly remembered Parler existed at one time. I'd say, objectively, that Bluesky is a lot better than Parler and Truth Social in the "take my ball and go home" app category.

There is also a twitter upstart wanna-be called "Threads" which I think was from the facebook guys or maybe google. I'm not sure how that's going now, but it also had its 15 minutes a while back. None of the competitors seem to be catching on.

I think the Twitter experience is getting worse and worse by the day, but its not so much anything specific to Twitter or Musk or anything like that, more just the internet in general, related to the Dead Internet Theory. Think about the Arab Spring events of about ten years ago where social media and especially Twitter played a huge role in an extremely important social event across multiple nations. Compare that with the hurricanes in Florida last month. I was trying to follow the hurricane news on Twitter and was inundated with bots, stupid politics and various forms of BS. There was good breaking news about the hurricane on Twitter, but you had to wade through so much BS it was hardly worthwhile. The thread here was more useful and more efficient in staying current with the events as it happened. I don't think an Arab Spring event could happen on Twitter today. That trend is only moving in one direction and its taking Twitter and all the others with it imo.

Much of what you're describing could be fixed if Twitter just allowed people to link to news articles like they used to. I understand why they did that, but it still seems counterproductive to me.

 

[Joe Bryant]

I’d easily pay 5 bucks a month for these forums. No brainer.

@Joe Bryant
While charging us to use the forums is probably bad for the forums all things considered, why not try a donations link? "Help keep the forums alive and ad free."
$5 a month is like buying you a cup of coffee once a month. In fact that's exactly how many seek small donations. "If you enjoy my work, buy me a cup of coffee."
Knowing this community, I think you'd do nicely.

Thank you. That's kind.

That just feels odd though. I know maybe it shouldn't. But I've always seen the forum as sort of like inviting people over to our house or something. I'm sure it sounds cheesy but in a way it feels like hosting a party or dinner. Yes, there are real costs involved. But it feels odd to ask for money. The better route is probably me to stop whining about the costs. But thank you for the kind words there.

 

[Sparky Polastri]

I just randomly remembered Parler existed at one time. I'd say, objectively, that Bluesky is a lot better than Parler and Truth Social in the "take my ball and go home" app category.

There is also a twitter upstart wanna-be called "Threads" which I think was from the facebook guys or maybe google. I'm not sure how that's going now, but it also had its 15 minutes a while back. None of the competitors seem to be catching on.

I think the Twitter experience is getting worse and worse by the day, but its not so much anything specific to Twitter or Musk or anything like that, more just the internet in general, related to the Dead Internet Theory. Think about the Arab Spring events of about ten years ago where social media and especially Twitter played a huge role in an extremely important social event across multiple nations. Compare that with the hurricanes in Florida last month. I was trying to follow the hurricane news on Twitter and was inundated with bots, stupid politics and various forms of BS. There was good breaking news about the hurricane on Twitter, but you had to wade through so much BS it was hardly worthwhile. The thread here was more useful and more efficient in staying current with the events as it happened. I don't think an Arab Spring event could happen on Twitter today. That trend is only moving in one direction and its taking Twitter and all the others with it imo.

Lots of stuff on Threads. They have roughly half the user base that twitter does (275M vs 500M-ish)...but it just started last year.

 

[Don Quixote]

"Threads" which I think was from the facebook guys or maybe google. I'm not sure how that's going now,

It's terrible.

Yeah, Threads is pretty bad. It does not sort stuff chronologically and does not offer ability to see just people you follow. Not good for following real-time events like sports. And algorithm seems tied to what I look at on Instagram, which is often not tied to tied to content I want to read about, as I’m not on Instagram for the articles.

 

[The Gator]

and does not offer ability to see just people you follow

Yes, it should. In the app, click the @ at the top.

 

[Don Quixote]

and does not offer ability to see just people you follow

Yes, it should. In the app, click the @ at the top.

