Echo Account For Unbridged Comments

[shiribailem]

A suggestion for cases where an unbridged user comments on a bridged post or tries to DM someone who is bridged.

Instead of silently failing or sending them errors, what about a special account? Instead of bridging the whole account it would basically just quote the user.

The idea of how I imagine it:

• post gets made on AP
• user @test.usr comments on other side of the bridge with "test comment"
• original post gets a comment from [email protected]: "Unbridged https://bsky.app/profile/test.usr commented: test comment"

With the obvious translation for the other direction too.

And a user with a hard opt out like the profile tag might instead just get an automatic reply of "Comment rejected as your profile explicitly prohibits being bridged. Remove the #NoBridge tag from your profile if you wish to comment.". (Honestly I think they should just be bridged anyways since they're the ones who explicitly commented on a bridged post and most of them have blocked brid.gy anyways... but we all know how they'll freak out over something that doesn't even affect them)

Obviously this is only relevant so long as at least one side remains opt-in, and of course is not super trivial to implement.

[snarfed]

Hmm. This kind of defeats the purpose of opt-in, right?

[shiribailem]

In this case it's implicit opt-in for that singular item because they're replying to a bridged account. Echo user would allow it to happen for that specific message without having to bridge their whole account.

ie. if someone on the bridge on bluesky's side makes a post, and 10 people comment but only one of them is bridged, that's 9 comments that are invisible.

But also, those users won't have their whole feed sent, just the single message being sent to the person it's addressed to. Especially given that every bridged account is labeled such automatically and the username blatantly gives it away.

There needs to be a solution to users commenting on bridged posts without bridging themselves, it opens up so many potential problems for people to comment on your posts and not being able to see them.

So, the 3 ways I see to reasonably handle this:

• the echo suggested to send just that one message over
• sending notifications to both the commenter and the bridged account to tell them it's not sent and they should either bridge, block, or shut up.
• using various protocol tools to just delete the comment if possible

The echo method is seamless and the fault is clear on their end if they get upset over it, they explicitly sent a message to a bridged account and are upset that the message got delivered?

There's only two ways I can think of for getting mad in that case:

1. they're deflecting responsibility because they didn't pay attention and think it's the end of the world when their reply of "cool socks" (and nothing else) to your picture lands on bluesky's server
2. they're trying to harass people and this shields them

[shiribailem]

To be clear, the purpose of opt-in is that they won't have their data sent over the bridge without them doing something first to trigger it.

An echo account wouldn't give the ability to follow their profile or do anything other than read the reply and reply back to that specific comment.

[snarfed]

Understood! It's an interesting idea, and an interesting interpretation of opt in and the different mechanics at play here. #1406 also seems somewhat related.

I use a simpler, stricter interpretation in Bridgy Fed though. If you haven't opted in (on fediverse or Bluesky), or you opt out (on web), we don't bridge your profile or activity at all. Full stop. Bridging is already complicated enough for people to understand, so I try to make things as simple as possible, especially when they're safety relevant, like opt in/out.

Specifically here, the difficulty is that many people who reply to a bridged user won't know that that user is bridged. They often won't even know that the bridge exists, or what it does.

[shiribailem]

Then what we really need is the other controls I mentioned, either blocking comments or sending notifications.

And yeah, definitely some relationship between the two issues but still separate.

Incorporating elements from that other thread for this specific issue: explicitly opted-out users should just be blocked on the bridge in effect anyways, so other efforts aren't disrespecting it they're just circumventing the need to address them in the first place.

One difference in suggestion here, for the different use case, is that my suggestion was a singular system account for this purpose and in that thread is the suggestion of placeholder accounts.

If we're not going to accept limited opt-in via comments then the second best solution is to refuse to forward/delete comments and send them a DM notifying them that they're comment was blocked due to them not being bridged, with either an explanation in that message or a link to an explanation.

Something like "You attempted to comment 'xxx' on post 'xxx', unfortunately we were forced to block this comment as the user you are commenting on is on Bluesky/ActivityPub and comments can only be received if you also permit your account to be visible on Bluesky/ActivityPub by following . Once you do so you can repost your comment and it will go through. Click here for more information."

[Shanesan]

Yes, I was confused when I didn't recieve at least a DM from Brid.gy when I got a reply on Bluesky from one of my posts.

A user is trying to start a conversation with a bridged user, which to me, as @shiribailem said, is "implied opt-in" as they are initiating the conversation, which is a very human form of consent, probably the first forms of consent ever.

But yes, the alternative would be to turn off comments, which kind of defeats the purpose to a social network, or DM every user who tries to reply to a Bridged account. It can be done, if respectfully, like...

To rewrite @shiribailem's DM:

Hey there! You tried to reply to [user]'s post, and since they are Bridged from [Bridged Service], we don't want to just Bridge your reply without your specific OK!

If you're cool with that, just follow [Bridgy link to Follow] and be able to respond to all [number of users] users Bridging to [Local Service]!

[Link to more information about Bridgy]