Trying to set up bridges between Nostr, Mastodon, Bluesky, and Twitter is difficult. It seems simple and easy, but it teases and taunts you. It's hard.

There are several places listing instructions and they seem simple. Essentially, they say, "Search for xxx and then follow user xxx." However, my main point of confusion is the question:

On which platform am I searching? And, on which platform am I following?

Then, followup questions:

Once the initial search and follow is done, is it two-way now? Or, do I need to go to the other platform and do the same thing, in reverse?

What would be helpful would be for someone who has figured this out to post something with wording very explicit such as...

To bridge from Nostr to Mastodon
While using Nostr/Mastodon (specify which one), search for xxx and then while using Nostr/Mastodon (specify which one) follow. Also, while using Nostr, add the following relays: yyyy, zzzz

One other odd twist I've noticed is that the Mastodon-to-Nostr bridge creates another personage for me. It seems to create a new Nostr me, an alternate reality crrdlx with new keys. Posting on Mastodon did bridge over and appear on Nostr, however the image below shows it's alt-me. Notice my differing Web-of-Trust scores on Coracle. Also, the alt-me only has a few notes in my profile history (the test posts I did back over in Mastodon). This makes sense...it's a new Nostr account.



Frankly, I'm not really comfortable with someone else (a bot) having my alt-me private keys. But, for now, I'll live with it. My intent, and what I really want if I can get it to work, is to just post on Nostr and have it go over to Mastodon.

Regarding Bluesky, I don't even know. I've futzed so much already, and in different directions, I don't even know if it's working. And then there's Twitter which supposedly can be Nostr-bridged as well.

This back and forth gets confusing.