How it works
The contest dashboard helps you run joke contests on Bluesky. Post a contest, collect the replies as entries, see who followed the rules, pick your favorites with other judges, and hand out trophies.
Why you sign in with Bluesky
Signing in tells the dashboard who you are, so it can show the contests you run and the ones you're judging. It also lets the dashboard do a few things on your behalf, but only when you ask it to:
- Post your contest, right away or at the time you schedule, even if you're offline.
- Like and repost entries you choose, from your own account.
- Reply to entrants when you write a reply in the dashboard.
- You sign in on Bluesky's own page. The dashboard never sees your password.
- It only asks permission to create and delete posts, likes, and reposts. It can't change your profile, follow or block anyone, or read your messages.
- It only deletes likes and reposts it made for you, when you undo them.
- Everything else it shows, like replies, likes, and profiles, is public Bluesky data.
Who can sign in
The dashboard is invite-only for now. Approved contest runners can sign in and run contests. Anyone a runner adds as a judge can sign in too, to judge and to track contests already on Bluesky; to run their own contests, they can ask for full access from their contest list. Everyone else can ask for access.
Running a contest
- Write your contest post and post it now or schedule it. The entry rules are added to the end, and you can edit them.
- People enter by replying with their joke, or with a quote or link to a joke they posted. Your rules can ask them to like and repost the contest post; the dashboard shows who did, but doesn't rule anyone out. To enter your own joke or a friend's, reply to your contest with a quote or link to it, or add it by link in the dashboard.
- The dashboard checks for entries every couple of minutes. Each entry shows whether the person liked and reposted. Someone's second joke of their own is tagged as a 2nd entry (it still counts), posts they enter for other people never are, and likely spam is flagged.
- Review the entries. Star favorites, check them off as you go, like and repost the ones you love, and reply to entrants. Liking a quoted joke also likes the reply that entered it.
- Announce the results. Post results drafts an announcement naming every trophy winner and who gave it. Edit it, then post it from your account. It quotes your contest post, and a long announcement becomes a short thread.
Running it again next week? Run it again copies the post, rules, and judges into a new draft. Already posted a contest yourself? Use Track a contest and paste its link.
Judging
Contest runners can add judges by their Bluesky handle. Judges sign in and find the contest under Judging. Each judge has their own stars and one trophy per contest. Everyone on a contest, the runner included, can see which entries the other judges starred and which ones got trophies, as it happens.
Trophies
When a judge gives their trophy, the trophy account quote-posts the winning joke, congratulates the joke's author (even if someone else entered it), and names the judge who gave it. Judges can edit the message before giving it. On contests run by approved runners it posts right away; for other contests, an admin approves it first.
For approved runners, the trophy account also likes and reposts the contest post when it goes up, and the results announcement when it's posted.
Giving a trophy can't be undone. Each judge gets only one trophy per contest, and once it's posted it tags the winner, so choose carefully. The dashboard asks you to confirm first.
Questions
Reach out to @professorkiosk.wtf on Bluesky.