Me: Wow, my post got ten likes and 4 boosts. New record, baby! This is the Big Leagues!
Then me: *Look at other people's posts...* π³
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Thats like some big person that everyone follows for reasons I donβt understandβ¦
Well, whatever. Seems to be less and less point to post anything on here, if you're not one of these gigantic accounts.
I wonder how people would respond if I just posted "Can we please stop talking about Bitcoin? We're well aware of its existence."
Yea, I know the feeling. Wish I could disagree but nostr got boring fast for me, tbh. I see the potential it has. That's for sure. You're GitCitadel project is really interesting, btw.
it's okay, the nostr algorithm can grade on a curve π
I have tuned it to where your note appeared, and that's all that matters. each user of the algorithm will have hundreds or thousands of data points to fine tune their own custom model
yeah, that's the hierachy of influencers that is a replica of legacy media. the nostr algorithm will break that pattern
That actually makes me want to try it even moreπ. It'd make for a fun social experiment. But... I'd rather not deal with any unwanted drama.
it works. and its also hilarious.
I added you to my relay. Maybe that'll help.
"This social media stuff just sucks, man. You can be sitting there, surrounded by hundreds or even thousands of people, and feel completely alone."
This is part of the reason I stopped using everything but nostr for my social media of choice & dead bird app for my newsβ¦
No one ever interacted much if ever.
tbf, I have done all the suggestions people mentioned here when I first joined. Here are some tough stats, 2 months of me focusing on Tiktok got me from 1.6k to 8k. 2 months in nostr with non-stop engagement in my end got me 0 to 213. I am not saying these two are the same. The point I am making, I came here to engage β out of curiosity, value for value, the people and no community guidelines. However, I cannot deny the fact that it is fairly limited reach. Finding topics that interests me is fairly limited even I seek them out. Yes, I made the effort to create topics of my own, but I noticed unless I talked about politics, freedom of speech or bitcoin or food, my engagement is very low. Now, I am re-evaluating my presence on nostr.
def feels like a rough patch for maybe 6 mo, i have lots of hunches about the many broken things but like you i hit a threshold of the amount of debugging im willing to participate in so i just hunker down, when the ice age thaws we are still top of the game π¦
even big accounts will notice eventually that shit aint workin.
I've never used Twitter either. Unless, you include clicking on links from nkstr posts to be using it. Also, I think it's a matter of ignorance, as well. Heavy centralized social media users may take a trip to nostr only to subconsciously refuse to acknowledge the realization that they don't need social media to be as big a part of their everyday lives as they imagined. It's sad, tbh. Nostr needs to have an abundance of clients in all markets if it wants to succeed.
I tried to talk about classical Greek philosophy. Much silence ensued. π
π
I hate to tell you this, but 213 in 2 months is actually pretty good. My bros have been on here for over a year, some of them, and post every day, and they're stuck around 500.
So, in short the nostr "influencers" are killing nostr?
π
I still don't understand relays. But, thanks!
You're just supposed to post stuff for your frens. Who cares about other "big accounts?" you're here. You have a core group of people that genuinely care about you. Does anything else really matter? ππ«
oh really?! LOL then I must have been doing something π
It is very hard to get a reference point on here because all I see are accounts that have been here over a year. But honestly, until I saw your nostr observations, it coincide with what I have experienced as a noob.
Even Michael, the head of our project, hasn't passed 1000. It's a brutal grind, for months and months, just to get to a point where you can post something and have someone usually respond.
Hence, the low retention rate. π€·ββοΈ
You're not alone with creating new topics. I normally talk about hypnosis, paranormal and spiritual awakening or life lessons. The latter is not too bad. But the rest is very quiet LOL π
Maybe not a lot of interests or people on here are too shy to discuss these things! π€£
Hmm, it's more that the there are these mechanisms that fill the void of discovery. The mechanisms assume you have come from and want bitcointwitter. Clients recommend bitcointwitter people, people who post in that style, primal trending sidebar does the same. Follows are funnelled into these posters and posts with lots of likes appear as 'trending'.
