Convert Starter Packs into Lists

[PauloCarrasco]

Describe the Feature

A nice feature to have is a way to easily convert a starter pack into a list using a button like the "Follow All" on the top of the pack page (see image).

I think lots of people don't want to follow every account in a starter pack, and cherry picking accounts to follow or to manually add to a list is tedious.

In my case, I like to add accounts associated to a subject to a list and scan that list for a while and then decide to cherry pick some accounts that create interesting content.

Hope my 2 cents of an idea can make the starter pack feature even more functional.

Kudos!

Attachments

Describe Alternatives

No response

Additional Context

No response

[yoavg]

an even better version than "convert to list" would be to have "add to list" option from a starter pack. this covers the "convert to list" use case, but also allows more flexibility in list management.

[svivian]

Honestly why are these two separate things in the first place? At the core they are identical - a collection of users. In the starter pack you can even look at the posts like a list.

Just make it so that you can either follow as a list, or follow all the accounts within.

[PauloCarrasco]

Same concept, different wording, right? The final objective is to have the option to follow some/all users or add them easily to a new/existing list.

[jbarciauskas]

+1 to lists and starter packs being more interchangeable. I want to be able to pin a starter pack as a list, or convert a list to a starter pack (which I guess just means adding "follow all" as a button to a list?)

[joaomendoncaa]

Honestly why are these two separate things in the first place? At the core they are identical - a collection of users. In the starter pack you can even look at the posts like a list.

Just make it so that you can either follow as a list, or follow all the accounts within.

Appreciate the insights folks. There's a couple reasons to maintain both concepts separated (at least for the foreseeable future,) but I agree that there's some space for improving the taxonomy.

Starter Packs have both a group of Accounts and Feeds. They're great for a) SEO, b) onboarding new users, which is something extremely important for BSKY today. It doesn't make sence to add Feeds to Lists, we would be overcrowding them with features and in time they'd quickly become extremely confusing — feature creep is a thing.

Anyway, @yoavg had some great ideas for the OP at #6105, feel free to explore more options.

[jbarciauskas]

Yeah I guess what this implies is that a Starter Pack should be a List plus a list of Feeds, where a List is a set of Accounts. Then you could just have an option to take a Starter Pack's List, or create a Starter Pack from a List (with an empty set of Feeds)

[yoavg]

I think that, if one takes the notion that users should be editing and curating their own lists, then the semantics of "take a Starter Pack's List" should be "add all the accounts in it to a list" rather than "convert it to a user-list" (and similarly, when a user "takes" a list from another user, they should have the ability to "add all accounts" to their own list, rather than just duplicate the list).

…

On Mon, Nov 11, 2024 at 7:18 PM Joel Barciauskas ***@***.***> wrote: Yeah I guess what this implies is that a Starter Pack should be a List plus a list of Feeds, where a List is a set of Accounts. Then you could just have an option to take a Starter Pack's List, or create a Starter Pack from a List (with an empty set of Feeds) — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#5970 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AADRLNAINQNYNQHWJPNV7MD2ADRHXAVCNFSM6AAAAABQXC2QXCVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDINRYGY3TINRSGI> . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[svivian]

Starter Packs have both a group of Accounts and Feeds.

What’s the difference between a feed (within a starter pack) and a list? All I see is a list of recent posts by those users, which is exactly the same whether it’s a list or a feed in a starter pack.

[ghost]

is there a known way to turn a list into a starter pack?

[ghost]

is there a known way to turn a list into a starter pack?

https://nws-bot.us/bskyStarterPack.php

[scottdotweb]

This is similar to #5940 but has had more discussion, so perhaps it should be merged in here.

[adamatic-me]

This accomplishes the same goal as my previous request:

"Add new Starter Pack and List menu item "Add to Lists" - Allows adding all users in a Starter Pack or List, to my own List."

#5932

[joaomendoncaa]

This accomplishes the same goal as my previous request:

"Add new Starter Pack and List menu item "Add to Lists" - Allows adding all users in a Starter Pack or List, to my own List."

#5932

already partially implemented on #6105! 🍻 open to more ideas

[adamatic-me]

@joaomendoncaa Great work on getting this going! Please take a close look at #5932, I tried to think a lot about reusing existing UI concepts there. Obrigado!

I later added the part about doing the same for Lists, so that Lists can be combined... however, focusing on the just Starter Packs would be great at first!

[joaomendoncaa]

Hear me out

There's obviously a weird dynamic between Starter Packs and Lists. What if we remove these 2 in favor of Accounts Lists and Feeds Lists? Sounds crazy until you think about it.

Cons

• Level of effort (although we already have 99% of the UI components done, it would be a reasonably big change (hire me, I'll do it 🤷)).

