Spatia Nostra

Follower count/list information, for anyone unaware & since this seems to be a topic today: - Follow lists for each individual are saved to many relays but not every relay. Of those, there may be some that your client may or may not be able to access at a given time. It is a very difficult/nearly impossible metric to measure accurately or consistently. This will only get more complex as user numbers, relay numbers, client diversity, and data distribution grows. - Nothing on the web is immune to bots. Nostr is not immune to bots. WoT helps to hide these, but it is fallible without a centralized point of "verification" (which also doesn't prevent this, as anyone who's used centralized socials can attest) You will pick up bot followers, others will have bot followers, too. - A lost or abandoned key doesn't mean that account will go away. It may always exist. User churn, compromised accounts, deleted accounts, failed first tries, test keys, and a plethora of other reasons will always account for follower numbers to grow for many people. - Some onboarding flows involve creating a pre-built follow list for a new user. What those lists are comprised of, or how they are created, is largely the decision of those building these clients. This will conflate the number of follows on some accounts, in inorganic ways. Welcome to true decentralization. The traditional definition of "success" will likely not apply, except maybe in semi-centralized environments. If you are trying to grow a presence, focus on your craft. If you are trying to have a good time, focus on your experience. 💜

I'm seeing a lot of follow list questions on asknostr amd elsewhere today, so i thought I'd share a blanket answer: Every time you follow or unfollow someone, a new version of your follow list is created, meant to replace the old one. Some relays may not get the memo because there's lots of relays. When you sign into a new client, it asks whatever relays it connects with, for your follow list. The relays send what they have, which may not be the current version. If you follow/unfollow from the new client, it triggers the follow list update, editing whatever copy of your list that it has, which is then broadcast to many relays. That's how you lose some of your follows. If the relay being asked doesn't have a copy of your list, it says "this user doesn't have one" and the client creates a new, empty list. Again, the follow/unfollow action triggers publishing & that is how you lose your whole follow list. In short, it's a client issue because it's not making requests about you to the relays that you have in your "write" relays list, but instead to some other relay(s) that you've never sent data to before or that have old data. Avoiding the follow/unfollow actions when trying out new clients will mostly mitigate the problem. If you start using that new client regularly, eventually your follow list will make it to the appropriate relays and/or the client will get updated and start making requests to the appropriate relays. Visit metadata.nostr.com or follows.nostr.com on occassion to back up your follow list. You can then rebroadcast the correct version, if you experience this unintended follow list fiasco. Alternatively, you can add wss://hist.nostr.land to your write/outbox relays. It will keep the latest previous version of your follow list. You can then visit the homepage to restore. Some clients offer in-app follow list restoration, both as a paid and free feature, as well.