jklb.social manifesto

jklb.social is...

jklb.social : An experimental bluesky client in alpha! You can try it today.

The virtues of jklb.social

j, k, l, b. (keybindings! One post per view!)

j / k navigate you thru posts. l is like. b is boost/re-post. That's all just your right hand, so you can drink a coffee as you do all this.

To reply or quote-post you'll need both hands, so those hot-keys are r and q. Full keybindings directory can be seen by pressing space. One I particularly like is o, opens the first hyperlink it finds in either the parent or quoted post (though it's not catching all the links yet, still working on it!).

BIG profile pictures

I like seeing people's faces . Not everybody has a good take, but everybody has a good face. Pretty much all feed-based social media makes profile pictures so small you really can't see them.

Use jklb.social and you'll find yourself saying, "Oh that's what you look like" over and over again.

And it's more than just faces, too! Obviously there's many good reasons to not want your mug everywhere online. In dogfooding jklb.social I've been delighted to see how many non-face profile pictures have cool art or interesting details the bigger view highlights.

like chorus

The like chorus is the last ~15 or so people to interact with your account. I display however many fit around the border.

Social media makes me sad. Bluesky makes me sad. I often feel unseen/unliked/interpret lack of response as judgment. I often feel inadequate socially (and technically!) when compared to others by the metrics the UI shows me.

I am very afraid of negative engagement. I see real arguments/meanness on bluesky, and then when I post I imagine the arguments that could be made with my take/I imagine people being mean to me. So I'm making prominent the faces of the people who have seen me.

I also want to maybe try to feature the posts of these people in the feed down the line.

credible exit

With credible exit on, after X posts you get cut off and prompted to share (if you wish) with bluesky 1: the best thing you saw (will be quote-posted (UI is TERRIBLE for this right now, just a drop-down menu of the posts you liked. I dunno how to do it gracefully)), 2: what you're going to do now that you've checked social media, and 3: a photo. All are optional.

What you share will look like this:

jklb.social is not...

a bsky.app replacement attempting feature parity

for instance, I have no plans to add DMs. There currently is no search or profile view and I won't do anything like that unless I think I have an idea worth trying on how to do it

bug-free or completely stable.

mobile friendly. No mobile!

human-written code. I am Ralph ing this with Claude code.

The dream:

jklb.social turns bluesky into a wordle-like habit. Lots of people try it and say "Woah! Not for me, thanks!"(but the experience makes them reflect on the nature of micro-blogging). A few people try it, like it and use it semi-regularly to be on social media less but be more sociable when they are there.

Deliver 80% of the bluesky experience in a minimal UI.

Increase friction to forever-lurking, decrease friction to sociability.

Put the fun in atproto.

There's one easter egg so far. In the very meh thread view.