Paul Rohr

@pevohr

Dad, startup guy. Ideas matter. Design matters. It's about we, not me. hachyderm.io/@pevohr

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YouTube Bluesky

amateur

¿Es tu perfil?Reclámalo y pevohr.dirty.social es tuyo.Reclamar perfil

Paul Rohr@pevohr· 16d

When this was last considered in September 2024, @baldemo.to did their best to make the case, but evidently usage statistics (3/4 "atproto", 1/4 "ATProto") weren't enough to move the needle from another editor's preferred third way ("ATproto") How have usage trends evolved since then?

Screenshot from Wikipedia talk page:

"ATproto" or "atproto"?

Latest comment: 1 year ago

Should the abbreviation for the protocol be written as "ATProto" or "atproto"? Official documentation often uses "atproto" (here's a blog post as an example), and I believe Bluesky PBC intends for it to be pronounced "at-proto", (as in the @ sign), hence the lowercase. However, colloquially, people often use both versions (or "AT Proto", with the letters pronounced individually) interchangeably. Baldemoto (talk) 22:15, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Screenshot from Wikipedia talk page:

I think that it should be "ATproto", as it looks more visually discernible and is the capitalization that most people and developers are actively using for that abbreviation. LemurianPatriot (talk) 15:48, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

I just did a search for "atproto/ATproto" and "AT Proto" on both the API Discord and Bluesky itself. It seems like "atproto" is the predominant abbreviation, but "ATProto" is not uncommon either (maybe 1/4th of total results?) "AT Proto" is basically never used.
Maybe both abbreviations can be added for the time being until we can pick out a discernible long-term trend over those two? Baldemoto (talk) 16:48, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, that would be fine. LemurianPatriot (talk) 16:48, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Paul Rohr@pevohr· 16d

Psst. Speaking of capitalization, Wikipedia is still boldfacing the awkward: ATproto, ATmosphere instead of the smoother versions preferred by the core team: atproto, Atmosphere As someone who wants to drive mass-market adoption, I'm in the latter camp, but evidently we're not there yet

Wikipedia screenshot:

AT Protocol

Not to be confused with Hayes AT command set.

The AT Protocol (Authenticated Transfer Protocol, pronounced "at protocol", commonly shortened to ATproto or "ATP")[1][2] is a protocol and set of open standards for decentralized publishing and distribution of self-authenticating data within the social web.[3][4] It serves as the technical foundation of the Bluesky social network, originally developed as a reference implementation for the protocol, as well as an ecosystem of interoperable social applications and services collectively referred to as the ATmosphere.[5][6][7]

Paul Rohr@pevohr· 19d

Classy move to switch lexicons + interop Are these just proof-of-concept experiments, or might either of you consider publishing "real" lexicons at some point? ( No pressure. Both are valid choices )

In less than an hour both atmob.in (Wil's) and atmobin.lol (mine) were live, the result of an informal adhoc race. Wil declared it a tie on the clock but he definitely won the points on domain name. Being a gracious loser I've moved my app over to use his lexicons where I can.

Paul Rohr@pevohr· 19d

I know full well that this is just sheer algorithmic coincidence. The only input I had into that original DID hash calculation were the alsoKnownAs and createdAt fields web.plc.directory/spec/v0.1/di... But I'll still be walking around all day, eyes twinkling + humming "my" tune

The DID itself is derived from the hash of the first operation in the log, called the “genesis” operation. The signed operation is encoded in DAG-CBOR; the bytes are hashed with SHA-256; the hash bytes are base32-encoded (not hex encoded) as a string; and that string is truncated to 24 chars to yield the “identifier” segment of the DID.

In pseudo-code: did:plc:${base32Encode(sha256(createOp)).slice(0,24)}

Paul Rohr@pevohr· 21d

The visual resemblance is uncanny: "Back when I was young -- 35 years ago -- when we added the double slash to the HTTP and FTP methods, the reason that they're there is so that you can do relative directions." www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xsN...