Replying or appealing to the tastes of these people is sometimes the only possibility of interaction smaller accounts have. The rent you pay to post can be seen as posting popular bitcointwitter slogans. Emulating bitcointwitter is rewarded in engagement and zaps.
This is arguably worse than an algorithm lol. In terms of an obstacle to nostr's growth. (The most common complaint about nostr is that it's a bitcointwitter slogan chatroom).
The most used clients are microblogging types, following accounts instead of topics. There are barely any topics to follow (besides bitcointwitter talking points, although Meshtastic and Permaculture are promising).
Etc etc
Geez. Reading through this really does sound depressing.
It's a major problem, not really been solved. Retention is low and the only reliable place to recruit from is bitcointwitter. No one outside of bitcointwitter wants bitcointwitter as a social media (even some of bitcointwitter want more variety, which they find on wider twitter, not here).
just to clarify- when I say account over a year I am talking about the one's with high following and high engagement. Eg devs or bitcoin lovers. So I thought maybe those type of accounts are the one that resonates with some people here.
> Because nostr doesn't give them enough stimulation high they need from other algo platforms that can be more predictable.
I still stand firm on this however. The term addiction disregards there are social positive interactions that result in more stimulation. Yeah I think twitter probably has plenty of positive real world social capacity and germination. I don't mean to assume it's all unhealthy. I was a Facebook communities person, I made almost exclusively real-world connections personally and professionally.
I'm arguing over the lack of commitment because of convenience, the urge to fall back to old habits when things "calm down".
The people you mention are also likely not the people I'm targeting. Because the same could be said for why I'm here anyway.
it's my first time to hear meshtatic and permaculture, is that another nostr clients?
So nothings changed really XD
The best thing about nostr is that it has probably made more people leave social media entirely
You're here now so you can cheer us up! π€£
sounds a great planπ―. What is gitcitadel?
Bitcoin lovers seem to resonate with nearly everyone on here. Though I do question their belief in the network, at times. Although, it does seem a bit more polarized when it comes to devs.
No Meshtastic is a type of radio technology thing, permaculture is like gardening and homesteading type thing, content/ smaller communities here.
#meshtastic
#permaculture
I was legit in tears, today. Totally miserable. This is actually the first thread, in a long while, where multiple people showed up to talk, and it wasn't just them screaming at me to kiss some dude's derrier cuz HE'S IMPORTANT.
This has actually cheered me up. There are still some normal humans on Nostr. They haven't all run away. π
oh I see. ty for sharing. new set of words for me! βΊοΈ
yeah I noticed that with the devs too.
I do the like the cooking community. I've actually been using a fair amount of the recipes that I've found from @Zap Cooking. Thank you @SoupBox! I haven't focused as much as I'd like to on the gardening community. Thanks for the reminder!
Our software project team. We're building an eReader out of Nostr notes.
https://njump.me/naddr1qvzqqqrcvgpzphtxf40yq9jr82xdd8cqtts5szqyx5tcndvaukhsvfmduetr85ceqqxkwcedv9kx27rpdej8y6tpftyjht
aawwweee. virtual π« from us. Next time u feel alone, dm me we can go stream watch some crazy exhilarating film series that will cheer you up or transfer you to other world LOL βΊοΈπ€£
this is indeed interesting. I love e-reader. keep us posted! π―
@dluvian 's voyage app is worth keeping an eye on. It's one of a very very few attempts at topic-follow rather than personality/npub follow. There was another WIP client which was heavily focused on forum-style, but forgotten the name.
Things like this could help attract and keep people.
Bitcoin posts and the general bitcointwitter chatroom posts wouldn't show up in unrelated topic forums, hopefully lol Β―β \β _β (β γβ )β _β /β Β―
Most devs seem to have very different and very articulate visions for their clients and Nostr as a whole. They butt heads too often from what I've seen and many aren't very open or, in the worst of cases, completely closed off to user feedback.
