BluFly 🛩️

Guide for Followers and Trusted Contributors

BluFly is a curated — yes, humans-in-the-loop — Custom Feed on the Bluesky social media platform. It features a wide variety of posts by, and for fans of aviation in all its forms. Our big picture, long term aspiration is to be ‘AvGeek Central’ on Bluesky.

This guide provides at least some of the details as to how BluFly is set up, how it is curated as well as other related information. Already a member of Bluesky and just want to check out BluFly? Here it is.

Not a member of the currently-invitation-only Bluesky? Well, that's part of what we cover in the rest of this guide … please read on.

First Things First: What's a Bluesky Custom Feed?

The bête noire of modern social media is the black box algorithms which determine what you see and when you see it. Furthermore, as you've likely already experienced, these can also change right underneath your feet without warning and can have an immense impact on user experience. Typically, there's no recourse or appeal — you simply have to live with whatever the algorithm wants you to see. And don't even get us started about the whole concept of microtargeting!

Bluesky tosses this whole concept out the window: Bluesky's Custom Feeds can be created by anybody for any purpose. Furthermore, the mechanics of Custom Feeds are completely open-source. You can go and look at the ‘source code’ of any Custom Feed whenever you want. Here's BlueFly's algorithm definition file which, incidentally, is simply a JSON text file. That means it can be read relatively easily by both machines and humans.

See Algorithmic Choice with Custom Feeds in the Resources section below for lots more information about Custom Feeds directly from the folks who created them.

BluFly's ‘Prime Directives’

Given Custom Feeds “can be created by anybody for any purpose”, let's start with the latter and conclude with the former for BluFly:

• Strictly Aviation-Related Content — First and foremost, posts you will find in BluFly are about aviation. To further define that, anything made by people that flies (intentionally) is fair game. You'll find both full-size and model aircraft, lighter- and heavier-than-air, aircraft with motors and without, drones and UAVs, historical and contemporary aircraft, flight simulation, books, the people behind the aircraft, aviation-related products and services, aviation events and education and … well, the list goes on and on. Or stated another way, if you describe yourself in any way an AvGeek, then BluFly is a feed for you.
• Words and Pictures Emphasized — We have certain aesthetic aspirations for BluFly. Posts should consist of plain text (specifically, hashtags are discouraged) and as many as four pictures per post — that's currently a Bluesky limitation. When you do the quick scroll through BluFly, it should seem to be mostly words and pictures. See what we mean? So how are we doing so far, d'ya think?
• Links — Yep, BluFly encourages the use of links, but only to materials which directly support all of the objectives of BluFly. Wherever possible, use links which render well. If you're not sure what that means, we'll be putting together some more detailed information on this in the near future.
• Threads — Yep, BluFly also encourages the use of threads — which is to say many separate posts linked together when you have more to say than can be contained in a single post. However, this should be done in a manner which makes it obvious that's what they are. Typically including the ‘🧵 [1/5]’ in the first post in the thread, ‘🧵 [2/5]’ in the second post and so on.

So that's the ‘what’, what about the “who’? This is much simpler: BluFly is a project of Intellog Inc., a digital media and communications company based out of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. When we first got on Bluesky, we took a look at the Custom Feed landscape and thought there were some deficiencies in current offerings in the aviation domain. Candidly and setting all modesty aside, we thought we could do better. Consequently, all BluFly posts are sourced, vetted and submitted to the feed by a human being who works for Intellog Inc. More information can be found in the About Intellog Inc. section below.

That said, we also would like to develop relationships with what we're calling Trusted Contributors: these are independent, third parties who will also be able to source, vet and submit posts directly to the BluFly feed. See Trusted Contributors section below.

