Thread - Nostr Hypermedia

This is very true: I remember that some time ago someone asked random people to look into some buried settings page of some app that showed a list of relay URLs with cryptic icons in front of each. Since the random people didn't understand a thing, the general conclusion was that relays should be even more hidden from users, never to see the light of day. Of course that conclusion came from a confirmation bias. In fact an equally valid conclusion (and, well, the only acceptable conclusion unless you want to discard Nostr as a failed idea completely, in which I wouldn't blame you) is that relays have to be displayed more, not hidden, in some way that allows users to somehow, perhaps slowly, learn about them. More experiments have to be made. See, for example, this comment: View quoted note →

Constant

Well, i think my point is more on the side of 'if users understand what is going on in the first place, it does not matter how crap the interface is, they will just use the interface they have to perform the task one way or another'. I get that as an app developer this is not of much use to you, but in general perhaps we need to stop pretending the first few waves of Nostr users (that are actually going to stick around and use it) are not retarded toddlers that can only manage when everything is reduced to a single button. The second part of my point is that at this stage the ecosystem as a whole simply lacks understanding on the matter of relays. Now don't get me wrong, i am not blaming anyone, its all new, we are all figuring this shit out, its a new paradigm and surely we have not explored the territory fully anyway....BUT I will say that a tendency to hide relays into the background is not helping. Don't be afraid of exposing the user of the scary new thing it does not understand yet, instead of shoving Nostr into the legacy app shaped box only because it is familiar to them. But again, i don't have an app to take care of and users to please, i am just an armchair sideline asshole.

View quoted note →

Replies (7)

IntuitiveGuy☯️ intuitiveguy@nostrplebs.com 4 months ago

I love that #Amethyst shows on which relays and the icon of the ones the note is written on, super cool and good info, also fhe broadcast button, tou can tellit works when you use it to broadcast notes of users that aren't connected to your relay list

HoloKat 4 months ago

For other stuff, connecting to different relays manually the way Shakespeare implements it is super annoying and cumbersome. I don’t care which relay the data lives on, I just want to see it without clicking a bunch of buttons. Having to constantly fiddle with relays pretty much seals nostr’s fate to a niche protocol. Luckily, no one can force terrible UX so it won’t meet that fate.

2 replies ↓

Constant Constant@techno-ethica.com 4 months ago

Currently, shakespeare just ignores the whole relay side of Nostr and has this afterthought retarded implementation. It just uses a handfull of popular big relays. Now here are just my assumptions: It uses those relays in hopes it covers most stuff out there; It forces you to select between them probably because doing anything else is too complicated. I.e. the point of the relay selection is only there as a 'well it should all be on this relay, but in the offchance it is not, you can try these others as well. Its terrible. We can give it some slack because the whole vibecoding thing is novel, and getting the AI to create apps that handle various event kinds is innitially more important, but it is only ( the proverbial) half of the story.

elsat elsat@habla.news 4 months ago

I enjoy the way jumble makes discovery and exploration of a single relay fun. The job to be done for the nostr enjoyer/explorer is discovery of content, topics, and other people to follow. Relays could be the controls that allow for discovery. Need more ui experimentation.

Dawn dawn@spatia-arcana.com 4 months ago

It's not that hard to understand relays with some decent exposure. Jumble is gaining popularity for good reason. The concept is only made harder to understand by trying to frame them as some boring but necessary, and probably cumbersome, settings. Just because they're necessary doesn't mean they need to be a burden. It can be the opposite. I can attest to that, and I feel like I need to because I'm probably a decent example of the learning that can happen. I still don't know how to make my laptop stop losing its wifi connection when it falls asleep, but I can explain what relays a person might want to consider for publishing to attain their desired experience.

fiatjaf _@fiatjaf.com 4 months ago

You're approaching it from the wrong side. Of course if you frame it like that relays become a burden, my entire note was just to say you should try to frame the fact that relays exist and they're different from each other as a good thing. I don't know what is the best way to solve that, but it has to be solved, you can't just ignore the relays and hide them entirely. Well, you _can_ do that actually, but if you do it will just mean you're condemning Nostr to be a centralized garbage fake protocol, and at that point why waste your time in it anyway?

1 replies ↓

HoloKat 4 months ago

I think there are some use cases where you can show them and others where you don’t need to (user can still configure but it’s not in their face) and it avoids being centralized garbage.