Ah, cool. I feel like they did not have that when it launched, but maybe I was just a dummy and did not realize.

 

[fatness]

I’d easily pay 5 bucks a month for these forums. No brainer.

@Joe Bryant
While charging us to use the forums is probably bad for the forums all things considered, why not try a donations link? "Help keep the forums alive and ad free."
$5 a month is like buying you a cup of coffee once a month. In fact that's exactly how many seek small donations. "If you enjoy my work, buy me a cup of coffee."
Knowing this community, I think you'd do nicely.

Another idea would (for new forum signups only) is offering 2 options: free one with ads, paid one with 0 ads. Leave existing forum members as they are with no ads. It might generate some new income and it would keep down the "Now I have to pay for this???" outrage.

 

[Mitchie]

I enjoy this forum and spend more time on here than I like to admit but the day there's a charge for it is the day it dies. Forums need critical mass to be successful and a lot of people are not going to pay to chat with you idiots (using this term in jest here, just clarifying so noone takes it personally).

 

[Dr. Octopus]

The better route is probably me to stop whining about the costs. But thank you for the kind words there.

Look at it as a marketing tool. I doubt FBGs would have half as many subscribers if they didn’t come to the forums first.

 

[Joe Bryant]

The better route is probably me to stop whining about the costs. But thank you for the kind words there.

Look at it as a marketing tool. I doubt FBGs would have half as many subscribers if they didn’t come to the forums first.

It's an interesting question there. Certainly they add value in subscriptions. I have people who've told me they subscribe just because of the forums. To be fair, I've had almost as many people tell me they'll never pay again for the premium subscription because of how terribly I run the forums. Emojis and moderation have a cost. Overall though, I'd say it's a net positive.

And as you say, we see it mostly as a marketing expense.

 

[Mister CIA]

As a consumer, I'll tritely add that ads on these forums would be totally okay ... if done tastefully. I'm not sure what all that entails, but it would mean no annoying Temu ads, etc. Maybe the audience isn't large enough, but given whatever the audience size is here and multiplying it by discretionary income, it seems llike there's money to be made here without offending everyone (narrator: Everyione was offended).

I mean given AI's current state, and that we (all us homgenous middle-aged dummies) are pumping out some densly packed marketing datapoints, I'm surprised this isn't happening. Costco thread = Exhibit A.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Not directly Twitter related, but MSNBC is getting sold off from its parent network. Of course people are joking around about Musk buying it. But this is another data point for how legacy media is dying off and being replaced by platforms like X and Youtube.

 

[GregR]

Thanks. So Starter Packs are Feeds that you can select who you want or select all?

Starter packs are more of an onboarding tool to quickly find a group of accounts to follow. I believe starter packs can include feeds but the ones I've used have been accounts only.

As an example, you could set up a starter pack consisting of all the FBG writers with Bluesky accounts so users could follow them without having to search for them individually.

Thanks. And yes, we've done that for FBG staff https://bsky.app/profile/footballguys.bsky.social/post/3lb3akre2oc2m

Joined bluesky the other day. Saw your link and tried it:

"Post not found
The post may have been deleted."


Edit: Nevermind, found the starter pack. https://bsky.app/starter-pack/footballguys.com/3laweqdonib2w

 

[Joe Bryant]

Thanks. So Starter Packs are Feeds that you can select who you want or select all?

Starter packs are more of an onboarding tool to quickly find a group of accounts to follow. I believe starter packs can include feeds but the ones I've used have been accounts only.

As an example, you could set up a starter pack consisting of all the FBG writers with Bluesky accounts so users could follow them without having to search for them individually.

Thanks. And yes, we've done that for FBG staff https://bsky.app/profile/footballguys.bsky.social/post/3lb3akre2oc2m

Joined bluesky the other day. Saw your link and tried it:

"Post not found
The post may have been deleted."

Thanks. Apologies for the mistake there. I'll ask our @Joey Wright to take a look there.