Guidelines, Recommendations and Rules for Trusted Contributors

By the length and detail of this section, please don't think BluFly is a maze of rules and regulations the unsuccessful navigation of which will get you turfed as a Trusted Contributor. That said, we're not keen for BluFly to become a chaotic free-for-all where anything goes. That's the rest of the internet. The key word in Trusted Contributor is ‘trust’ — to some degree we're trusting you with the BluFly brand. We think that's an important responsibility and we hope you do, too. With that admittely martinetish prologue out of the way, here goes:

• The All-Important 🛩️ (Small Airplane) Emoji — In order for a post from a Trusted Contributor to appear on BluFly, the 🛩️ emoji (also known as the ‘small airplane’ emoji) must be included in the text of the post. That's it, that all you have to do. Generally speaking we put it at the end of the text and offset it with a ‘ | ’ (space — vertical bar — space). But that's just us. You can put it wherever you want in the text of your post.
• Photographs — Text-only posts will simply not get the attention they deserve, so it's highly recommended you use photographs with every post. Multiple photographs can sometimes (but not always) be better, but there is currently a limit of four per post imposed by the Bluesky platform. However, as an alternative to cramming four photographs into one post, consider a thread (see that section below) with descriptive text and a single picture for each post in the thread. See also the next section on the use of Alt Text — we also recommend you provide these, as well. With respect to the size of the image it's our experience that 790x496px and 1080x1080px work well. However, Bluesky seems tolerant of whatever size you have on hand. Book covers, for example, almost always are in some sort of portrait format, which is perfectly fine.
• Alt Text — Whenever you add a photograph with Bluesky, you'll see a little box somewhere in the image labelled ALT. This is shorthand for “alternative text’ and is intended primarily to help with those with vision limitations understand the nature of the picture you have included in your post. When writing the Alt, imagine you're describing the picture to somebody who is not looking at it. It's a challenge, at first, but you'll definitely get the hang of it. However, if that's not a good enough reason to use the Alt— it really should be — it also provides another way more verbose opportunity to include text in your post. The only catch being that it's text your viewer only sees when they click on the picture. Behind the scenes, it likely also aids in discoverability.
• Quote Posts — Have you seen something on Bluesky which meets all of the BluFly criteria but it isn't from a Trusted Contributor and/or the text of the post doesn't include the 🛩️ emoji? Quote post it! There are a couple of things to keep in mind, though: first, make a reasonable effort to ensure that doesn't already appear on BluFly as a quote post from somebody else. Also, avoid quote posts on posts which are already reposts/quote posts — they don't render well. If everything is still a go, then click the 🔁 icon below the post, select ‘Quote post’ from the drop down and then add at least the 🛩️ emoji to the text. Additional descriptive material in addition to that is also great — perhaps with some explanation of why you're reposting it, for example.
• Hashtags — In a word, don't. As in don't use them. They are not supported in Bluesky which means they do nothing to aid in the discoverability of your post. This is really what hashtags were originally intended to do way back when on that other platform. Given they now do nothing, we believe their net effect is to simply distract from the central theme of your post. Write well — you'll be discovered soon enough.
• Posting Frequency — We have some pretty good data that familiarity does breed, if not contempt, certainly steadily diminishing interest. Our theory: it's not because your posts are no good but rather a subconcious sense that another good post from you is on the way shortly, so why bother paying attention to this one? The big exception to this rule is the next section — Threads — see immediately below.
• Threads — Although we recommend one post per day, we also think of multiple, roughly contemporaneous posts linked together into a thread as really being one post. They tell a single, integrated story which simply doesn't fit into a single post. Keep in mind the ‘head post’ is on the only one which appears on BluFly. Viewers of the feed will have to click on your head post to see the other posts in your thread. This is by design.
• Commercial Posts are Okay ... Probably — We don't specifically object to posts which include a call-to-action (CTA) to potentially buy something. It's what make the world go 'round, right? However, a couple of thoughts: please make sure it's done in a way which support all of the aesthetic objectives of BluFly. For example, it makes perfect sense that a post about an aviation-related book you've written, reviewed or simply just liked include a link to a website where the book can be purchased. Also, make full disclosure if you financially benefit for the product/service. Finally, there may be a better way: perhaps the CTA can be put into a post from someone else? Like the BluFly admin account, for example?
• Avoid Prohibitions! — The governing Social Media Policy contains specific prohibitions, so it's important to avoid these. Posts which are deemed — solely by the administrators of BluFly — to be in violation of any of these prohibitions will result in the removal of the Trusted Contributor from the feed along with all of their posts, at the very least temporarily and without notice.

