FAQ

General

What is Bubbles?

A community-ranked feed of blog posts from independent, personal blogs. New posts flow in automatically from curated sources. You vote on the good ones. The good stuff bubbles up. The rest pops. Bubbles launched on March 21, 2026.

Who is this for?

Anyone who misses the old web. People who enjoy reading blog posts about things other than startups and JavaScript frameworks. If you've ever fallen down a rabbit hole on someone's personal website and thought "why can't I find more stuff like this?", that's who this is for.

Is Bubbles a social network?

No. There are no profiles, no followers, no feeds of people you know. Bubbles is a reading list, ranked by its readers.

Is Bubbles a blog?

No. We don't produce any content. Every entry you see here was written by someone on their own blog. We point you there.

Is this like Reddit?

Structurally, a little. People vote on things. But nobody submits links. Everything comes in automatically from curated blog directories. There's no self-promotion, no karma farming, no moderators removing your post because it violated rule 7b.

Why "Bubbles"?

Because good writing bubbles up. Because every blog is its own little bubble. Because the front page is ephemeral, like soap bubbles: what shimmers today will be gone tomorrow.

Sources

Where do the blogs come from?

We drew from six curated directories: ooh.directory, indieblog.page, Bear Blog, blogroll.org, IndieWeb Webring, and personalsit.es. There is no automatic sync with any of these. Blogs newly listed there don't automatically appear on Bubbles.

How do you decide which blogs to include?

Every blog was reviewed individually. There is no fixed checklist, but we filtered out blogs that are clearly commercial, heavy on ads, only republishing other people's content, posting more than three times a day, or haven't published anything in years. Broken feeds and unreachable servers were skipped as well. What's left is personal, independent writing.

Can I submit my blog?

Send us your blog URL at suggest@bubbles.town and we'll take a look.

My blog is listed on one of those sources but doesn't appear on Bubbles. Why?

Being listed elsewhere doesn't guarantee inclusion. Your blog may not have met our criteria, or your RSS feed had issues when we last checked. If you think something is wrong, email us at feedback@bubbles.town.

Can I see the full list of blogs?

Yes. We publish the complete list of all active blogs: blogs.txt (plain text) and blogs.opml (OPML, importable into RSS readers).

I don't want my blog on Bubbles.

Email us at feedback@bubbles.town and we'll remove it. No questions asked. This is a personal project, so it might take a day or two.

Voting and ranking

How does the ranking work?

Five things matter: how often the blog posts (less often = head start), how many votes the entry has, how many comments, whether the blog has a track record of getting votes, and how old the post is. Everything fades over time.

Why do infrequent bloggers get a boost?

If someone writes once a quarter, they probably put thought into it. Someone posting three times a day is more likely on autopilot. Posting frequency isn't a quality filter, but it's a useful signal. We call it the Frequency Boost.

How much does my vote matter?

A lot, especially right now. The system measures total voting activity over the last 24 hours and scales each vote's weight accordingly. When few people are voting, a single vote can keep a post visible for half a day. As the community grows, this balances out naturally.

Can I downvote?

No. You can vote something up or not. If a post isn't interesting, it sinks on its own. No pile-ons.

What are "points"?

The calculated score of a post, combining all ranking factors. A post with 30 points and 0 votes got there through the Frequency Boost. A post with 30 points and 5 votes got there because people liked it. Both are valid ways to be on Top.

Can I see the formula?

Yes. It's on the about page. Fully transparent. We believe in showing our work.

Fediverse and accounts

Do I need an account?

To read, no. To vote or comment, you need a Fediverse account.

What's the Fediverse?

A network of connected, independent social platforms. Mastodon is the most popular one. You create a free account on any Fediverse server, and that account works across all of them, including Bubbles.

Why Fediverse and not email/password login?

Because we don't want to manage accounts. No passwords to store, no emails to verify, no spam accounts to moderate, no password reset flows to build. The Fediverse handles identity for us, and no single company controls it.

I don't have a Mastodon account. Where do I sign up?

mastodon.social is the largest server. Create a free account, then use it to log in to Bubbles. Takes about two minutes.

Can I use other Fediverse platforms?

Anything that supports OAuth and speaks ActivityPub. Mastodon, GoToSocial, Pleroma, Akkoma, Misskey. All should work.

How do comments work?

Every blog post on Bubbles gets a corresponding post on our Fediverse account (@bubbles@social.bubbles.town). When you comment, you're replying to that post from your Fediverse account. Your reply shows up on Bubbles. Other Fediverse users can see and reply to it from their own apps too.

Are comments moderated?

Not by us. If you see something problematic, report it directly on the Fediverse instance where it was posted. If the admins there remove it, it disappears from Bubbles too, since we don't keep a copy.

Views

What is "New"?

Every post, in the order it came in. Unranked, unfiltered. Hundreds per day. It's the raw material Top is made from.

What is "Hot"?

Posts sorted by how much discussion they're generating right now. A post with 3 comments in the last hour ranks above a post with 20 comments from last week.

How often does the Top view update?

Scores are recalculated every five minutes. New posts flow in continuously as our poller checks feeds.

Why did a post disappear from Top?

Everything fades over time. Even a well-voted post will eventually sink as newer content comes in. That's by design — Top should always feel fresh.

Privacy and data

What data do you store?

Your Fediverse handle and your votes. That's the complete list.

What don't you store?

Emails, passwords, IP addresses, browser fingerprints, tracking cookies. We use Plausible for cookieless analytics — it doesn't collect personal data or track individuals.

Can I see your analytics?

Yes. Our Plausible dashboard is public — same data we see, nothing hidden.

Can I delete my data?

Yes. Email us at feedback@bubbles.town and we'll remove all your votes and your handle from our database.

Do you use cookies?

One session cookie to keep you logged in. It's httpOnly, secure, and expires when you close your browser. No tracking cookies, no third-party cookies, no cookie banners.

Technical

What is Bubbles built with?

Go, SQLite, server-rendered HTML, and a very small amount of vanilla JavaScript. No frameworks, no build steps, no node_modules folder the size of a small country.

Where is it hosted?

On a small server in Germany.

Is it open source?

Not yet. Maybe someday.

I found a bug.

Email us at feedback@bubbles.town. We appreciate it.

FAQ