Collage of simultaneous screengrabs from ATP working group meeting at IETF126

Captures the moment when @phill.hallambaker.com (top-left, in Hawaiian shirt) gave sage advice to @bnewbold.net (bottom-right, in black tee) about slashes in URIs

... based on why he + his IETF colleagues originally added them decades ago

Paul Rohr@pevohr· 27d

It's been far too long since we've had leaders like Vannevar Bush who were willing to make such a clear case for government funding of basic scientific research ( Resharing to add ALT text )

Science Is a Proper Concern of Government

It has been basic United States policy that Government should foster the opening of new frontiers. It opened the seas to clipper ships and furnished land for pioneers. Although these frontiers have more or less disappeared, the frontier of science remains. It is in keeping with the American tradition -- one which has made the United States great -- that new frontiers shall be made accessible for development by all American citizens.

Moreover, since health, well-being, and security are proper concerns of Government, scientific progress is, and must be, of vital interest to Government. Without scientific progress the national health would deteriorate; without scientific progress we could not hope for improvement in our standard of living or for an increased number of jobs for our citizens; and without scientific progress we could not have maintained our liberties against tyranny.

Paul Rohr@pevohr· 28d

I was struck by the conjunction of these two passages from @summerscope.bsky.social about the more social aspects of coding Turns out that "rubber duck prompting" isn't the most satisfying way for humans to share the insights + taste we've each honed over time

You and the machine, going back and forth, refining and prompting and reviewing. The natural moments where you'd turn to a colleague to ask a question, to rubber-duck a problem, to share the small victory of something finally clicking. Those moments get quietly replaced by another prompt. In a team without a strong existing culture of collaboration, this has a tendency to further separate people, to chill communication at precisely the moment when you most need the reassurance that other humans are finding this hard too.

This creates a peculiar new kind of fatigue, the fatigue of supervision: of holding the intent in your head while the machine generates volumes of mostly-correct output that still needs your eyes, your judgment, and your taste. Douwe put it well: he used to get a dopamine hit from collaborating with a real person on a cool feature in open source. Helping someone become better at their craft. Now, he said, "everything I write goes into some AI black hole. There's no person on the other side actually learning anything." That loss is real and it's worth naming.

Paul Rohr@pevohr· 29d

Lloyd Christmas meme, said with a delighted gapped-tooth grin:

"So you're telling me there's a chance"

Paul Rohr@pevohr· Jul 10

But if that's not a direction we're willing or able to head, then I'm with @bnewbold.net + @ngerakines.me Having two related URI schemes very clearly expresses that we have two fundamentally different protocols -- relays + syncers -- operating "above" the rest of the AT stack Each way, WYSIWYG

Side-by-side comparison of two related protocols:

at://

Content --> HTML
Distribution --> Relays [emphasized]
Data --> Lexicon
Identity --> DID
Transfer --> HTTP

public = verifiable
(short URIs)

vs.

ats://

Content --> HTML
Distribution --> Syncers [emphasized]
Data --> Lexicon
Identity --> DID
Transfer --> HTTP

permissioned = deniable
(long URIs)

Paul Rohr@pevohr· Jul 8

Reposting the quoted screenshot with ALT text Not only is it the Right Thing to do, but it also ensures that the abstract of @pettertornberg.com's paper gets indexed here

Reflection

It’s Not Polarization; It’s the Radicalization of the Political Right
Petter Törnberg