Okay, good night, everyone. Thanks for the therapy session. It helped. π€
Thanks. I followed him/her.
Yeah, it's mostly devs and Bitcoiners. But we're the wrong kind of devs, so we don't count. π
There's like a dev ingroup and The Rest.
wow that is some tough grind. I also noticed that some accounts on here aren't active for 2 months or more. I was browsing nostrudel.ninja and found accts that were not active.
Lol in other words you're not sitting at the top of the dev ivory tower? Which means your input means squat?
Well, screw themπ€·ββοΈ.
I can go on some bitcoin rants if that will make you happier
Yeah, they come here, post their Bitcoin meme stuff and then they go back to Twitter to have real conversations.
I noticed that too because at one point responded to fiatjaf's comment about some users' feedback that he was whining about.
Those are my feels, lately. I like our eReader idea, but I'm increasingly aware of the fact that I suck at social media. It's a whole thing.
Rule one of social media: always agree with whatever the richest man in the room is saying.
Rule two of social media: always agree with whatever the second-richest man in the room is saying, unless it contradicts the first man.
Rule three: don't write snarky things like that. They don't like that. π
I haven't observed enough of his posts to comment on that, tbh. Do you remember what the comment was or maybe which post it was?
Yeah, I purge my list every month.
But that's pretty much all I do and I have a lot of fun!
It's amazing how long they can go, without noticing, tho.
Do you have like a threshold of inactivity when you purge them?
Imagine you are heavily involved in a project; you believe so much in its goals and its value β you treat it like your baby! And then people come along, the users, who will give their feedback, whether constructive or not. It must be frustrating. To some degree, it may appear as a personal attack to you as the creator of the app. So I understand where this comment is coming from.
However, if you categorise people as "external," then what does that mean? If you say "petty bugs" because some users care about the "search" functionality, does that make their feedback less important?
We are the algo: this is one of Nostr's marketing pitches, and to be honest, it got me sold on joining Nostr. In the absence of algo like centralised social media, the ability to search is important to me and to some other users. Content searchability is important; speed is important, etc.
Of course, some users will have a myriad of lists of what they want, and I know some can be very silly. Nonetheless, they believe it is important. My point is that what is seemingly "petty bugs" to developers may be critical to users' experience.
I understand that some feedback is not constructive and you cannot act on it (e.g., insulting feedback like "Nostr is shite" β you cannot really act on this feedback!). However, comments like the thread below: are we endangering ourselves by creating division and antagonising those who provide feedback about Nostr?
Could we not weed out the constructive feedback, learn from it, and perhaps educate the users? If we say that Nostr is everyone's problem, then we have not listened intently because if you did, you would not say this comment. Why? There are people who truly care about Nostr but are completely lost as to where to give feedback, what is in the works, or what is a priority.
I have seen so many threads about Nostr's challenges. Yes, some of them are not constructive, but most are constructive. The question is: how do we know that those messages and feedback have been received, seen, or acted upon?
Maybe I am too much of a noob in this community because I do not know which ones are being prioritised or worked on. Education, communication, and orientation are critical. We all agree on this. But if we call feedback "petty" for what is seemingly important to other users, then we are alienating those prospective users and could deter them from giving valuable feedback.
I took my time out of my day to write this because I care, and honestly, to see this comment from @fiatjaf, as the so-called founding creator of Nostr, is very disappointing. If we want to grow Nostr, I would strongly recommend that we start listening and learning to identify helpful feedback that is actionable versus non-constructive.
@npub1wmr3...g240 #plebchain #grownostr #nostriches #asknostr
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You keep getting kicked off of my relay list for myterious reasons. I add you back on, like once per week. π
I'm blocking youπ€·ββοΈ.