Please keep in mind that we're always going to do our level best to work with you to get you to the top of your BluFly posting game. If we step in from time-to-time to help out, please keep in mind we're always doing that with the best interests of both you, the Trusted Contributor and BluFly in our aspirational, collective goal to make it the best aviation-related feed on Bluesky.

Trusted Contributors

This list is updated on an ongoing basis and is presented in alphabetical order:

• BluFly — Administrative account for BluFly.
• Dan Yocum — “Polymath. Linux. Physics. Astronomy. Airplanes. Music. Human rights for everyone. Not in that order.”
• Intellog Inc. — “Digital Content | Social Media | Project Development”
• Not There Yet — “Eclectic essays podcasted from the third decade of the 21st century. Currently featuring: Jack Northrop's Flying Wings” (podcast)
• The New RC Soaring Digest — “The 30 issues of the digital-first version of the classic journal for RC soaring enthusiasts, published by Intellog from January of 2021 through June of 2023.”
• The WorkNotWork Show — “I Can't Believe I Get Paid for Doing This” (podcast)
• Terence C. Gannon — Founder and CEO of Intellog Inc. He is the first to admit that he's “not there yet”.

Would you like to become a Trusted Contributor to BluFly? By all means, please please drop us a line in order to start that conversation.

Frequently Asked Questions

• How does a post get on the BluFly feed? — There are three criteria which must be met in order for a post to appear: 1) the post must be by an account which appears in the Trusted Contributors list as above, 2) it must be an originating post, which is to say not a reply and 3) the 🛩️ emoji must appear somewhere in the text of the post.
• How do I get added as a BluFly Trusted Contributor? — It's actually pretty simple: email us and request it. That said, you can count on the curators taking a look at your Bluesky account to make sure it has, as a subset at least, posts which will be relevant and interesting to the followers of BluFly. You also need to read, understand and be willing to remain compliant with Intellog Inc.'s (BluFly's operating company) Social Media Policy.
• How do I get on Bluesky if I don't have an invitation code? — For the time being that can be tricky and without one, you cannot get on Bluesky. These codes are currently being distributed by Bluesky themselves. In addition, however, those who have been on Bluesky for a while are given regular allotments of invitation codes which can in turn be given to friends and family who also want to get on Bluesky. It's a clever concept, and seemingly it's intended on keeping the quality of users on Bluesky at a high standard. We like it.

Resources

These articles are not required reading by any definition. However, they do provide additional valuable information on the Bluesky which you might find useful.

• Algorithmic Choice with Custom Feeds by The Bluesky Team. — Excerpt: “Bluesky is one of the first social media companies that has made algorithmic choice a reality. On Bluesky, anyone can create a feed — cat lovers, coffee aficionados, Swifties, NBA fans and more. As a user, you’re given a few default feeds to start out with as you get settled into the app, but you can easily swap them out for one of the many feeds that others have created” such as BluFly, of course!
• What is Bluesky? by The Bluesky Team. — Excerpt: “Bluesky is building a protocol for public conversation that can make social networks work more like email, blogs, or phone numbers — the open systems that power the rest of our online lives. The protocol we built, the AT Protocol, is close to completion, and the Bluesky app is a microblogging client built on it to showcase the protocol’s features. The Bluesky app also introduces people to how a social web on the AT Protocol will work.”

About Intellog Inc.

Founded in 2008, Intellog is a corporate communications company with the goal of helping organisations tell their stories and ensure they get heard by the right audience through innovative digital marketing. Significant recent projects include The New RC Soaring Digest a digital-first, aviation-related publication. The WorkNotWork Show and Not There Yet are podcasts written, produced and hosted by Intellog. We also produce tech email newsletters, examples of which include React Status for Cooperpress in the United Kingdom and DragonRuby Dispatch for the WNDX School in Alberta, Canada. In addition to BluFly, we have also just kicked off BluRuby and BluReact which are Bluesky Custom Feeds we are developing for the Ruby and React software development communities respectively.

Disclaimer

While all reasonable care is taken in the preparation of the contents of BluFly, the publishers are not legally responsible for errors in its contents or for any loss arising from such errors, including loss resulting from the negligence of our staff or any of its contributors. Reliance placed upon the contents of BluFly is solely at the readers’ own risk.

This document was last updated at 2023-10-13 12:29 Mountain Daylight Time in North America.