Polarization has become the master concept for diagnosing contemporary democratic crises. The notion denotes three features: symmetry between parties, politics as an opinion space where positions diverge, and mutual repulsion between opposing camps. Yet none of these capture current realities. Across democracies, the central dynamic is not two poles drifting apart but the transformation of the political right into authoritarianism, norm breaking, and openness to political violence. Social democratic and center-right parties tend to respond in the opposite way from what “polarization” implies: by accommodating rightward. Attempts to salvage the polarization frame with modifiers (“asymmetric,” “affective,” “sectarian,” “pernicious”) concede these realities but risk hollowing out the concept’s definitional core. These limitations reveal a deeper misdiagnosis: when one party turns antidemocratic and illiberal, incivility and conflict are inevitable—but they are symptoms, not the root problem. Misdiagnosing them as the central issue leads to viewing civility and compromise as remedies, thereby risking the legitimation of authoritarian actors. This article proposes an alternative lens: the radicalization of the political right. Developed in the study of extremism, the radicalization framework better captures asymmetric change, identity-driven politics, and the mainstreaming of illiberalism. It foregrounds identity fusion, threat narratives, elite entrepreneurship, and escalation. Concepts are never politically innocent and persisting with “polarization” risks both misdiagnosing and normalizing authoritarian threats.

Keywords: Political polarization, radicalization, democratic backsliding, radical right, authoritarianism, democracy

Paul Rohr@pevohr· Jul 3

So many #BrilliantUX details in a single blog post, but this crisply-worded popup is probably my fave: "It's a friction-by-design moment, I'd rather slow people down for two seconds than have them create a second Atmosphere account that they probably don't want or need."

Paul Rohr@pevohr· Jun 30

Reusing existing syntax where possible -- e.g. with handle-based authorities -- is ideal, of course But insisting on the eternal hegemony of host-based authorities in URIs feels as regressive now as it would've been to insist way back when on only using IP numbers + banning DNS-based indirections

Cartman meme from South Park:

Respect my authoritah!

Paul Rohr@pevohr· Jun 29

The rest of the above essay from March 2026 is worth reading for pragmatic advice on why + how Atmospheric websites can re-home the communities they serve ... because they're no longer forced to outsource those features to socially toxic mega-platforms

The resilience extends beyond your website’s interactive features. When you build community on Facebook or Twitter, you are building on someone else’s land with someone else’s rules. Your users’ contributions, their networks, their content — all of it is effectively on loan to you, intermediated by a platform whose interests are not yours, or of your members.

ATProtocol reverses this. Users store their content on infrastructure they control. They can move PDS providers without losing their identity or their history. They cannot be socially locked in, which means they join your community on terms they understand and can trust. That trust is the foundation of any genuine community.

Paul Rohr@pevohr· Jun 29

Lovely phrasing to consider when pitching the Atmosphere in marketing contexts: "user-first apps" Kudos @mathewlowry.eurosky.social!

does anyone still think it’s a good idea to send European citizens to Facebook and X for a nuanced, useful conversation about European policies and programmes?

The ATProtocol, originally developed by Bluesky but now used by dozens of new, inter-operable and user-first apps — offers a way out, allowing you to build a powerful community with in-built reach while massively simplifying your website code.

Paul Rohr@pevohr· Jun 24

That was my awkward way of alluding to the blandly neutered LLM-generated anonymity @macwright.com describes much better in the piece

The perfected, generated, prompted resume is generic and impersonal. It tells me nothing about this person, other than that they use particular tools. I can't see the inputs to their outputs, see what they typed, or the process of building.

The email about why I'm the right person to try your side project says nothing about you. I don't know why you made it, who you are. I don't know your writing style. I don't have any way to connect to you as a person, and no reason to care.

Paul Rohr@pevohr· Jun 19

Today's #BrilliantUX answers the question: what's more user-friendly than storing data in your own PDS? Not storing anything anywhere except your local browser

Local-first by design

PedalScape keeps the ride simple.

Made by Scott Hanselman. There is no backend database, account system, or social login.

Favorites, recent rides, and preferences stay in this browser on this device. Use Export data or Import data to move a local backup between browsers, and Reset local data whenever you want a fresh start.

PedalScape is an installable PWA for an app-like fullscreen ride experience. Videos remain hosted by their original creators and platforms; PedalScape only links or embeds them.