2 months. I can always add them back, if they return.
it makes sense. π
lmao, nooo, is it π? or is it a rogue mod, or rogue undeletable list π..
the ice age.. could be a while π¦
i wont frens >=[
Why do you think nostr is stuck in the influensoor loop?
Lack of community relays?
Algo?
Carrying over twitter behavior?
the nostr algorithm fixes this. follows will become obsolete
Looking forward to lists π
sleep tight ππβ¨
Same. When I left Twitter, it was for real. I left there for a reason and that reason hasn't changed.
Most devs have left nostr.
yeah, it's a little disheartening at times to try and engage with non-bitcoin or non-nostr stuff.
I've only been here for about three months so I'll take your word for it. That explains why so many clients have so many bugs and are left in a stage of infancy.
Was very vibrant 12-18 months ago. We used to have an account called "Nostr Report" that used to show case 3-6 (sometimes more) innovations every day.
Now it's quite hard to find even one. I normally trawl through this site here and pop anything interesting on r nostr. But its increasingly difficult to find interesting stuff. Other projects invest in their devX and it pays off. Nostr didnt. Though Nostr still has quite a few payroll devs thanks to the amazing generosity of jack.
https://oddbean.com/
Some of that is true I believe, but I think that's often how we grow and build new things even if we don't agree on everything. Trust me there is plenty I don't agree about, but I'm still here and still building. I think it's a bit of a misnomer that we all have to get along for success to occur. Bitcoin protocol is still highly successful despite it being mostly anarchistic, and we have a much larger scope.
>in the worst of cases, completely closed off to user feedback.
That is a universal software development problem unfortunately, very often (outside of nostr) these people can even be heavily funded or even building highly successful tools we use today. If you look at my notes, I regularly harp on inability to accept user feedback and criticism. To be fair some of the largest development firms (Apple, Microsoft etc) they aren't really open to feedback. Some individual products have corralled feedback mechanisms but it's highly confined to their vision. Point is, it's often too difficult to send feedback so most users don't. Not saying it's morally right or wrong, but this issue is prolific and generally accepted, only in open source are developers highly exposed to their customers directly. Most developers (including product staff, making design decisions), are paid ones, working in corporate settings shielded completely from their users, on purpose. It's just a different world and we have to learn how to work in it.
I wasn't suggesting that we all need to get along to progress but more cooperation among devs and users, regardless of differences of opinion, would be nice. You don't have to like someone to realize that a particular piece of feedback or recommendation they gave you holds potential value if implemented. Also, many devs don't seem to possess your approach to inclusion.
That's disappointing to hear. Though, I'm not all too surprised to hear that. As for funding, I think nostr might have taken the wrong approach to that matter. I'll elaborate on that another time, perhaps. We'll see what happens. I just hope we see better cooperation fairly soon.
Wrote a long reply, nostrudel reloaded :(
> I just hope we see better cooperation fairly soon.
I was just going to say, in my opinion we're getting along very well over all. We have our disagreements but the better ideas will win eventually. Speaking as a member of one of the few (if not only) nostr development companies, who believe in this cooperation. But we also aggressively fork and do whatever TF we want to when necessary.
@Silberengel suggested we move our bickering out of public relays if we can help it. Keep it away from the users. Im of the opinion any highly skilled & motivated individual become difficult to manage, in a corporate setting this is just hidden from the users, but forums and twitter are alive with software devs bickering. If you are unfamiliar, just look up about any highy ranked post on hacker news (https://news.ycombinator.com/) you'll notice most developers don't cooperate well XD
Depends on your definition of cooperate I suppose.
I'd like to hear your ideas on funding, my ears are always up when money is involved :) That said I have never received a dime for MY software yet. Our team has been pretty big critics of the current funding systems as well.
It's normal for devs to bicker in dev forums, and that should be visible. But if we want to attract a more diverse clientel, that probably shouldn't be what they're all staring at, when they show up. π
At least, give them a means to turn it off.
