made with skyfeed.app
created July 8 2023

Witchsky and its sibling, Tarotsky, are content feeds available on Bluesky. Feeds are a curate-able stream of posts, where you can filter based on specific parameters, such as keywords. Any Bluesky user with the tools, resources, and know-how can create their own feeds in order to meet their individual preferences for content.

New to Bluesky? Start here. Otherwise, jump ahead!

If you're new to Bluesky and don't know how to use feeds, alt text, starter packs and more, you may benefit from exploring other guides first. Take some time to learn and play with your account settings.

• General use guide to Bluesky
• Summary about Bluesky feeds
• Guide to feeds, but written for feed makers
• Summary about Bluesky starter packs
• Specifically about alt-text
• Bluesky alt-text 101

Witchsky Guide

Witchsky
Tarotsky

Sections

1. Content Filtering (Hashtags, FAQ: why isn't my post showing up?)
2. Community vs Feed (Intent)
3. Community Growth (FAQ: why Tarotsky too?)
4. Etiquette
5. The Algorithm (FAQ: why isn't my post showing up?)
6. Tips for Using
7. Safety (FAQ: someone harmful is using the feed, what can I do?)
8. Starter Packs and Related Feeds
9. Feed Outages

Content Filtering

Witchsky only pulls posts that contain specific hashtags, such as #WitchSky, #SpiritSky, #PaganSky, #OccultSky, #EsotericSky. It originally also contained #TarotSky and #AstrologySky. The use of hashtags, and with the “-sky” suffix, is intentional. This helps transform the feed into a community.

You can also use /witchsky or /tarotsky if you want to avoid having your post appear in hashtag searches, or to help differentiate between Witchsky as a tag search and Witchsky as a feed.

Community vs Feed

I could have easily created a “set it and forget it” feed, simply using the basic terms “witch”, “pagan”, etc. and even kept it to myself. However, I wanted to build a community space, not just a feed. I wanted buy-in, intentional conversation, and to build rapport with like-minded Bluesky users. So I created Witchsky, with all its complicated hashtags, and patiently and consistently promoted it until it bloomed into what it is today. And with any intentional creation, its purpose becomes distorted once the greater public becomes involved.

By creating a feed that relies on very specific hashtags, rather than simply pulling the terms “pagan”, “witch”, “tarot”, etc, folks are intentionally adding their post to the feed. And that intention means purposeful interaction, and purposeful interaction generates a community space. And with any community space, that means community feedback and etiquette.

Community Growth

The Witchsky feed was constructed and nurtured in an intentional way, to build community. As it has grown, it benefits from stewardship and feedback, so it can continue to be a safe and engaging space for the broader esoteric community.

As Bluesky is small compared to other platforms, and the esoteric community is even smaller, the original Witchsky feed was (and broadly still is) a home for all esoteric-adjacent topics, including divination; religion, paganism and spirituality; astrology; occultism; and more. As one topic dominates the feed, it may be pushed to a secondary feed. This is so each sub-community can naturally grow and allow for easy access to the content and community folks are looking for. This growth and separation is what led to the creation of Tarotsky.

Tarotsky specifically was created due to an overwhelming number of Tarot of the Day posts, making it hard to find and engage in other forms of Witchsky content. A separate feed was created so folks could easily access both forms of content without competing for attention.

Etiquette

Being that Witchsky and Tarotsky operate more like a community than a feed, there’s some etiquette involved to help keep the space safe, curated, accessible and functional. Note that moderation actions are limited so these are mostly voluntary recommendations, unfortunately.

1. Please use alt-text for all images if you are able. There are some resources and tools available on Bluesky to that end, please take time to research them.
2. Cultural appropriation is not welcome in these spaces.
3. Harmful and fascist rhetoric, including racism, sexism and transphobia are not tolerated.
4. AI generated content; recycled, uncredited, scraped, unoriginal graphics, art & information; and spamming the feeds is not appreciated.