Pros

• I don't forsee any need for protocol changes
• Removes this brewing confusion/akwardness between both lists and starter packs. Even existing users lose this friction of thinking "What is a good Starter Pack" vs a "good List" — good content = good content.
• Better discoverability: Starter Packs are awesome for onboarding, but they're like magic numbers. People join and take a Starter Pack but they don't learn what feeds really are. With Lists of Feeds, people would be directed directly toward learning Feeds.
• More composable/interchangeable (now we'd have Lists of Feeds!)
• Less taxonomy to learn (people already know lists from other networks, they just need to understand feeds now)
• We can make invites include both, none or multiple Accounts Lists, and Feeds Lists. It's an even richer onboarding experience.
• We can add search in both easier down the line (both in the UI, and as a label like accounts-list: and feeds-list: to search`)

I only had time to sketch out the profile changes, but I've thought of most of them around the app, and it sounds feels and looks like a good path to take in my mind. cc @haileyok

Appreciate any feedback.

[coastwalker404]

An random user here with a use case. I find lots of interesting starter packs that I want to add to a pinned list on my home page. I have to subscribe to the accounts in the starter pack and then go to the list of people I am subscribed to and individually move them to the pinned list. I would like for example to have a pinned feed on my home page with lists of related scientists from different starter packs combined. In my case this is different starter packs of microbiologists from slightly different fields. I could do the same with a feed on Astronomy and astrophysics or Public health and infectious disease doctors.

[joaomendoncaa]

An random user here with a use case. I find lots of interesting starter packs that I want to add to a pinned list on my home page. I have to subscribe to the accounts in the starter pack and then go to the list of people I am subscribed to and individually move them to the pinned list. I would like for example to have a pinned feed on my home page with lists of related scientists from different starter packs combined. In my case this is different starter packs of microbiologists from slightly different fields. I could do the same with a feed on Astronomy and astrophysics or Public health and infectious disease doctors.

If I understood your request correctly, the remaster of these features I referred to here makes this easily possible.

In this new design, starter packs would cease to exist, and people would just make Lists of Accounts or Lists Feeds, and you'd be able to simply:

• open a List of Accounts
• add its members to another List of yours
• pin that List to home

[coastwalker404]

Yes, your scenario would cover my case. I do take the point that others have made that packaging an object as a "startup pack" and publishing it in the way that is currently being used is also a useful tool. Thanks for your response.

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On Fri, 22 Nov 2024 at 10:26, João Mendonça ***@***.***> wrote: An random user here with a use case. I find lots of interesting starter packs that I want to add to a pinned list on my home page. I have to subscribe to the accounts in the starter pack and then go to the list of people I am subscribed to and individually move them to the pinned list. I would like for example to have a pinned feed on my home page with lists of related scientists from different starter packs combined. In my case this is different starter packs of microbiologists from slightly different fields. I could do the same with a feed on Astronomy and astrophysics or Public health and infectious disease doctors. If I understood your request correctly, the remaster of these features I referred to here <#5970 (comment)> makes this easily possible. In this new design, starter packs would cease to exist, and people would just make Lists of Accounts or Lists Feeds, and you'd be able to simply: - open a List of Accounts - add its members to another List of yours - pin that List to home — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#5970 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/BMKGWAKLL5AV4LXGBMT7H2T2B4BEBAVCNFSM6AAAAABQXC2QXCVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDIOJTGQZDGNBWGY> . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[joaomendoncaa]

Yes, your scenario would cover my case. I do take the point that others have made that packaging an object as a "startup pack" and publishing it in the way that is currently being used is also a useful tool. Thanks for your response.

Yes, [to be clear] the idea is to keep that onboarding experience the same. Instead of calling it Starter Packs, they would just be Invite Links with one or more List of Account(s) and/or Feed(s).

We can make invites include both, none or multiple Accounts Lists, and Feeds Lists. It's an even richer onboarding experience.

• from the original idea

[OlofHarrysson]

I was also missing this feature so I decided to make a small web tool for it until there is an official solution - pinkdawn.app.

Feel free to ping me on Bluesky @oloflovesai.bsky.social if you have any questions!

[cooljeanius]

Tonight I discovered that @sbm12 has created a tool for doing this: https://github.com/sbm12/bsky-Pack2List

[sbm12]

An random user here with a use case. I find lots of interesting starter packs that I want to add to a pinned list on my home page. I have to subscribe to the accounts in the starter pack and then go to the list of people I am subscribed to and individually move them to the pinned list. I would like for example to have a pinned feed on my home page with lists of related scientists from different starter packs combined. In my case this is different starter packs of microbiologists from slightly different fields. I could do the same with a feed on Astronomy and astrophysics or Public health and infectious disease doctors.

While I agree this would be useful as an internally developed resource I've got a tool that combines lists, so you can do it now while waiting for the core dev to make it available: https://nws-bot.us/bskyListCombiner.php. One of several bits on my collection of tools here: https://github.com/sbm12/bsky-Pack2List.