This will improve a lot when clients implement algo relays, momentum will rank higher than follower counts
soon (TM)
Recruiting to niche Community Relays ftw!
I have a loooong list of people that I'd never ever invite to join ThE fEeD but that'd be completely ready to start publishing in a niche community receptive to their stuff.
Yeah Iβm feeling it. Need
This is the sort of intense, high-signal, honest, irreverent, informative thread that humans are naturally drawn to, but no Nostr algo has been built, that can find it.
Humans do not naturally interact in a manner that causes threads to trend. Boosting out of an emotive conversation, for instance, is highly unnatural. In fact, the deeper and more meaningful the conversation, the less-likely they are to boost (or like) it.
Me: Wow, my post got ten likes and 4 boosts. New record, baby! This is the Big Leagues!
Then me: *Look at other people's posts...* π³
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100%
yeah to be clear, should be 100% public, just out of normie feeds XD
I'm glad to hear about most of the devs getting along very well for the most part.
That could be a good idea, especially if developers who are more open to user feedback are frequently present in the group. I will definitely look that up. Thanks.
As I understand it, the more major clients are funded by people like Jack and such, right? I've just been wondering how nostrs retention rate would've performed if it was solely crowdfunded. Like the launching of a bunch of different clients at once, observing which ones are used the most for maybe the first month or so, then have a crowdfunding round for those clients and other future projects that get a significant amount attention through feeds. Maybe some form of advertisement on clients that aren't strictly social media-based.
Yeah, that would be users choosing which clients they prefer, but they went a different route. Various nonprofit and investment funds picking particular clients they like, basically, with no effective feedback-loop from users.
I wrote about it, once, under my other (much bigger) nym.
Habla
Why we have not applied for a grant - Laeserin π»π¦
How we feel about grants and why we have not applied for one.
Well, having nonprofits and investment funds funding the project will always lead to dev teams basing their work strictly on investor incentives. That's also just a rehashing of a typical corporate business model. You know... the kind of business that so many nostr users seen to want to escape from. Point is, that's probably not the best way to fund a freedom of everything protocol.
Btw, I'll promise I'll donate to GitCitadel once I have a better grasp of it.
I'll read that laterπ.
"point"? If the "goal" is get as much attention as possible from the widest audience possible, then yea maybe you're right.
It's sad to watch, honestly.
Which part is sad?
"Nostr dev" complaining about reach and audience size, not understanding (or pretending not to) the nature of decentralized networks and their evolution and growth patterns.
I still use the Fediverse loads, never been into X or whatever.
I keep going with this as technologically itβs interesting but those that have even heard of Nostr see it as right wing. I can only assume that means thereβs more 0s than 1s in the code.
I just want to be loved⦠lol
Fair enough, yeah. I rely on follows to share other fun pleb things so I can see whats going on out there. I remember looking at some of the other popular platforms after the whole Parlor thing and was like wow this is just bad. I'm sure they were overloaded with attack bot accounts to make it look worse than it was, but almost every reply to a post contained at least one racial slur. Now I'm a degenerate who can appreciate edgy stuff so it was kind of funny at first, but it was too much to want to be around.
It was hard for the first few months to get a good follow list, but now I'm pretty happy although I'm sure I'm missing some fun stuff on occasion. It can be really overwhelming for new users.
one of the most interesting things about nostr is it makes a BIG difference to your experience who you follow
that's why i only have like 108 or so... they give me a second level reach into other things that are interesting but too noisy or don't interest me often but when my follows respond to them they tend to be interesting
Yeah I'd like to get there too! Also I'm glad to be one of your 108 follows :)
I should probably go for some pruning, I know I'm missing a lot of dev discussion I should be part of.
yeah, i think without any more devious methods of filtering stuff the best one is to pick good people to put replies into your feed and then if the replies are interesting they lead you to maybe something interesting, more often than not...
i think my philosophy of nostr following is more respectful... helps me keep stuff out that would make me mad and gives me enough to keep it interesting enough i'm still overdoing it
i luv ya but not sure i want U to follow me around lol
Not the widest audience, but the most receptive/interested audience, yes. Even hashtags don't really work, as they're so spammy and most people don't use them, and if everyone is only looking at the trending list, and you're not trending, then they literally don't see you (even if they follow you).
