๐Ÿšจ๐Ÿชฟ #shadowbans #vibecheckstr ***Firstly, a disclaimer. I'm a silly goose, I'm newish, I'm not a dev, I'm learning, I just have some questions, which I am grateful to anyone who can answer ๐Ÿ™ & Don't hurt me!*** You know how nostr was poopooing the BlueSky vibecheck? Well, I was wondering if you could say that nostr does indeed have a vibecheck?๐Ÿ‘€ Could you even say nostr does have a shadowban system? Is there or isn't there a vibecheck and/or shadowban system here? It seems maybe it's open to interpretation. Even whether it's at protocol level. I would say Will and Vitor give somewhat contradictory or at least confusing answers ๐Ÿค” (am I misreading this?) image View quoted note โ†’ I think this system as described basically does mean there are shadowbans on nostr(?) There are a bunch of core people who almost everyone follows - devs, trending users - @jack , @jb55 , damus, fiatjaf, etc etc (and some clients even auto follow from the start) and are recommended to follow. New users will often do this. So if these mass-followed users block someone (I'm not saying they shouldn't manage their feed btw) doesn't this have the unintended consequence of making an adopted blocklist for a huge amount of users? And it's a little bit fiddly to undo, not v apparent to a new user and perhaps not even worth looking into cos it's a bit of a hassle. ๐Ÿšจ๐Ÿชฟ#badges Anyway I was think of badges it could be used to make a list of these invisible (real, not bot) users at least(?) I don't know how to make or award a badge btw lol And I'm also not saying people shouldn't block and manage their feed btw. I'm sure the 'shadowbanned' / 'invisible' badge will have a mixture of annoying people, cantankerous numpties, non-bitcoiners, bitcoin-skeptics, maybe mentally unwell people, silly geese, trolls etc etc. But it would at least be good to make them more visible. I have no idea how badges work or how to award them tho lol. Is there a guide for this? ยฏโ \โ _โ (โ ใƒ„โ )โ _โ /โ ยฏ Some hashtagspam for feedback lol: #plebchain #grownostr

Replies (8)

Gonna make a list of shadowbanned users. Difficult to find on my phone at work tho lol Off the top of my head these two tho: @bot There's a @.vitor (not the dev), can't seem to find, maybe he's left.
Listr or badges could be used for a list of the shadowbanned ๐Ÿค” not sure which would be better. Both? No idea. Anyway. No one cares anyway lol I'll just be on my silly goose way lolol.
WheresAlan's avatar
WheresAlan 2 years ago
I don't really consider what you are experiencing as shadowbanning. Simply, occasionally people are getting misidentified as spam. Shadowbanning, in my mind, is a intentional manipulation of the underlying infrastructure to control what event get out. This would be true if @Vitor Pamplona was into the filtering system to manipulate it to mark people he hates as spam. I don't believe this is the case.
I somewhat agree, I actually don't think vitor is doing what you are describing and I also don't think it is merely an amethyst problem (again I am speaking from a place of confusion lolol). There are a couple things. There's the spamfilter system, which seems mostly fine just occasionally faulty. But really I'm speaking about the blocking system. Which is not just on amethyst but seemingly on all clients (?). Where if 5 or more accounts you follow block a user. That user is blocked for you. I'm just thinking that this is creating a shadowban list, which isn't much of a problem now. But perhaps moreso as nostr grows(?) You have a handful of 'must follow' mega-followed accounts and whatever accounts you follow. It's not very hard to see how someone saying something unpopular will make it onto a v widespread blocklist. Again I am confused by all this..this is just my reading. If you were to see this on BlueSky would you not call this a shadowban? No meant to sound rude btw. Just out of curiosity...?
WheresAlan's avatar
WheresAlan 2 years ago
No rudeness detected. @jb55 is right that this isn't nostr in general. It's just what the client you are using has implemented. So what I would do is gather proof and open a issue on the github. It will help zero in on the issue so it can be fixed.
WheresAlan's avatar
WheresAlan 2 years ago
Regarding bluesky I wouldn't call it shadowbanning unless I knew that their system was autoblocking specific targets due to the devs meddling with how their algorithm identifies who gets blocked. Not saying autoblocking is good. Should always be up to the user. But my definition of shadowbanning is that it is intentional act of manipulation. Maybe my definition is completely wrong?
I was kind of under the impression shadowbanning doesn't necessarily mean it was caused by a deliberate malicious manipulation, although that is often how it happens. But isn't necessary to the definition. I have no idea. I'm grappling with neologisms and a protocol I don't understand, all whilst being a silly goose at work.
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