View source on GitHub

Paul Rohr@pevohr· Jun 12

Yet note how many of those scary permissions won't need to be granted to *any client apps* once there are better ways to perform such actions directly on *your trusted PDS* ... hence why improving the account experience is featured so prominently on the protocol roadmap atproto.com/blog/2026-sp...

Screenshot of permissions required for client apps to directly perform account management operations:

Email
Read and update your account's email address

Identity
Change your @handle

Account
Temporarily activate or deactivate your account

Paul Rohr@pevohr· Jun 10

I really love how this handy widget lets you quickly browse through permission sets for various existing services Pro tip for lexicon designers: This is a great way to learn from peers -- @sifa.id, @beaconbits.app, etc -- who've done the work to decompose their permissions into useful subsets 😉

Screenshot of a widget which allows you to toggle through permission sets for the following services:

AT Store
Beacon Bits
Bluesky
Checkmate
FreeMix
Germ
Leaflet
Margin
Offprint
Pckt
Pollen Place
Sifa
Smoke Signal
Spark
Squire
Standard.site
Streamplace

Paul Rohr@pevohr· May 16

I especially love how unafraid he is to foreground the notion of an Atmosphere account: If you already have one, use it as is. If you don't, we'll make a new one for you. Either way, no biggie A product choice (branded accounts) meant quietly handling protocol details for his users. Easy!

users don't need to know what a PDS is

this is the part i care about. atproto is a great protocol but "personal data server" is a phrase only nerds want to think about. asking new users to pick one, or to understand that their account "lives somewhere else," is a tax on people who just want to make a blog.

with a PDS sitting behind your own register/login routes, the protocol stays the protocol but the product gets to be the product. you can write a clean welcome page that says "make an account on pollen" instead of "select your atproto provider." your handle suffix becomes a branding decision (yourname.pollen.place) instead of an implementation detail. your support emails don't have to explain what bluesky has to do with anything.

and the openness is still there, the account is a real atproto account. it works in any atmosphere app. it can be migrated out to another PDS whenever the user wants. nothing about wrapping the PDS makes it less portable. you're just hiding the wiring.

Paul Rohr@pevohr· May 16

Are you a designer wanting a friendly #AtmosphericUX to onboard new users to your service? Check out what @keithlaugh.love crafted for @pollen.place: login = atmosphere account what's that = dropdown w/examples sign up = we'll make you one

screenshot of panel within pollen login screen:

wait, what's an atmosphere account?

it's the same account you use for bluesky, leaflet, and a bunch of other apps that share the network. one login, every app.

a few you might already know

(grid of icons for

bluesky, leaflet, surf,
spark, pckt, pdsls
plyr.fm, tangled, bookhive,
grain)

link = find more atmosphere apps →

already have an account elsewhere?
link = bring it home →

Paul Rohr@pevohr· May 15

"We’re running campaigns built for a world that doesn’t exist anymore. In this final part, I want to briefly walk through what I think is coming and what we have to do about it." Specifically: - brand = contempt for status quo - candidate = parasocial access - audience = three key verticals

There isn’t a left-right solution here; this is an up-down problem. The voters we need to win back are the ones we already had and lost: the multiracial working-class coalition we thought we were assembling in 2020, which has frayed badly, especially among men. They are waiting for a party that sounds like it’s on their side against a system that isn’t working for them.

That requires economic populism with teeth, candidates with genuine charisma, and—hardest of all for a party staffed by institutionalists—a posture of real contempt for a status quo we are arguably part of. And we need to do it without losing the new members of our coalition who joined us over the last decade.

It also means the parasocial relationship between the candidate and the supporters becomes doubly important. Even more than the videos, I thought the scavenger hunts and soccer tournaments were the most impressive part of Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign in New York City. They drove a deep, personal connection between the candidate and his backers. IRL is going to matter more than ever. The community of the campaign will matter just as much as the campaign’s content.