The Algorithm

The Witchsky feeds utilize varying degrees of "HN rank" algorithms to filter and populate posts. The feeds still heavily prioritize new posts over popular posts, but the feeds are not strictly chronological and there is not a guarantee that your post will generate into the feed right away - or at all. The HN rank factors age and engagement.

If you're struggling to get engagement on your posts, try engaging with others' posts to build rapport and like-minded followers/mutuals. Your posts will then generate engagement from your followers, which will increase your odds of appearing in the Witchsky feeds.

The purpose of the HN ranking is to help prioritize quality over quantity.

Tips for Using

1. Tarot posts are discouraged in the Witchsky feed. Any post that uses #Tarotsky or #Tarot will not appear in Witchsky. Please use the Tarotsky feed for things like Tarot of the Day, showing off your decks, or other content related to tarot readings. Obviously, there is some educational-focused content that may overlap in relevance - to appear in both feeds, you would need to use either the Witchsky tag(s) or the Tarotsky tag, and then reply or quote your post with the other tag.
2. The #AstrologySky has been removed from the RegEx (but not blocked like Tarotsky). This is to reduce the number of posts from folks with only a passive or secular interest in astrology that are just randomly using the tag from crowding the feed. Professional & witchy astrologers are still welcome, but would benefit from using #Witchsky + your preferred astrology tags. I have no plans to make an AstrologySky feed - there are several existing astrology feeds already in circulation.
3. I highly recommend using the feed just as a way to find folks you might want to connect with. Look for people that seem to align with your own beliefs and practices, or demonstrate knowledge in an area you have interest in. You can follow these folks, or add them to your own List to create a stream of all their posts (whether they include the tags or not!)
4. Please do not tag the Witchsky account directly in your post when trying to add to the feed. Only using the hashtags listed above will populate your post to the feed.

Safety

Note that this is not a forum like Reddit or Discord where I can fully moderate content and users. Please exercise your own moderation tools or create your own custom version of the feed to suit your goals.

The witchcraft and adjacent communities are known to be home to charlatans, cults, and other varieties of harmful people, beliefs, practices and groups. Please be careful with who and how you engage.

• Stay informed of what is harmful (such as cultural appropriation).
• Recognize dogwhistles and warning signs that may indicate a person, group or belief should be avoided or approached carefully.
• Exercise caution and discernment.
• Take steps to protect yourself such as maintaining boundaries, keeping personal details private, and utilizing moderation tools.

1. If users are violating Community Guidelines, report them to Bluesky.
2. Mute keywords and users! Check out the moderation settings to help you independently filter content you’re not interested in from the feed, and mute folks who routinely post things you’d rather not engage with.
3. Utilize Bluesky labellers to help report, flag and filter content automatically. You can find labellers here: https://www.bluesky-labelers.io/
   Some favorites: AI Image Labeller - Skywatch - Transphobia - Art Theft - Alt Text - US Politics

You do not have to subscribe to Witchsky or its sibling feeds. You are welcome to create your own feeds, even using the same hashtags. This will allow you to more specifically tailor your experience. Witchsky was created reasonably easily using Skyfeed.

Starter Packs and Related Feeds

There are several variations of the Witchsky and Tarotsky feeds available to suit a range of content preferences. To find them, visit the Witchsky account and navigate to the 'feeds' tab to find the comprehensive list.

You can find feeds by searching terms in the Bluesky navigation bar and toggling to the 'feeds' tab of the search results. Feeds can also be found, pinned, deleted and moved in the feed settings (the giant # button). You can also use third-party search options such as goodfeeds.co.

There is not an "official" Witchsky starter pack.

You can find starter packs by navigating to the 'starter packs' tab of your favorite Bluesky (or Witchsky) user profile. Not everyone will have one, but starter packs are intended as a list of recommended profiles to follow. If you like one user, you might like the folks on that user's starter pack.

Feed Outages

When there are feed outages it's unlikely that there is anything I can do on my end to remedy it, as it is probably a Skyfeed server outage. For news on Skyfeed outages you can follow @redsolver.dev who is the developer behind Skyfeed, or @skyfeed.app.