Most of the users on here have never seen anything I've written. Since I often write about obscure/niche topics, this is a real problem. There's currently no way for me to just ask if there are other people who want to talk about Tibetan philosophy, or whatnot, because you have to see me asking to answer the question. Catch 22.
I'm essentially "forced" to write about Bitcoin, in order to get more visibility, so that I can then ask the new followers, if they are also interested in Tibetan philosophy. It's algo-driven writing, basically, like the way people on Instagram were all obligated to have at least one BLM post, and then they had to have a #metoo post, and etc.
I'm hoping relay-communities and better algos fix that, but the vote's still out.
What is concern-trolling?
When you pretend to be sad, when you're actually just scornful.
I share the feeling. I donβt really know how to help either (other than following and engaging with your posts, of course). Every time I log in to Mastodon and find plenty of relevant niche content, plus a friendly, responsive community, my instinct is to just give up on Nostr and stop trying to improve things here. But then again, I remember how it felt back in the day when ActivityPub was just starting and how long it took to make it work for me (with no help from any algorithms).
Personally, I like building things and think Nostr has potential. This is my intrinsic motivationβand boy, oh boy, the current state of Nostr requires a lot of intrinsic motivation.
Yes, at the moment, Nostr is a BTC marketing ecosystem. Users are expected to chill BTC companies and products, while devs are often sponsored by BTC-related companies or receive grants paid in BTC. Nostr "influencer" accounts are, unsurprisingly, posting and enforcing mandated positivity towards BTC-related content.
Nostr can and will be much more than just a second Twitter for bitcoiners, but it needs folks like you and me to stick around, run infrastructure on neutral grounds, build things, try experimental Nostr software (and actually get devs to troubleshoot their stuff for a change), post good content, and help build communities around the niche subjects we enjoy.
In a couple of years, there's about a 99.99% chance that some of today's most popular Nostr "influencer" accounts will be jumping onto the "next big thing," often leaving a trail of destruction behind (and no, Iβm not pointing fingers or bad-mouthing anyone). The beauty of open-source software is that it will become whatever the people who stick around and get their hands dirty decide it to be.
Nostr isn't an automatic content discovery protocol. One must grow one's own social network orginically lest it be a cybernetic feedback hellscape.
They can all go flux theirselves if they donβt like us. Truly.
I've been told I'm not agreeable enough. Other girls are nicer. π
I am not morally-opposed to content discovery. Without it, Nostr is just a high school redux, and don't nobody got time for that.
Same. They can still all go cuckoo π on theirselves. Granted Iβm weird & most donβt immediately like me so probably best not to take my advice anyway. π
Nostr is a pretty good content discovery tool for BTC and Nostr things... π€£ But I hope that folks got more than "content disxovery" from what I wrote above.
Lol can relate π
But I've been on the other side (100k+ followers on other media platforms in the past) and it's crazy nutso trying to keep up and I honestly would not wish it on anyone who wants to get things done in their life lol
There IS a point...post what you want and only for what pleases you. The rest will fall into place.
Centralized or decentralized, the goal of a network is to reach people. That is the fundamental goal. If that is impaired, then thereβs a fundamental problem and once again, the forest is missed for the trees.
We need better DVM support, DVMs are a great content discovery tool, it's also a great way to start communities. Like someone may run a DVM for sports content, like F1 , Politics, Books and whatever they want.
You misunderstand my use of the word "sad" there. I meant it like "pathetic to see" as in, it makes ME sad to see it. I'm not concerned for you nor pretending to be.