My theory is that the campaign should be broken up into three verticals by audience (call them what you want):

• Elites and high-information people—people who actually follow politics.

• Persuasion targets—voters you are trying to convince to vote for you, or to vote at all. (I’d put paid media and creators in this category.)

• Mobilization targets—base voters, organized groups, the long-term ecosystem (this would be organizing, fundraising, and the like) you need to keep warm.

You need people managing each of these verticals who not only understand their audience in both their online and IRL manifestations, but who also understand how these audiences—and the tactics for reaching them—overlap and influence each other.

Paul Rohr@pevohr· May 15

... got censored by the current administration in December 2025: www.nifa.usda.gov/about-nifa/b...

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Paul Rohr@pevohr· May 12

Please do! As platforms go, it takes surprisingly little backend code to generate the embeddings: github.com/minormobius/... And the corresponding rankings on the view side are just simple sorts: github.com/minormobius/...

let sorted;
if (tab === 'outliers') {
sorted = [...allPosts].sort((a, b) => b.novelty - a.novelty).slice(0, 30);
} else if (tab === 'interesting') {
sorted = [...allPosts].sort((a, b) => b.interestingness - a.interestingness).slice(0, 30);
} else if (tab === 'onbrand') {
sorted = [...allPosts].filter(p => p.novelty > 0).sort((a, b) => a.novelty - b.novelty).slice(0, 30);
} else {
sorted = [...allPosts].sort((a, b) => new Date(b.date) - new Date(a.date)).slice(0, 100);
}

Paul Rohr@pevohr· Apr 23

Savvy authors always fully exploit the constraints + affordances of their chosen medium to better convey their desired intent So for posts like this one, where the entire rhetorical point was to make a direct visual comparison between four screenshots, the new behavior is inarguably a regression

Paul Rohr@pevohr· Apr 23

How a visual medium works Grid layout lets you peek at everything at once. It allows the author to provide contrast. The reader has more options to choose which to tap into for more immersion Carousel layout privileges the first frame. The others coyly hide unless readers take the bait

Grid view of a four-image post using the 1.120 Bluesky client

Note that URL pruning adds even more visual emphasis to the imagery

View of the same post using a carousel in the Android Heron client

The first image is fully visible, with a truncated slice of the second, implying you should scroll to see more, but with no indication of what else might be there

Paul Rohr@pevohr· Apr 15

The idiom I'm familiar with is to use profile placeholders to clearly distinguish between: - real account, uses service - real account, hasn't joined service - no such account What's the idiomatic UX for whether "pre-follows" get added to counts, or displayed on follow lists?

Paul Rohr@pevohr· Apr 11

If we've gotta pick a single term to describe the core concept which enables both kinds of activities: - fun things you'll do (often) - boring stuff you must do (rarely) Why choose a word which evokes the boring side of that coin? handle = mention, socialize account = logins, storage, billing

Paul Rohr@pevohr· Apr 10

You might not need to combine both ideas in the same mark, though. Think about your Atmosphere handle as a combination of two visual elements: • social = pointing gesture • identity = your uniqueness Should an Atmosphere mark span both ideas? Or just a refined version of that @ gesture?

your unique _social_ identity online

@cozylittle.house
=
Atmosphere + You

Paul Rohr@pevohr· Apr 8

Done. Please forgive my hacky Paint skills + lack of wordsmithing. I did just enough to convey a deliberately symmetric reuse of the Authorize flow's summary/details panel github.com/bluesky-soci... ccing @alexbenzer.com to pass along to whoever's handling design tasks for the Atmosphere brand

The current list of connected apps sports a "Revoke Access" button which pops up a confirmation dialog with two buttons of equal visual weight:

Cancel
Revoke access

Paul Rohr@pevohr· Apr 7

Today's mega-🧵 from Bellingcat founder Elliot Higgins lives up to all the rave reviews it's been getting Reposting this keystone image with ALT text so nobody's stymied by all that fine print